MUTUAL STATES | VIVID SYDNEY 2024
Projection Installation
As part of Vivid Sydney—a months-long festival showcasing food, music, culture, and art in Australia’s largest city—Shmody was invited to design and animate a projection installation for Cadman’s Cottage, a historic landmark and Sydney’s oldest standing residential structure. Playing off the festival’s theme of ‘humanity,’ “Mutual States” aims to convey the nuances of human emotion in a swirling and dreamlike audio-visual animation.
Using a combination of live footage, digital compositing effects, and artificial intelligence, “Mutual States” features six vignettes of various emotional states. Giant faces shift and swirl to an original score, showcasing a wide array of feeling, holding up a mirror to the vastness of the human condition.
CONFUSION
JOY
ANGER
JEST
ANXIETY
GRIEF
PROCESS
SOURCE
COMPOSITE
STABLE DIFFUSION
BEHIND THE SCENES
ROLE: Installation Design, Photography, Animation
TOOLKIT: Adobe, Stable Diffusion, Notch, Ableton
FUNDING / SUPPORT: Destination NSW
ARTIST: Cody Samson
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Tace Stevens, Jacob Sutton, Tim Johnson, Dylan Gephart, Paul Araki Elliott
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Rachael Johnson
EVENT CURATION: Melanie Horkan, Gill Minervini
VIDEO PROGRAMMING: Isaac McKenzie, Drew Ferors, Francis Smith, Alex Rendel
AUDIO: Shmody
SPECIAL THANKS: Peter Clark, Abby Mark, Michael Samson, Sharon Sprague, Vivid Sydney