Miles Polaski
Miles Polaski, Barter Theatre's resident sound and projection designer, says his artwork in "Artists by Trade" is not typical of what he usually works on, but that he can't separate his art from his work at Barter.
"For me they are really one and the same," he says. "You take what you've learned from one and apply it to the other almost without thinking about it. Or something I do in the theatre brings up a question or an obstacle, and I use art outside of the theatre to find the answer or solution."
His exhibit piece, "The MASHine," is an interactive audio-visual installation. "It puts the controls into the hands of the museum goer. It features the contemporary art forms of mashups and projection mapping. The idea of "The MASHine' started with the question: how can I put the art form of mashups into a museum setting?"
A mashup is the merging of two pieces of pre-recorded music, usually a vocal track from one song and an instrumental track of another, to create a new and transformative piece of music. Projection mapping uses video projection technology to turn objects of various shapes, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional, into projection surfaces, often creating optical illusions and notions of movement to static objects. Featuring moreo than 40 different songs and uniquely designed video content, "The MASHine" takes both of these art forms and syncs them together in a seamless world where one informs and reacts to the other.
"As a sound designer, I find myself exploring many avenues of sound and audio. Mixing music together and DJ-ing is one thing I found myself doing about eight years ago, and it has been something I've explored and played with ever since. The music I selected to mashup features tracks from four decades and various genres. I wanted to make sure there was something to hear for everyone's taste. I included songs by musicians like Johnny Cash, The Beatles, Katy Perry, Stevie Wonder, David Guetta, NIN and more.
"Part of what I discovered early on about music is that it is universal, and I wanted to share that idea. At Barter, in addition to designing sound for our season of shows and running the sound department, I am also charged with projection design. The addition of projection was an experiment I added to the installation partially because I wanted to learn more about it. I also realized, as I began to answer the question "how can I put mashups into a museum setting,' that a visual component was necessary for the audience to better understand what they are hearing.
"In my mind, seeing what the music is doing can help with understanding how the pieces of the music fit together. The final step was finding a way to allow the viewer of "The MASHine' to also become its operator and control the pieces I collected and assembled. I took a standard USB computer keyboard, took it apart and rewired it to create a 42-button controller. Each button of the controller when pressed by the user triggers one of the 42 songs to play. My wife jokes that using it will make people think they are a really fantastic DJ. If that's true, I kind of like the idea that this installation empowers people. But really all the combinations of "The MASHine' were engineered way ahead of time to match tempo, key signatures and arrangements."
Polaski's mashup work in usually performed live at dance parties or discotheques, and some can be found on Sound Cloud, under his pseudonym Miles Beyond. He designed his piece for the William King Museum of Art to "push the envelope on what I knew about music and projection."
Like all his work, it began with a story. "I ask what am I trying to tell or share? Once I have defined that, and I know where I want to end up, I figure out how to find my way there and begin to create the experience. With the MASHine I wanted to share and tell the story of a mashup in a museum's setting. That was it. I then designed the audience's experience around that idea."
Polaski is exploring the idea of touring "The MASHine" to public places. "I would love to find opportunities to display it on the street or a park, where I could map the projection to the features of a building and surrounding architecture while the music is broadcast over a sound system - projected musical street art."
Whether his work is seen on the stage at Barter, at parties or in a museum, he loves to play with music in new ways. "In that way, this piece was an escape. I also had a need to learn more about new software, hardware, building electronics, and so on."
Since he works on more than 20 shows a year at Barter, one might wonder where he finds the time for his artwork. "Time is found late at night and in other little pockets of time I can find. And then there are the moments I am working on a personal project when I should really be focused on Barter Theatre's work."
He is impressed by his colleagues' work because he "adores and admires any artwork that has meticulous time-consuming attention to detail." He cites Marcia Willard's wigs. "You can see how every little hair is needed to form the structure, and the work that went into Mary Lucy's calligraphy is stunning." He also is inspired by the art of bonsai. "The amount of patience, time and detail that goes into sculpting a bonsai tree is inspirational. It not only takes hours a week, but years of consistency. I think these are valuable lessons for any artist in any art form."
Polaski has a degree in theatre arts and communications in broadcasting. He has been involved with the theatre since he was a teenager. He has worked as a freelance designer, composer, musician and DJ in Chicago, Ill., where he was a resident designer with Second Story and Collaboraction. In 2010 he received a Joseph Jefferson Award for his design of Red Tape Theatre's production of "Mouse in a Jar."
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