We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Chia-Hui Lu about their original and creative New Performing Art design work. Chia-Hui Lu is an award-winning communication designer, that makes our world a better place with their original new performing art works.
Chia-Hui Lu ("CL") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Amore New Performing Art . Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
CL : Amore is an avant-garde production created to elevate the artistry of performing, conceptual, kinetic, digital, video, and abstract art. Paintings by Paul Chiang are 3D animated and catalyzed to life. The metamorphic moving art intertwines and interacts in a marriage with its soul mate, music. Though the focus is love, it also unites human emotions (Joy, Anger, Sorrow, Fear, Love, Hate, Affection) alongside eastern elements (Gold, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth) to create a dramatically diverse western classical music performing art. All in, to achieve a mutual interdependence Yin-Yang balance. Amore is a brew of my worldly experience, emotional ups and down, and multicultural upbringing. It was created after uncontrollable circumstances that resulted in my unfortunate miscarriages. I felt a big part of me was gone. I was devastated and needed a way out badly. I threw myself into this production to forget the pain and sorrow. Love has always been the biggest drive and inspiration of my life. But it also caused me a great deal of suffering. To me, love is heaven and hell. Amore is the amalgamation of my personal emotional roller coaster. Paul Chiang was one of my favorite painters whose wife is a musician. His artistry is nurtured by music and many of his works are named after music titles. The series of paintings are chosen instinctually. Though music and painting are different professions, both hold a commonality as an art form. The process of selecting the paintings, the arrangements, and the timing of the transitions from one painting to another, entails a deep knowledge of the artwork and a creative feel for the flow. The paintings are rearranged, decomposed, reunited and transformed. The commonalities are established and the differentials are highlighted and expanded upon. In the program of classical music, there are connections, imitations, mutations, variations, oppositions and expansions between the themes, developments, bridges, sections and keys. We explored hand drawn illustrations, photo simulations, the romantics, the surreal, the contemporary, and varying mediums. The emotional and compositional evolutions are combined, reflected and echoed in the artistic animation to enable a harmonious flow.
CL : I wanted to achieve the perfect marriage of the music and the animated artwork in a very artistic way that would complement a live piano performance and not steal the spotlight of the pianist. Pairing and synching appealing multimedia to the music and then to debut it all in a live performance adds enormous complexity. Each live performance is unique in its speed and dynamics. The challenge is to make sure the animated film merges with the live piano performance smoothly in real time. It took many rehearsals between the engineer and the performer to get to a level of satisfaction. That’s the hard part of performance art. Performing Art is momentary in action. Each live performance is never the same and that is the beauty of it. Through post-production work, my cross art performances are edited, documented, and preserved via fine art archive films. The animated art film can exist by itself and be played in a theater or museum. I am a firm believer in innovative works and believe in pushing the envelope of artistry to elevate the overall level of performing art. Music to me is like a faith or a religion. Music and art purify your body, mind, and soul. Music and art also inspire, triggering your inner voice of creativity. Through creations, musicians and artists can leave a cultural legacy to inspire future generations. A flower blossoms and withers. life, fate, and love each have a beginning and an end. Eastern stories like the “Butterfly Lover” and Western stories like “Romeo and Juliet”, both share insurmountable obstacles in their pursuit of love. Some stories end happily and some tragically. With Amore, I wish all the believers in love, a happy life and may all your dreams come true.
CL : Amore today, are in many forms and have many faces and versions. I am determinedto perfect it and I will continue to perform Amore. Amore can also solely exist as different types of art form without the live performance.
CL : It took roughly 1.5 years of preparation for the premiere. But it will take much longer to perfect and to recreate the work in different versions and formats. With my classical pianist training. I am veryused to long hours of practice to hone in on precision and perfection ahead of a concert. I am very detail orientedand expect the "The devil is in the details”. Many great masters'music were rewritten, revised, rearranged and republished numeroustimes. Some compositions have takendecades to complete. Some were composed at a young age and revised at a late age. Many were also rearranged into specialized forms for specific instruments. The new revised Amore version is now in production. I want the next generation of Amore to be immortal and hopefully the outcome will be an art initself. Life is short but art is forever.
CL : This was my personal pursuit to leave a legacy. Plato once said music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. I believe music is truly an abstract art. Unlike paintings or sculptures, music can neither be seen nor touched. Although music is invisible. But through sound waves, music can be eye-catching in a way and can be portrayed in many forms. Music travels through space and time. In that sense music is immortal and timeless.
CL : I have been invited to perform and present my cross art works at exposition opening ceremonies, festivals, and performing art centers. I plan to keep all possibilities open. I hope to share my work on the global stage. But of course I will need to proceed with caution.
CL : I am devoted to promoting art and music. Amore is a new piano performing art that combines animation.With the goal to inject a positive new atmosphere to a piano performance, I set out to find the balance of visual experiences that will perfectly complement the music program. Our preparation was challenging, from the animation to the style of the presentation and to the story of the manuscript. Though creativity stretches the imagination, we made sure that the unification of the music and animation are harmoniously married.
CL : Classical music is my wakeup call and lullaby. I started hearing music beforeI was born (My mother is a pianist. She continued performing even when she was pregnant with me). In childhood I often played and slept under the piano. Piano is my castle and music has become my religion. Classical Music to me is essential like motherhood and air. Music is the soil and nutrition to my life. I am first a pianist and then over time, I became a a composer, then a designer and artist. It feels like a natural progression for my life. Unpredictable, yet full of pleasant surprises. I started my classical piano training at the age of five and later studied in New York for six years. I also studied fashion and learned about musicals, and fell in love with Operas. Growing up in Taiwan was not easy and New York City has changed my life completely. I was born with asthma and was taken care of by my grandparents. My late grandfather is a renowned painter in Taiwan and a world traveler. His paintings include both western and eastern styles. I used to be his little helper and modeled for him. His favorite artist was French painter Paul Cézanne. I used to frequently go through all different types of world famous painting books that he had purchased from the museums he had visited. Though I studied music and not art, I did grow up surrounded with artists and musicians. My cultural background includes classical music, ballets and operas, to picturesque landscapes and vista oil paintings, to the contemporary. European, Asian, and American cultures have had a big part in my development and each continue to be my inspiration. When you are young. The influence can come from your family and role models. As you mature, the real influence can be mother nature or people from history. Sometimes it’s the wise quote from famous or powerful people. Sometimes it can be one simple sentence from your neighbor. It could be something you had read from a magazine, newspapers, book a or the Internet. When I am confused and have a hard time making up my mind, I would consult my mother. She seems to always know exactly what I need and she certainly influenced me the greatest. Her words of wisdom never cease to amaze me.
CL : I am first a pianist, then a composer,a designer and artist. My target customer varies depending on what I am working on.
CL : My music and my artwork will continue to evolve as I plan to create future versions of it. I believe I have a complex style and my works span various forms. My music and visuals work well both individually and combined. I feel like a transformer that just keeps on enhancing my work into greater work over time. It is akin to variation in music.
CL : Of all the emotions, the most seductive and touching is Love. The fate of Love may be extremely fruitful or prove barren. As there are no set rules, Love cannot be learned nor controlled. Everyone nevertheless must traverse his/her own complex path in anticipation. Without Love, life may seem meaningless. But with love, life may be hot and cold. Love may take you to the point of bliss and unbearableness. How does one find the perfect balance of rational, emotional, and passionate Love? Love is truly one of life’s most difficult emotions. Because of this complexity, literature, art, and music throughout the ages have used Love as inspiration; as Love is the most wonderful sensation of all. Love has many faces and there are different kinds of love. Love for family, friends, lover, country, animals or human beings. Though the focus is “Amore”, the seven human emotions of Joy, Anger, Sorrow, Fear, Love, Hate, and Affection are also reflected to create a dramatically diverse program of music and performing art. The Five Eastern Elements: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth and its mutual productive and destructive interactions, describes the universe's phenomena, as the Circle of fifths (music theory that organizes the 24 chromatic keys as a sequence of perfect fifths) arranges Music. The following are samplings of the interactions of the Five Eastern Elements. Metal collects Water, yet penetrates Wood. Wood fuels Fire, yet separates Earth. Water feeds Wood, yet quenches Fire. Fire forms Earth, yet melts Metal. Earth contains Metal, yet absorbs Water. In Amore, the Circle of Five Eastern Elements in abstract visuals are blended with the Circle of fifths music, all in to have produced a production that has achieved a mutual interdependence Yin- Yang (black/white like the piano keyboard, flat/sharp music keys, evil/good, woman/man, night/day, earth/heaven) balance or a creation that epitomizes the Circle of Life.
CL : The animation software used include Maya, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, and Adobe After Effects.
CL : Creating art is like a pregnancy through birth. It is a long arduous road, but when it bears fruit, you leave a legacy that may inspire future generations. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then "Amore", a digital contemporary art film blended with dramatic classical music is beyond words.
CL : First, I had to persuade the painter to obtain his authorization to allow us to use his works as the foundation from which we can reinvent it into new forms of art. Luckily I had his trust and permission. Second, I worked with the animation team for over a year synching the music, formalizing the styles, and morphing the paintings. We experimented with many different types of styles from picturesque to surreal. I finalized the style to the abstract and contemporary. Because the animators are not familiar with classical music repertoires and contemporary paintings, I spent a lot of time educating them. Meticulously, step-by-step, I communicated with them in a way that they could understand. I had to break down each composition and painting to the smallest details creating for them map-like blueprints. I also created a complex storyline which tied the entire program together very nicely.
CL : Technology was used, but not very high tech technology. The design was more about creating a new form of art and performance art.
CL : My design was influenced by the great composers and painters from history. I had rigorously researched different periods of music and painting style to create Amore. To this day I continue to research, there is just so much to learn. The production is about transforming my musical fantasy into reality. To me, it's a dream come true.
CL : Challenges include intense side-by-side working schedules with my team. We went through each painting and composition section by section and seconds by seconds.Countless working hours and dedication spent to reach a satisfactory presentation level. Each animator has his/her own style and limitations, which makes simultaneous communication with several animators challenging. In conjunction, I have to make sure the style is cohesive for the entire program. The most difficult part is marrying both the music and the animation artistically that complements the live piano performance and not steal the spotlight of the pianist. Each live performance is at a different speed and dynamics. It’s impossible to perform like a robot. The challenge is to make sure the animation art film merges with the live piano performance smoothly in real time. Needless to say, there were many rehearsals.
CL : Because of the pandemic, live concerts and performances were canceled or put on hold. This freed me from performing and allowed me to refocus on other aspects of creation and marketing. So it was a good time to submit my work to an international design competition.
CL : It’s a process of metamorphosis. I learned a lot about the technical aspects of animation from the team during the whole production. I’m still in the process of learning from different experts in different fields.
CL : On behalf of the Egret Foundation, we are truly humbled and honored to receive the A’design Awards. The recognition from such a world renowned and prestigious competition fills us with great pride and achievement. Since the win, it has boosted our confidence in our ability to create works with international appeal. The award has undoubtedly fueled our drive to create even more meaningful art pieces in the future. Looks and words can be deceiving. But my artwork is the true reflection of my inner world. I hope to invite everyone to my wonder-dream. May you all have a wonderful journey.
