Filmed in the Duderstadt Center’s MIDEN using Virtual Production techniques, Nova’s Reality is a multidisciplinary, cinematic, XR experience that takes us into an alternate reality through the eyes and ears of electronic jazz musician and technologist Nova Zaii. Nova is a graduate of U-M who invented (and later patented) the “Nova Portals” while studying at the university, double majoring in Performance Art Technology and Jazz Studies.
The Nova Portals are an instrument that allow Nova to generate percussive electronic sound through hand gestures and motion, allowing him to blend a futuristic sound with his traditional jazz background. In the MIDEN he performed a song from his new album slated for release at the end of 2025 – drumming and playing his portals live, with the audio informing specific audio-reactive visuals that are projected in the MIDEN to create an immersive, parallax environment that the camera (with motion-capture markers rigged onto it) can explore while he performs.