Source: My UM
Stunned by the beauty of Mapping of St. Paul’s Ruins, an audiovisual performance at Macao’s most famous architectural landmark during the 2011 Macao Arts Festival, Casber U, a master’s graduate of UM’s Department of Communication, decided to participate in a workshop on architectural audiovisual mapping of world heritage sites organised by the SAR government the following year, thus beginning a “colourful” career playing with light and shadow.
From Mesmerised Dreamer to DreamProducer
Three years ago, when Casber stood in an immense, enthusiastic crowd in front of the St. Paul’s Ruins, mesmerized by what would later become the talk of the town, he never thought he would one day become a producer of a similar show for the Macao Arts Festival on its 25th anniversary.
When he first watched Mapping of St. Paul’s Ruins in 2011, Casber found the show so novel and fascinating it lit up something inside him, even long after the lights at St. Paul’s Ruins went out. “If you want to paint a building’s white walls into red, it would take days. But with a projector, the change happens instantly, and not just the colour—you could even change the building into something else entirely. I found that extremely fascinating,” Casber says. “And all the time I was thinking ‘How did they do it? Can I do it?’” His wish was answered a year later, when the Cultural Affairs Bureau and the Amateur Continuing Study Centre co-organised a workshop on architectural audiovisual mapping. “I studied very hard, and it turned out architectural audiovisual mapping was even more complicated than I had imagined,” Casber recalls. “Every step requires precise calculation and a lot of preparation.” Luckily, he soon had the chance to put what he had learned into practice. Last year he participated in several shows at Tap Seac Square and the Mandarin’s House. This year he works as the producer of A Dream of Light, the closing show for this year’s Macao Arts Festival.
“I wanted to be a spaceman when I was a child.”
It turns out this artist of light and shadow had an even more ambitious dream when he was a child—to be a spaceman, which, he says, like many of the dreams students wrote for their composition assignments, rarely come true. As with many people, college represented the turning point in Casber’s life. Fascinated by how imagery and sound can be combined to create powerful effects, he chose English communication as his major, and grew more and more interested as he became increasingly conversant with the subject. He thinks communication is a subject that covers a broad range of areas, and it’s better to decide as early as possible which area to focus on in order to better internalise the knowledge. “Contrary to the popular saying, I actually think it’s not a bad thing to be a Jack of all trades, because if you have tried your hands at different trades, sooner or later you are going to become a master in at least one of them,” says Casber. “It’s the case with me. Life is a series of choices. I’ve always been interested in making movies, graphic design, and artistic creation, and I’ve never given up on them.”
Silent Support of Family
It’s not easy to make a living as an artist in Macao. Never a quitter, Casber does have his moments of doubt. “It was hard when my parents didn’t understand what I was doing,” says Casber. “At first, they would wonder why their son never went out and just stayed glued to the computer screen. Only when I had something to show for my work did they start to understand. I think the fact that they never tried to stop me even when they didn’t fully understand is in itself a form of support.”
Apart from the unspoken pressure from family, peer comparison also left him feeling a little deflated sometimes. Doubt and frustration would rear their ugly heads when he sees many of his classmates are now leading a rather comfortable life, with a high-paying job and a family. But when he looks past the superficial differences, he realises people are on different paths because they want different things from life. “When we are pursuing money, maybe we will have less time to reflect on life and less freedom for artistic creation,” Casber says. “Of course I’m trying to find a balance between passion and making money, and I haven’t succeeded yet, but I’ll keep on trying, and I’ll never give up my dream.” Being an artist of light and shadow has made Casber’s life more colourful. He hopes to continue on this journey and help architectural projection mapping flourish in Macao—this he knows without a shadow of a doubt.
