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Lauren Mandilian

The Secret of Sherlock Holmes

I will be doing video design for The People’s Light & Theatre presents The Secret of Sherlock Holmes. I will be projecting different scenes on three panels that move upstage and downstage during the show. The imagery will be black and white and in the style of a Doré etching.
Today we had the Design Presentations and now I am even more excited for the show to open! So mark your calendars, show opens on July 9 at 8:00 p.m. and runs all the way through July into August. You can buy tickets through The People’s Light & Theater website.

Posted in: Blog, Work

PAFA Student Exhibition

The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts 2010 Annual Student Exhibition is Friday May 14 from 5:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. I collaborated with senior printmaking major, Aimee Denault, to create a video component for her project. Be sure to stop by the show and check it out!

Posted in: Blog, Work

Somewhere beyond the sea…

…between the East Coast and Europe is the small, remote island of the Bermuda.
Mark and I just got back from our Royal Caribbean cruise to Bermuda. It was right out of Cape Liberty, NJ (right outside NYC) so it was really easy to get there from Philly (ie no flying required).
The interesting part of the story is how we booked the cruise in the first place. We “won the cruise” by attending one of those crazy interactive (Powerpoint) presentations trying to sell us a timeshare. In the end, the cruise wasn’t completely free (of course), but we still ended up getting a pretty good deal.
The ship was huge! It had 3 large pools, 6 hot tubs, a basketball court, rock climbing wall, miniature golf, and even an ice skating rink!
Despite the bad weather on the way to and from Bermuda, we had a really great time. While we were on the ship, we participated in all the activities like dance classes, jewelry making. scrap booking, Bingo (funny story, we actually won a game of Bingo, but didn’t realize it until it was too late – yea, we could have won $500 our first night…). They had parades and shows on the ship that were absolutely amazing – there was even an ice capades show! One of my favorite shows was the Cooking Demonstration where yours truly volunteered. I got to stand up on stage and make my own chocolate cherry cake and drink cherry brandy while doing so! And of course we ate a ton of delicious food and were treated like royalty – one of the waitresses cut my french toast for me one morning :)
The weather in Bermuda was much better then the weather at sea. The days would start off overcast, but by 11am, the skies would be clear and it would be a beautiful, sunny day. We certainly made the most of our two days on the island. We rented a two person scooter to get around the island. This was definitely the highlight of our trip. It made having to travel from place to place on the island our own little excursion. We booked a cave tour excursion through Royal Caribbean where we explored one of Bermuda’s many caves. At the end of the tour there was a lagoon that we could swim in. After the excursion, we explored the city of St. George, which is more of the historic section of the island. Bermuda has a lot of old military forts, so we saw one of the more famous ones, Fort Hamilton, which is located in the bustling city of Hamilton. And of course we went to the beach. The sand was not as pink as I thought it would be, but the water was absolutely beautiful (a little cold, but beautiful). Bermuda was formed by three volcanos, which are now inactive. Because of this, the island is very rocky so there were rocks to climb and play on while we were at the beach.
My rambling doesn’t do the trip justice, so head on over to flickr to see some shots from the trip.

Posted in: Blog, Personal

Upcoming project with readySetGo

I will be working with Daniele Strawmyre, Artistic Director of readySetGO, a multimedia performance company specializing in immersive and interactive performance installations. I will be designing visuals and incorporating realtime video for a performance installation she is developing inspired by Japanese ghost stories. It is set to premiere at this year’s Philadelphia Live Arts Festival.

Posted in: Blog, Work

February 19th, 2010

Information Overload Published

My thesis has been published by VDM as a paperback! You can buy the book on amazon.com.

Posted in: Blog, Thesis

November 24th, 2009

DesignPhiladelphia Welcome House

On Tuesday, October 6, I will be filming at the DesignPhiladelphia Welcome House as the founders of Semilla Arts Initiative work with CHAD students to create a mixed media installation. On Wednesday, October 7 at 7:00 p.m. my video will be projected onto the Welcome House. During this time the DesignPhiladelphia Kick Off party will be happening – so come check out my work as well as the party!

Posted in: Blog, Philly, Work

October 5th, 2009

Phillies are 2009 NL East Champions!

We just so happen to get tickets to the game the Phillies clinched the NL East! I had never been to an important game like that before. When the Phillies won, fireworks went off as all the players cleared the bench to run on the field and celebrate. The stadium was kept open for about an hour after the game ended to interview the players for the fans. My favorite was Carlos Ruiz who simple said, “We are going to do it again.” You can see the last out of the game on my youtube page.

Posted in: Blog, Philly

October 2nd, 2009

End of Summer :(

Sorry I haven’t posted anything all summer – I can’t believe its just about over! It seems like we were just in Maine for the 4th of July. This year our friends came up with us to experience a true Maine vacation! We ate lobster (twice) and Gifford’s Ice Cream (every night). Activities included waterskiing everyday, white water rafting, kayaking, hiking, as well as cliff jumping =)
This summer I was also a Teaching Artist at Montgomery Theater for the Young Actor’s Workshop Mixed Media Week. The students had a week to write a play, perform in their play, and create multimedia content to be projected during their play. This is the first year that Montgomery Theater has ever done a Mixed Media Week; fortunately, the students plays were so successful that there is plans to continue the class in the Fall, Spring and even next Summer! If you are interested in seeing the kids’ performances, head on over to youtube!
I also was involved with the 2009 Siggraph Conference as an XSV (Ex Student Volunteer). I worked as a project manager on the Encounter Siggraph SCVNGR Hunt, an interactive SMS game developed by SCVNGR. I was excited that the conference was held in (the very hot) New Orleans because I had never been there before. During my free time I went to Bourbon Street, listen to a lot of awesome live music and even went on a Paddle Wheeler dinner/jazz cruise!
This summer I have also been doing some freelance work for an awesome projection company in Philadelphia. Klip Collective is a video installation company that can transform any space into an immersive visual experience. Here are two projects I edited for Klip this summer that showcase what they do: W Fort Lauderdale & Infiniti
I don’t have too much in the works for Fall, but I’m hoping some opportunities will come around. I will be sure to keep you posted ;-)

Posted in: Blog, Personal, Work

August 25th, 2009

Is that a dog in a bag?

Buckley in a bag

This weekend we took Buckley to the Italian Market with us. On the walk home he decided he was too tired so we put him in a shopping bag and carried him home the rest of the way! As you can see, he doesn’t seem to be struggling to get out and is pretty content to be carried around in a grocery bag.

Posted in: Blog, Personal

Home from Pair-ee

We had a fabulous time in Paris! We were there for 8 days so we were able to see a lot!! I can sum up the trip like this: I ate at least one French baguette and one Nutella crepe a day, we climbed up every tower in the city (Notre Dam, Arc De Triumph, Pantheon, Eiffel Tower, Sac Le Carre), and saw a ton of art (Palace of Versailles, Pompidou, Orsay Museum, Orangerie Museum, Rodin Museum, Louve).
One of my favorite sights was walking through the catacombs, which are underground passageways that go all throughout the city. As you walk through, you enter a section of the catacombs were bones were kept because France ran out of places to bury people during the Black Plague. I have some great photos of us standing next to human skulls and femurs =)
Another sight I really enjoyed was going up the Eiffel Tower one night (something I’ve always wanted to do). We stayed up there long enough to see the lights on the tower flicker at midnight. It was amazing, the trip was amazing!
Head on over to Becky Huot’s flickr to see photos from the trip.

Posted in: Blog, Personal

April 27th, 2009