Video created in Viz Lab premieres at
Austin's South by Southwest Festival

Vertigo by Oscar Berrio for VIZA 644 from Viz Lab on Vimeo.

A short video created at Texas A&M's Visualization Lab by a Ph.D. student from the College of Liberal Arts premiered March 15 at the annual South by Southwest Festival in Austin.

Oscar Berrio, who's pursuing a doctorate in Hispanic Studies, created the video in the lab, part of the Department of Visualization at the College of Architecture.

South by Southwest is showcasing emerging talent in music and film during its March 12-21 run, including an interactive section that gathered developers, designers, and content producers.

"Vertigo," was part of Berrio's goal to study and integrate poetry and the visual arts; the video's structure and imagery are based upon the rhythmic cycles of a poem by the same name. He created the video for a course called Time-Based Media II.

Carol LaFayette, associate professor of visualization, said she encouraged Berrio to submit his work to SXSW. It was selected for the category “Experimental Shorts.”

“This poem has a staccato feel, and is spoken rapidly,” LaFayette said. “The refrain, ‘It’s an abyss,’ repetitively contrasts with the profusion of sound, color and motion. Oscar decided to use the imagery of the passing train to carry that tempo–with the spoken word replacing the wheels-on-the-track rhythm. He used the technique of stroboscoping the figure, only placing it in every sixth frame, to heighten the sense of presence and absence in the poem.”

He came to the lab for additional course work needed for his studies,s said Department of Visualization head Tim McLaughlin. "It's great to have him and other students like him in our courses."

Berrio, says an SXSW film screening list, is dedicated to exploring the aesthetic possibilities of integrating poetry reading, video, photography and sound.

- Posted: March 15, 2010 -