Amanda Tasse - Technical Art & Art Direction Portfolio

I design cinematic and immersive experiences that slow attention toward what most media passes over: waning life cycles, dissolving languages, the thresholds between old and new technologies, the registers of perception that appear when a system is in transition. My work extends across immersive projection, VR, AR, short films, and games, often as art director on projects that bring together collaborative teams of artists, technologists, and scientists.

The inquiry running through the practice is compositional. How do contemporary media technologies shape attention, not simply capture it? What do the older contemplative lineages that have worked with perceptual composition for centuries have to offer real-time 3D and emerging forms? And what kinds of cinematic and spatial composition can sustain attention to subjects our current moment is actively foreclosing?

I am Assistant Professor of Emerging Media and Animation at Occidental College. My research is grounded in a PhD in Media Arts and Practice from USC, Fulbright research at Aalto University's aivoAALTO Neuroscience Group, two decades of practice and teaching in Shambhala Arts and Tibetan Buddhist visualization traditions, and training in experiential futures and Wayfinder coaching. My work has received recognition from the Academy Awards, Sundance, the Venice Biennale, HBO Films, SXSW, and the Sloan Science and Film Foundation.

DIRECTOR: LENA HERZOG | ART DIRECTOR, ARTIST: AMANDA TASSE | TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: JONATHAN YOMAYUZA | COMPOSER: MARCO CAPALBO, MARK MANGINI

The Reversal is the 3rd part of the Trilogy (Last Whispers, Any War Any Enemy) about extinction. Here, linear time reverses and space folds into itself; the forces of destruction that eclipsed humanity reverse and invert upon themselves, revealing a world of post-human holographic memory focused on moments of beauty, joy, connection, and reverence. The space itself morphs from traditional linear perspective to reverse perspective to help convey this sense of spatial-temporal unfolding - a unique and intriguing 3D worldbuilding design and art direction challenge. We are also experimenting with combining hand-made animation with AI generated video for some memories to visualize the enmeshment of AI and human-made in digital memory.  

The Reversal is in production. Below is a selection of early concept sketches and art direction references.

DIRECTOR: LENA HERZOG | ART DIRECTOR, ARTIST: AMANDA TASSE | TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: JONATHAN YOMAYUZA | COMPOSER: MARCO CAPALBO

The goal was to create a space for contemplating senseless mass destruction from nuclear war. It bridges immersive real-time (photogrammetry, stylized 3D art) with traditional analog methods (illustrative etching, painting, sculpture) to evoke a continuum of humanity imagining our eventual demise. We wanted to visualize emotional states of realization and loss with tactile texture.

Technical director Yomayuza and I assisted Herzog with strategizing the translation from traditional art into 3D spatiality and story, researching and developing novel methods for real-time 3D. Herzog inventively re-translated the stylized photogrammetry back into 15th century Italian etchings, which premiered at the 2024 Venice Biennale. I created iterative concept art and assets (illustration, stylization paint-overs, storyboards, textures, shaders, character models, rigs, animation, motion titles). My traditional and digital fine art experience helped me translate amongst team members for especially challenging stylized assets.

DIRECTOR: LENA HERZOG | ART DIRECTOR, ARTIST: AMANDA TASSE | TECHNICAL DIRECTOR: JONATHAN YOMAYUZA | COMPOSERS: MARK MANGINI, MARCO CAPALBO

The goal was to help the viewer “feel” the massive scale of rapid language extinction, and to celebrate last whispers from dying languages. I was initially hired to create a series of maps to show locations of featured languages. My role evolved into the design and animation of an evocative extended media world.

We intended to create a visual space that amplified the sound design of remixed archival voices from dying or extinct languages, created by Mark Mangini (academy award winning sound design for “Dune”, “Mad Max Fury Road”) and Marco Capalbo (avant-garde composer). I helped Herzog ground and visualize the world, and created many of the art assets (concept sketches, digital paintings, textures, models, animation, motion design). I also adapted them from our initial 2D/3D 55 minute video (Cinema 4D, After Effects, Drone Photography) to full 3D (Cinema 4D, Unreal RT3D) for VR, dome, and gallery projection.

My initial world-building design integrated real-world data (Global Informational Systems, satellite weather imagery, language scripts) with expressive methods (digital painting, illustration, modeling, etc.). I demonstrated some of this process as an artist for Intel’s booth at the Adobe Max conference. Screenshots of the images have been featured heavily as printed photographs alongside the projects’ screenings and in press.

Bardo Bear is a 3D immersive play experience that joins esoteric ritual and sacred world-building with contemplative art therapy activities to support kaleidoscopic well-being. A bardo is a liminal journey between worlds. Bear is a spirit guide that helps with navigation, gestures, and activities as needed.

Bardo Bear involves research and development into spatial user experience design for spatial non-human perception. Navigation includes embedded cellular “marks” for storing and sharing reflections in “the grid”, and links to connect to the spaces where they occurred. It includes symbols to access new activities and whirls to jump to energetic spaces associated with color hues.