Protect the Protectors
Media Design & Logo
Written by Elena Freck and directed by Clara Livingston
For this show, working in tandem with director Clara Livingston and projection designer Whimzee Hanna, we wanted to place the audience in the world of a defense contractor’s office, seen through the eyes of three young Southern girls completing what seem like mundane, repetitive modules, each one connected to a top-secret project that will protect America’s troops. The challenge was to build a design system that felt sleek, familiar, and yet foreboding all at the same time. Whimzee and I set up three projectors so each character’s training modules was projected on the wall behind them, and projection transitions between scenes flowed across all the walls, transforming the set into an oppressive and constantly watching digital interface. The girls complete captcha-like modules identifying the emotions of faces of unknown targets, spotting the difference between two landscapes, or selecting all the squares that contain an image of a truck. Over the course of the show, the horror of what they’re actually doing, and the unfeeling digital war machine behind it all, starts to seep in.
Read more on Kitchen Sink’s Website
Photos by Tierney Brennan