城市投影是艺术家和创意技术专家丽贝卡·史密斯的工作和合作。她的作品将手工制作的艺术形式与数字技术融合在一起，以俏皮的基调和互动性给观众带来惊喜和吸引。丽贝卡不断努力并寻求方法来推动她学科的边界，创造了独特的数字体验。
丽贝卡的实践围绕着自然环境，以及我们在其中的位置。她的创作过程和作品试图用简单的美和深度来重申我们与自然的联系。通过共同的体验，观众被巧妙地邀请到行动中，发现与自然世界和彼此之间的积极联系。这种对我们如何联系的迷恋驱动了她的大部分工作，因为她相信，通过这样的经历，我们可以鼓励观点和行为的转变。
丽贝卡的作品在英国和国际上的著名场所展出，如萨奇画廊、泰特美术馆、皇家艺术学院和皇家阿尔伯特音乐厅。然而，她的作品同样展出在寻常的街头和不寻常的户外场所。由于深受街头艺术文化的影响，以及对废弃地点和物品的热爱，她将被遗忘的空间作为她大部分作品的画布。
她的过程寻求发现新的、原创的、为观众互动呈现数字媒体的方式，推动创造性可能性的边界，并开拓混合媒体应用的新方法。最重要的是，无论设计多么复杂，她的作品总是能被观众所理解。
丽贝卡拥有超过二十年的专业视听表演经验，曾在教育机构和社区内领导高质量的跨界项目、工作坊和研讨会。分享她对艺术和技术的热情和激情，她积极鼓励新的和创造性的方式交流新媒体实践。丽贝卡是一个积极的倡导者，鼓励女性和LGBTQ+社区在艺术和技术的创作。
丽贝卡的创作生涯开始于90年代末，在当地一家录音棚工作，偶尔担任录音师。由于对电子音乐的热爱，她很快就进入了电子音乐制作和唱盘制作领域，建立了一个DJ团队，在晚上演出，并提供DJ技术培训。丽贝卡对视觉和当代艺术有着浓厚的兴趣，她对平面和视频设计的热情将在她未来现场布景的发展中发挥关键作用。
“当时，随着技术在俱乐部文化中的发展，似乎有一种自然的进步，开始将音频和视觉形式结合在一起。在笔记本电脑上播放从黑胶唱片到数字格式的过渡，呈现了所有让我兴奋的事物的共生关系。我可以使用我已经拥有的数字制作技能的语言，突然向观众现场表演音频和视觉元素。它给了我前所未有的创造性表达。”
在接下来的几年里，丽贝卡开发了一种视觉语言，在很大程度上受到了英国俱乐部文化的影响。随着视觉实践的逐渐成熟，她在动画、3D设计、投影和视频设计方面的技能也有所提高。她被邀请在剧院设计、节日舞台、国际时装周和公共艺术委员会合作。这些机会为早期投影绘图软件的试验提供了完美的时机。从这种熟悉的格式开始，它迅速演发展为大规模的建筑投影作品和沉浸式环境。
合作一直是丽贝卡实践的关键。2010年，丽贝卡成为《Stylus》二人组的一员。《Stylus》是现代壁画画家Peter Barber的一次冒险，标志着他们将喷漆和投影光并置的实验。受邀进行国际表演，《Stylus》在投影壁画的现场表演中进行了创新。出于对街头艺术的持续热情，丽贝卡还创作了“光循环”，将游击数字艺术带到意想不到的地方。
丽贝卡的工作室现在位于英国诺丁汉郡历史悠久的维尔贝克庄园(由哈雷基金会支持)。它位于舍伍德森林的中心，为实验、合作、原型设计和开发提供了完美的地点。Rebecca的实践继续推动共享观众体验的边界，跨越多个领域，包括:投影、灯光、增强现实、沉浸式设计和交互技术。
Urban Projections is the work and collaborations of artist & creative technologist, Rebecca Smith. Fusing hand-crafted art-forms with with digital technologies, her work seeks to surprise and engage audiences with its playful tone and interactivity. Constantly striving and seeking ways to push the boundaries of her discipline, Rebecca creates unique digital experiences.
Rebeccas practice centres around the natural environment, and our place within it. Her process and output seeks to reaffirm our connection to nature, with a beauty and depth of simplicity. Through a shared experience, audiences are subtly invited into action, discovering a positive reconnection with both the natural world and each other. This fascination with how we connect drives much of her work, as she believes it is through experiences like this that we can encourage perspective and behavioural shifts.
Rebecca’s work has been viewed in prestigious venues throughout the UK and internationally, such as The Saatchi Gallery, Tate, The Royal Academy of Arts and The Royal Albert Hall. However, her work is equally at home on the streets and in unusual outdoor locations. With a heavy influence of street art culture, and love of abandoned sites and objects, she uses forgotten spaces as a canvas for much her work.
Her process seeks to discover new, and original, ways of presenting digital media for audience interaction, pushing the boundaries of creative possibility and pioneering new approaches to mixed media application. Above all, her work always remains accessible to its audience, regardless of the intricacy of its design.
With over twenty years experience as a professional audio-visual performer, Rebecca has lead high quality, cross-boundary projects, workshops, and seminars at both educational institutions and within the community. Sharing her enthusiasm and passion for arts and technology she actively encourages new and creative ways of exchanging new media practice. Rebecca is an active advocate for the encouragement of women and the LGBTQ+ community in the arts, and technology.
Rebecca’s creative career began in the late 90’s, working in a local recording studio as an occasional sound engineer. With a love of electronic music, she quickly progressed into electronic music production and turntablism, establishing a DJ collective which ran nights and provided tutoring in technical DJ skills. With a keen interest in visual & contemporary art, Rebecca’s passion for graphic & video design would play a key role in the development of her future live sets.
“Back then, there seemed a natural progression with the way that technology was moving in club culture, to start to incorporate audio and visual forms together. The transition of playing from vinyl to digital formats on a laptop, presented a symbiosis of all the things which excited me. I could use the language of digital production skills, which I already had, to suddenly perform both audio and visual elements live to audiences. It gave me a level of creative expression that I had never experienced before”.
Over the following years, Rebecca developed a visual language largely influenced by U.K club culture. As her visual practice began to mature, her skills in animation, 3D design, projection and video design heightened. She was invited to collaborate in theatre design, on festival stages, at international fashion weeks and on public art commissions. These opportunities provided the perfect juncture for experimentation with early projection mapping software. From this familiarity with the format, it was a quick evolvement into large-scale architectural mapping pieces and immersive environments.
Collaborations have always been pivotal to Rebeccas practice. In 2010, Rebecca became one half of the duo Stylus. Stylus was an adventure with Modern Mural Painter, Peter Barber, and marked the pairs experimentation with the juxtaposition of spray paint and projected light. Invited to perform internationally, Stylus charted innovations in the live performance of projection murals. With a sustained passion for street art, Rebecca also created The Light Cycle as a means for taking guerrilla digital art to unexpected places.
Rebeccas Studio is now based on the historic Welbeck Estate (supported by the Harley Foundation) in Nottinghamshire, UK. Located in the heart of Sherwood Forest, it provides the perfect location for experimentation, collaboration, prototyping and development. Rebeccas practice continues to push the boundaries of shared audience experience, working across a plethora of disciplines including: projection, light, augmented reality, immersive design and interactive technologies.