Bold Visual Narrative

Bold is the creative practice of Leon Butler. We are interested in telling stories and exploring new ways of look at and using technology to help us tell those stories.

email: leon[at]bold.ie


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Leon Butler is an artist and designer working at the intersection of art and technology. Leon´s work has been recognised by The Type Directors Club, 100 Archive, the Future Makers awards, Digital Media awards, Young Directors Awards and the Irish Design Awards.





Dwelling


Beta Festival , Project Arts Center Dublin, November 2023. 





Dwelling is a live performance theatre installation that is performed across a range of art forms. Dwelling focuses on dance/theatre as a dramaturgical language, framed by digital and visual art works and elements that operate to create a live immersive theater performance. This work can also, between live shows, function as an interactive installation for audiences to explore. 



Taking place in the fragments of a home with dance performances by Robyn Byrne and Rosie Stebbing, we bear witness to a life lived in and across the boundaries of the digital divide.  Dwelling offers an opportunity to avatar our individual experiences of disconnection and loss through the poetic portal of the everyday. 



The characters move between the digital and real space with motion capture mixed with live tracking the show crosses and blur the line of the digital divide with the two slowly merging with Roise performing a duet with the digital space via a motion-tracking AI that reacts and reflects her motion and movements.



Created by Peter Power and Leon Butler
Choreographer / Performer Robyn Byrne
Choreographer / Performer Rosie Stebbing
Creative Technologist Cailean Finn
Video Artist David Mathúna
Lighting Designer Michael Hurley
VFX Artist Leon Denise
Singer Emma Nash
Double Bass Rory Dempsey
Drums Davie Ryan
Design Associate Dobz O’Brien
Company Manager Molly Foley
Production Management Showscope
Production Assistant Caelinn Ní Bhroin
Producer Aisling Murray
Executive Producer Maura O'Keeffe



Performance Surveillance


Biennale WRO, Wrocławin — May 2023, Cyprus — June 2023, Latvia — July/August/September 2023.

Performance Surveillance is produced with the framework of the EMAP Residency Program at the RIXC Center for New Media Culture with support from the Creative Europe Culture Programme of the European Union. Made in collaboration with Peter Power.


Performance surveillance is a durational interactive durational interactive installation that allows the audience to view different feeds and listen to the generative audio created. OSC data generated by PosenetML translates presence and movement in the frame into a a set of triggers and filters that create a unique ever-changing score.




Surveillance performance seeks to redress this balance by adopting the tools of computer vision, artificial intelligence and machine learning used in surveillance systems to create a performance. Using live feeds sourced via unsecured CCTV cameras projected in real-time, the people captured in these feeds will become performers controlling what we see and hear in a gallery space.




Emperor 101

Created by Leon Butler, Jo Mangan, Peter Power & Tom Swift

Emperor 101 in association with Once Off Productions and The Digital Hub — a unique experience that mixes VR with live performance.




As part of Dublin Theatre Festival, Emperor 101 took place at The Digital Hub from October 4th – October 10th 2021.

SxSW Austin, Texas, March 2022.

Boca de Lupo, The Fishbowl, Vancouver, April 2023

In the blink of an eye, a family tragedy turns the world upside down. As they pick themselves up again, the survivors try to rebuild the story of their lives through faith, fear and conspiracy. There is no reality, only narrative.




Using Virtual Reality headsets, the audience is immersed in an alternate digital world that reflects the mind of a conspiracy theorist. With live performance and extraordinary visuals, the play riffs on influences from ancient mythology to Alice in Wonderland – and asks if rejection of the ‘mainstream’ is a product of fear, or the ultimate act of self-empowerment in a complex world?




Cast & Creative Team

Directed by Jo Mangan
Script: Tom Swift
Design: Leon Butler & Peter Power
VR Production: Camille Donegan
Cast: Caitríona Ni Mhurchu and Karl Quinn
Immersive Media Studio: RETìníZE
Produced by Once Off Productions
SxSW and Boca del Lupo, Vancouver Produced by Performance Corporation







Unsecure

Unsecured was produced with the framework of the EMAP Residency Program at the ROXC Center for New Media Culture with support from the Creative Europe Culture Programme of the European Union.



Unsecured is the accompanying publication to the installation. A collection of photographs taken with other peoples cameras, an exploration of digital trespass. The book allows readers to see inside spaces, places and objects—harnessing the tools of oppression for expression.




This project seeks to reclaim digital infrastructures and to understand digital networks and communication as a performance tool leveraged to create and translate the performance of the work using machine learning network infrastructures creating a collaborative platform on which we can build a number of different platforms and interactions in sound, new media and creative coding environments.

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