Anxiety Game

Anxiety is a game designed to foster empathy and awareness around anxiety disorders and mental illness as a whole. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 31.1% of adults will experience an anxiety disorder during their lives. Despite this, and unlike other mental illnesses, there are few if any games on the topic. Anxiety attempts to show neurotypical people what someone who has anxiety might experience both while fighting and attempting to manage their anxiety.

To play, please email [email protected] A very rough beta is available here.

Cyber Apocalypse

As guests entered, they were greeted by elemental deities rising from a balcony engulfed in flames. These creatures summoned immense dancing lights and sound from the four-story jungle beneath the bridge the guests crossed. Inside, guests faced an ever-changing Mayan pyramid topped with a reigning DJ, and surrounded by elemental deities dancing and reveling in the apocalyptic events. Those curious enough to slip away found themselves in an observatory gallery featuring ultraviolet art and space projections. Other explorable areas included a cyber grid patio, an intimate venue for bands, and corridors lit by glitching fluorescent data streams.

Publicity: Projection, Lights and Staging News: Showtime

Light-Driven Photography

A flickr album is available here.

I learned photography through my experience with lighting design, and love capturing how light interacts with the world, and how we interact with it. I’m particularly interested in expanding my site-specific work. I adore creating worlds wherein people have agency and can interact with their environment, and transporting the viewer to have a connection with that world is a goal I hope to further explore as I expand my body of work.

The Magic Patio

San Francisco’s only outdoor magic theatre and best-kept secret. Unless you know where to look. You might have seen our spread in SF Magazine’s “Hidden SF” issue of the best speakeasies in San Francisco, or when Ideo Labs wrote a feature on the design of the patio.

The Magic Patio is an immersive experience from the moment of invitation: a secret address leading to a box office of wonders to explore, a bar with themed beverages (the absinthe & mezcal Smoke & Mirrors, or reimagined Moscow Mule named for Morritt’s Disappearing Donkey), homemade seasonal baked goods, and of course, a wondrous magic show. The production value far exceeds what one would expect for a secret backyard in the Mission, and the illusions are built by the Magician himself. After three seasons of completely sold out shows (some sold out in under 60 seconds!), we are starting our fourth in June 2018.

Depression Interactive

A video is available here.

“Depression” is a live interactive work which aims to give the participant the feeling of depression and foster empathy in the viewer. Looking in a distorted mirror, they see the world and themselves distorted with the effects of mental illness. Physical symptoms of depression, such as “decreased energy or fatigue.” or “moving or talking more slowly” inspire the slow, trailing way real-time movement is delayed and displayed. Participants may find it difficult to accomplish simple ordinary gestures in the mirror. Other symptoms such as “persistent sad, anxious, or “empty” mood,” and “feelings of hopelessness, or pessimism” are manifested in the aesthetic of the piece. Infrequent moments of colors closer to reality are dragged into darker, distorted hues before too long. The glitching echoes the “broken” feeling many people with depression experience. Anonymous quotes from people describing their depression fade in and out, like constantly recurring negative thoughts and feelings.

Icarus

The story of Icarus is a favorite, encompassing the iconic representation of our need to push boundaries and taking foolish, even dangerous risks for that experience. Like Icarus’ fateful flight, humans push invention to heights that surpass our materials. This Icarian sculpture, uses fifty-two borosilicate glass reflectors whose dichroic coating has become discolored through exposure to the heat of 750 watt high performance tungsten halogen lamps. Icarus’ shape resembles the feathering of wings, and chimerical landscapes. Light reflects off of Icarus both in strong, single-spine gestures, as well as in soft, downy wings. The desire to touch and interact with the broken glass might draw you too close to the sun.

Laser painting photography by Aron Altmark. Other photography by Jac Adair.

 

How to Make a Magician Disappear

Performed on Halloween 2011 as a series of illusions, How to Make a Magician Disappear told the tale of a vaudeville magician’s assistant’s ferocious rise from assistant to headliner. The Assistant, having in the midst of a performance disposed of her superior, took to the stage to perform a plea of innocence. Disemboweled pumpkins, straight jacket tie escapes, and teslacoil electricity with a human conductor were amongst some of the haunting devices The Assistant performed as her defense.

Red lipstick, stilettos and glitter, my design for The Assistant’s character drew from sugar glass ceilings and helplessly floating Janes. Vintage filament lamps and period jargon helped the production hit on all sixes. The text held heavy references to witches burning at the stake, sawing through bodies, and emphasis on the verb choice involved in cutting a deck of cards.

I hope to expand this piece, as I believe The Assistant has a multiplicity of tricks up her sleeve yet to be revealed.

Thank you to Zach Moore for his work as lighting designer.

Show Photography

Production photography from various shows including: BlizzCon 2017 (Lighting Design by Lamped Up LLC), Adidas 747 (LampedUp LLC), The Magic Patio (Lighting Design by Daphne Mir), and Six Flags Magic Mountain’s Kwerk 2017 & 2018 (Lighting Design by Meerkat Design).