From Architecture to Virtual Worlds: How Ina Chen is Reimagining Live Performance

In the evolving landscape of digital arts, Ina Chen stands at the intersection of architecture, filmmaking, and game engine technology. Her groundbreaking work in virtual production demonstrates how real-time tools can transform live performance and storytelling, pushing the boundaries of what's possible in digital art.

Despite working with widely-used tools like Unreal Engine, Chen has cultivated a distinctive artistic voice. "I tend to have my own camera language," she notes. "I really like to work with the camera as if it's in the real world." Drawing inspiration from documentary films like Baraka, Chen approaches virtual cinematography with a naturalistic eye, often choosing static wide shots over constant movement.

Her process involves extensive storyboarding and experimentation. "For any project, I do a pretty massive amount of storyboarding and try out different combinations of shots," she explains. She'll often create multiple versions with different moods - perhaps one with a single long camera shot and another with quick cuts - to find what best serves the concept.

To combat the sometimes-sterile perfection of game engine graphics, Chen adds "a touch of analog back to Unreal." She employs specific blur and bloom effects, ensuring her work maintains a organic quality that sets it apart from typical game visuals.

Music plays a central role in Chen's creative process. "When I'm working with any sort of visual medium, it's about putting on headphones and really listening to the music, letting the visual play out in my head," she describes. This approach has led to collaborations with artists like Martin Garrix and Nicki Minaj, where she transforms musical performances through virtual production.

Her work spans both commercial and personal projects. For the Nicki Minaj performance, she created pre-rendered sequences in Unreal Engine that were integrated with the physical stage design. "They had some previous rendering of how they were going to do the actual physical stage, and they wanted some form of set extension," Chen explains. The final result combined her animations with live VJ programming during the broadcast.

Chen's most innovative work comes in the form of "live cinema" - real-time virtual productions performed in front of audiences. In her piece "4993 Feet Under," which explores the Deepwater Horizon disaster, she combines live control of virtual environments with musical performance.

"This piece would be very tricky to view as a film," Chen explains. "There are so many moments where I want the slowness of objects moving that people can engage with just by staring at it." The live format allows her to respond to audience reactions, adjusting lighting, effects, and timing in real-time.

The development process for "4993 Feet Under" began with extensive research. Working with the New Museum's New Inc incubator program, Chen drew inspiration from animism and focused on viewing the world from different species' perspectives. The piece travels vertically through an ocean column, starting 4,993 feet below the surface where the Macondo well exploded during the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

During live performances, Chen maintains precise control over the virtual environment. "Almost all the lighting, from the directional setup to the tiniest point light, was live controlled," she describes. Using a MIDI setup, she can manipulate everything from exposure settings to post-processing effects, creating a uniquely responsive viewing experience.

The technical setup involves careful preparation. Chen works closely with composers from the early stages, developing the audio landscape alongside the visuals. "We started building out a draft of the audio landscape using open source audio effects, the sound of whales, shipwrecks, things like that," she explains. The visual elements are then blocked out and refined in response to the sound.

The audience response validates this approach. Chen recalls a compelling moment: "When the whale was falling for about ten minutes, and we had this huge crowd of stingrays flying into the environment... everyone stood up, and the energy of the room changed. That really changed my energy, too."

Chen maintains an optimistic but thoughtful perspective on emerging technologies like AI. "It's kind of human nature that we don't really solve any issue until the problem has already caused some damage," she reflects. While acknowledging current concerns about regulation and proper usage, she sees potential for these tools to free artists from repetitive technical tasks, allowing them to focus more on conceptual development.

Looking ahead, Chen sees potential for even greater audience interaction in virtual performances. Inspired by platforms like Twitch, she envisions future projects where audiences can actively participate in shaping the performance through interactive interfaces. "Maybe next performance project can take a little bit of that more to have more interaction with audience by providing them certain type of interface," she suggests.

Ina Chen's work demonstrates how game engines can transcend their origins to become powerful tools for artistic expression. By combining architectural principles, cinematographic techniques, and musical sensitivity with real-time virtual production, she's creating new possibilities for live performance. Her approach shows that while technology provides the foundation, it's the human element - the ability to respond to and connect with an audience - that brings virtual worlds to life.