Ep68. Chaske Haverkos: Immersive Art, A.I. & Illuminating Possibility

Ep68. Immersive Art, A.I. & Illuminating Possibility: Meet Chaske Haverkos, Featured Artist of BLINK, the Nation’s Largest Light, Art, and Projection Mapping Festival

Cincinnati is showing how a city can become a canvas of possibility, illuminating art’s power to bring communities together to collectively experience wonder and awe.

Our guest today is Chaske Haverkos, director, motion designer, 3d animator, and immersive artist. He’s a local Cincinnatian and one of four artists selected to illuminate the massive canvas that is Cincinnati’s iconic Music Hall for 2024’s biennial BLINK Festival of Light and Art.

BLINK is a breathtaking free public festival that transforms Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky into a vibrant, open-air immersive gallery for four nights. Although 2024 is only the fourth production of BLINK, it’s already grown into the nation’s largest light, art, and projection mapping experience. From October 17th to 20th, Cincinnati will welcome more than 2 million visitors to experience 80 stunning installations brought to life by local and international artists in an urban exhibition space spanning 30 city blocks. Named as the country’s number one city for street art by USA Today this year, Cincinnati will also be showing off its 300 awe-inspiring outdoor murals.

BLINK is supported by ArtsWave, a nationally recognized non-profit that supports over 150 arts organizations, projects, and independent artists. Because it’s important to support artists, 10% of all revenue Creativity Squared generates goes to ArtsWave to support their Black and Brown Artist Grant program.

Chaske’s work is on the cover of this month’s
Movers & Makers Cincinnati Magazine

A Cincinnati native, Chaske is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s DAAP School of Design. He’s operated in the advertising, creative, and entertainment fields for over 15 years, creating rich visual content and engaging experiences for a variety of audiences and clients including Emerica and Pantene. Chaske’s love of creating frames of all types, both analog and digital, in a variety of mediums — and at any scale — shines through in his animations, motion graphics, and immersive installations.

Today, you’ll hear Chaske’s journey into projection mapping and immersive art, how he integrates A.I. into his creative process, and his perspective on the evolving relationship between artists and artificial intelligence. We also discuss the technical challenges of working at such a large scale, his approach to crafting experiences for live audiences, and his vision for the future of immersive art.

Discover how Chaske pushes the boundaries of art and emerging technology for his largest canvas to date, the façade of an iconic 140-year-old building!

BLINK and The Music Hall Experience

For his third BLINK activation, Chaske partnered with Cincinnati-based Play Audio Agency to design and project an immersive, five-minute animated fantasy-scape of light and sound onto the front of Music Hall.

Music Hall isn’t just a performance venue. The National Historic Landmark is home to some of the country’s oldest cultural institutions, including the Cincinnati Opera and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Throughout its rich history, Music Hall has served Cincinnati as a mecca of culture and community. Built atop the site of a former pauper’s cemetery, it’s also earned a reputation as one of the country’s most haunted places.

Chaske says that turning such a historically and architecturally significant building into a massive canvas of light is both an incredible opportunity and an artistic challenge. The unobstructed portion of the hall’s Victorian Gothic-style brick facade reaches over 150 feet tall at its highest point and stretches roughly 200 feet wide.

“[Music Hall is] a building with texture and different materials and different targets and windows and all of those provide such wonderful fun opportunities to activate them, or to play with the facade, or to bring different movements to it. And there’s such an immense tool chest and such vast opportunity with a building of that magnitude.”

Chaske Haverkos

His process treats each new building as a unique canvas, requiring careful study of the projection surface, its scale, and and how those factors affect what kind of effects are possible. This analysis allows him to maximize the potential of the space and create a truly immersive experience.

Chaske says that the soundtrack is a critical part of his process as well, calling it “paramount” to the overall experience. He says the process of designing the actual light show really starts once he has the soundtrack file to determine the tone and tempo of the animations he’ll design.

The technical aspects of the project are staggering. The scale of the projection requires files reaching up to 7300 pixels in size, putting substantial strain on Chaske’s computer equipment during the rendering process. Chaske jokes that his computer “shudders in fear” of the processing demands to render an animation file of that size.

Following the Lights: Chaske Haverkos’ Artistic Journey

Chaske’s passion for animation stems from how the medium allows an artist to play with the element of time. He appreciates how animation and video allow for continuous change and development, enabling him to connect with audiences on an emotional level. This dynamic quality allows him to tell stories through a unique blend of visuals, sound, and timing.

“The synergy of motion with sound, and with the timing element, just provides such wonderful opportunities to really kind of strike a connection with your viewer.”

Chaske Haverkos

Before specializing in projection mapping, Chaske honed his skills in traditional design and animation fields, including working with video production agencies. His diverse background now informs his current approach, allowing him to blend multiple techniques and styles in his work.

Chaske’s journey into the world of light mapping began almost a decade ago when he first saw Lumenocity, a collaboration between the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and ArtsWave which later evolved into the BLINK festival we know today. He recalls how experiencing Lumenocity in 2013 planted the seed of inspiration, which only grew stronger after Chaske attended Lumenocity 2015 and the inaugural BLINK in 2017.

“To literally be walking block after block through your own city, experiencing a diversity of light installations and mural and colors, and just feeling all of that positive energy, I think, felt kind of like a home base and then a place that I needed to be actively participating in.”

Chaske Haverkos

Chaske debuted at BLINK 2019 with a submission he designed to capture the energy and awe that he’d experienced at his previous light shows. For this year’s festival, he’s challenging himself even further to make the show as entertaining and compelling as possible by using new methods in his creative process.

How a Projection Mapping Animator Uses A.I.

Chaske began exploring A.I. tools in the summer of 2022, just as he finished his previous BLINK piece. The timing allowed him to investigate how A.I. could fit into his workflows and potentially enhance his work for this year. He set out to design his current BLINK piece as a blend of styles, integrating new technology, programs, and skills.

As he dug into stable diffusion-based image generation, Chaske says he found that the stunning visuals he could generate with A.I. complemented the animation style he was already using. Even though he’s embraced A.I. visuals extensively in this year’s show, he says that he tries to incorporate them in a thoughtful and strategic way.

“It was really important to me that the audience did not walk away from this feeling like it was an A.I. piece. I think that, if you’re kind of blending it all together to where people are not able to disseminate with ease what was an A.I. scene and what was a 3d one, to me that would be like mission accomplished.”

Chaske Haverkos

Chaske views A.I. as a tool for enhancement rather than a replacement for artistic skills. He prefers to run A.I. processes locally on his own computer, avoiding reliance on cloud-based services. This approach helps give him a sense of control and ownership over his creative process.

“I personally feel like the intentionality of the creation and what you get from it is really where the magic is.”

Chaske Haverkos

Chaske describes his process of using A.I. like building a deck of cards. He creates a collection of ideas, waiting for the right moment to place them along the timeline of his piece, guided by the soundtrack. This method ensures that the final product feels cohesive and impactful, reflecting his artistic vision rather than appearing solely A.I.-generated.

Despite his embrace of generative A.I. over the past two years, even buying a new computer to run local A.I. models, Chaske says the technology is still just one part of his larger creative process and identity as an artist.

“I’m an artist that uses A.I., I’m not an A.I. artist, and it’s okay to be one or the other, but I think it’s also important to acknowledge those that want to use this as a tool to enhance, not just something that we lean on.”

Chaske Haverkos

Generative A.I has its limitations as well. Asked what’s on his wishlist for A.I. features, Chaske says he and other creatives are always looking for more granular control over the output. He also points out the “uncanny valley” effect often seen in A.I.-generated content. He’s looking forward to seeing more natural-looking and feeling outputs as the technology advances, noting that current A.I.-generated images can have a telltale quality that reveals their artificial origin.

Looking to the future, Chaske is thinking about how he can expand his artistic toolkit with emerging technologies like holographic projections.

Conclusion

As the episode wraps up, Chaske encourages creatives to approach generative A.I. with integrity, seeking ways to incorporate GenAI into existing workflows and enhance skillsets rather than giving away creative control to the machine.

As a hometown ambassador for the flourishing art and tech communities in Cincinnati, we’re excited to see how Chaske’s light show transforms one of the city’s most cherished spaces.

As generative A.I. matures into a powerful tool for more and more creative disciplines, artists like Chaske are playing an important role in demonstrating how A.I. technology, in combination with human creativity and curation, can open up infinite possibilities for new art experiences.

And there are few better ways to experience the dazzling grandeur of this collaboration than at BLINK, where creativity meets community in a brilliant awe-inspiring display of light and sound.

We’re only seven days out but there’s still time to plan a visit!

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Thank you, Chaske, for joining us on this special episode of Creativity Squared.

This show is produced and made possible by the team at PLAY Audio Agency: https://playaudioagency.com.

Creativity Squared is brought to you by Sociality Squared, a social media agency who understands the magic of bringing people together around what they value and love: http://socialitysquared.com.

Because it’s important to support artists, 10% of all revenue Creativity Squared generates will go to ArtsWave, a nationally recognized non-profit that supports over 150 arts organizations, projects, and independent artists.

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