MA Light in Performance student Joshua Harriette wins third prize in the inaugural WACKIT competition.

WACKIT – Wysiwyg And Claypaky Kept Indoors Try-out launched their first competition by asking both professionals and students to design a lighting show using visualising software.
Using Wysiwyg and a 3D R44 File of the Royal Albert Hall model and rig – entrants had to choose a piece of rights-free music and then, using their own desk or the Cue List and Camera Path features, create a video of their very own lighting design.

Joshua on the competition and placing:

The music I chose was Beethoven Moonlight Sonata (copyright free supplied by Creative Commons), why, because such a setting inspired me at the Royal Albert Hall – a pianist and their piano and nothing else in such an expansive hall, emotively and authentically playing not performing.

My approach to such a design, where there is no time or professional pressure of a real-life situation at the Royal Albert Hall, allows me to take my time and be quite instinctive, improvisational and visceral with the lighting. Coming to lighting from a dance career, I am in debt to the idea that light, like the human body, is fluid and is constantly breathing and being.

My favourite lighting pioneer Jean Rosenthal once said:

“Dancers live in light as fish live in water. The stage space in which they move is their aquarium, their portion of the sea. Within translucent walls and above the stage floor, the lighting supports their flashing buoyancy or their arrested sculptural bodies. The dance is fluid and never static, as natural light is fluid and never static.”

It is this vibe that resonates with me while I am dancing, lighting and creating. Perhaps you see this in my design? The lights are continuously moving as if choreographed. I hope subtle yet present.

What the judges said:

Beautifully abstract – respects the music – a sense of breath and air I haven’t seen in anything else – good atmospheric intro – intriguing start (from above & behind) – sensitive & dramatic – a really different approach – a very sensitive entry.

I’d encourage everyone to take part in such experiences – it was a great distraction from reality and a way to apply myself and keep moving where ever that may be – Joshua.