← Myles de Bastion
A performer lit in blue plays an electric guitar, face painted, surrounded by rays of light

08, Film

The Ikigai Machine

Medium
Installation, performance & film
Role
Director & performer

The Ikigai Machine is an inclusive puzzle room I am building now: tactile props and non-verbal storytelling, made so that DeafBlind patrons can play it.

The work began as a touring artwork: an interactive installation set alongside live performance, in which I work through my own relationship to sound using light and vibration. It is not tied to a theater, so it can be sited at festivals, on stages and in city streets, and meet a different community in each place.

Large format projection and LED pixel mapped sculptures carry the story, which is science fiction told without speech: an inventor born in a world with no air, and so no sound, builds a machine that brings both back and hears for the first time.

I design the stage and the technical rig, and I play a live musical score against the narrative and the multimedia elements.

The Japanese word “ikigai” (pronounced ick-ee-guy) describes the active pursuit of your own values: putting your skills to use, giving the world what it needs, and doing the thing that sustains you and brings you joy. Ikigai is where all of those cross. This project is mine, and I hope it prompts other people to go looking for theirs.

Presentations

Northwest Deaf Arts Festival, June 16th 2018, Mississippi Studios, Portland Oregon.

Action shots from the first public short-form revue of The Ikigai Machine, in front of an audience of over 300. The production runs on American Sign Language poetry, sound-reactive visualizations mapped to LED pixel fixtures, large format video projection, live music and theater. I handled stage and technical design for the whole festival as well.

The artist in a lit visor helmet playing a white electric guitar on stage, a spoked light sculpture behind him and a projected ringed planet above carrying the open caption People all over the world came to
The artist with his guitar beneath a projection of two masked performers and the open caption They proclaimed, one whose thoughts cannot be seen, cannot be friends
Balcony view of the red-lit stage: the artist at his rig beside the spoked light sculpture, below a wide projection of two masked figures captioned The parents did their best, with primitive gestures
Close portrait of the artist in a clear-visored helmet playing a pale guitar with an LED-lit fretboard under blue stage light

Visual Narrative Excerpts

Title card from the visual narrative reading The Ikigai Machine by Myles de Bastion over a dark, drifting cellular field
An infant in a black vest framed inside a white clock face, the hand sweeping around the dial
Two helmeted performers in black and white facing one another, hands raised in matching gestures
Two helmeted parents leaning over a child, beneath the open caption The parents did their best
The machine's emblem, a white line-drawn pyramid of stacked cubes, on black
A ringed planet in black and white ringed by floating white hearts

Pre-Production

Tech Rehearsal Footage shot in 360 degrees immersive VR video, July 2018 Please watch on a mobile device or click and drag on a desktop for full 360 experience. Filmed at The Art Gym (Marylhurst University, Lake Oswego) in partnership with 360 Labs & CymaSpace.
Three actors in black vests and clear-visored helmets standing shoulder to shoulder against a green screen
The cast and crew grouped in front of the green screen, one holding a helmet and another a video camera
Video Production, May 2018 [Pictured Left] Scott Selby, Heather King & Scott Lewis (Actors). [Pictured Right] Actors with me (Producer) & Andre Gray (Videographer).
Hand-drawn storyboard page numbering the plot beats WAS, NOW, AND and THEN, with diagrams of visual communicators, telepaths and the ikigai cross section
Concept art of a glowing stacked-cube light structure standing in a sunlit forest with a crowd of festival-goers gathered around it
Pre-production Sketch & Concept for Large Scale Festival Site Installation, February 2018 [Pictured Left] Sketch of the visual plot cues and overall narrative themes. [Pictured Right] Concept art proposing final form of the artwork.

Script Excerpt

“In the forest, a cove-like machine shelters a small group of festival-goers huddled together, attempting to stay dry during a spell of light rain.

The machine emits relaxed warbling tones in synchronicity with a subtly-shifting glow as if content with the human company. A new festival-goer joins the group, the machine glows brighter and more tones swell into harmony.

Another festival-goer reaches out, finding both the metallic and translucent surfaces to be warm under her fingers. The machine responds to each touch with a subtle resonating vibration and ripple of light circling outward.

The scene is set, at the due hour the artist arrives, clad with similar translucent patterns of light as those engraved into the machine. Wordlessly, he makes a series of gestures with his hands, a signed language that causes the machine to rumble deeply, an acknowledgment felt as much as heard. The huddled group opens a pathway for the approaching artist, keenly aware that something novel is about to occur.

Silence.

The artist raises his hands, merging palms with the machine, vibration, light and sound crescendo. The performance begins.”

Still from The Ikigai Machine showing the inventor lit in blue
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