The program of International music festival in finnish city of Mikkeli annually includes symphonic, opera and solo concerts. Twice in the history of the festival the ballet of Mariinsky theatre came to Mikkeli with performances. Many years this event is a launching pad for rising stars such as Anna Netrebko, Alexander Malofeev, Sergey Khachaturian, Yuri Bashmet, Dmitry Matsuev, Vadim Repin, Ildar Abdazakov. The performance of the Mariinsky theater orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev annually forms an important part of the Festival program.
This year digital visualization developed by students and teachers of the Saint-Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design was introduced into the musical process of the final concert of the Finnish Fantasia Concerto Festival. A digital scenario and choreographic work on the theme “Synesthesia” appeared on the screen of the magnificent Martti Talvela hall. The visualization accompanied the performance of the Viva Symphony orchestra under the direction of conductor Erkki Lasonpalo.
In collaboration with ballerina Maria Tarasova, a student of the Moscow Eifman Choreographic School, students of the Saint-Petersburg University Daria Kuryatnikova and Anastasia Khokhryakova developed a digital visualization script for the third symphony of Jan Sibelius in the style of mono-ballet with the use of coloristic elements. The second part of the digital show was a visualization of the process of dissolving watercolor paints in water. The shooting and further processing of the content took place in the studio of the Department of Information Systems and Computer Design of the University of Industrial Technologies and Design.
The girls are studying in the fourth year of the Institute of Information Technologies and Automatization of Ƶ in the direction of “Applied Informatics in design”, so for them the creation of such a large-scale visual project using digital technologies has become a real immersion in the profession. “Synesthesia is a phenomenon of perception when a person can hear music and see colors at the same time. As a result of the search, we came to the main idea of digital content — the ballerina's dance as a metaphor for imagery in music, and watercolor paints as the relationship of this imagery with color. For paints, we chose the method of their dissolution in water. Using a large glass tank, we were able to capture their brightness and mixing with each other on the camera. In the course of our work, we added new editing techniques - sharp and soft framing,” said Daria Kuryatnikova and Anastasia Khokhryakova.
The work on creating digital content took the team from Saint-Petersburg a whole year. Initially, the project was supposed to be presented to the public in July 2020, but the pandemic made its own adjustments, and the public was able to see a unique atmospheric event on July 11 of this year.
It is worth noting that the implementation of the project was the result of the victory of the Ƶ team in the open competition “Synesthesia”, organized by the director of the Music Festival Mikkeli Teemu Laasanen, the University of Applied Sciences of South-Eastern Finland and the Russian-Finnish Cross-border cooperation project “Contents for Cross-Cultural Events - C3E”. The mentors in the development were Professor of the Department of Costume Design Lyubov Dzhikiya, head of the Department of Equipment Design of Environmental Objects Ekaterina Prozorova and senior lecturer of the Department of Information Systems and Computer Design Irina Soshnikova.