Mike Devito

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Click the thumbnails below to see selections of my work!

  • After digging through the many different bas relief of Kala, I drew a preliminary sketch to plan out the mask design.
  • The final product. I chose to build this mask to represent the sandstone bas relief of Kala that can be admired in temples like Angkor Wat, and Banteay Srei, rather than shaping the aesthetics around what the creature would’ve looked like in the myths themselves.
  • The final product. I chose to build this mask to represent the sandstone bas relief of Kala that can be admired in temples like Angkor Wat, and Banteay Srei, rather than shaping the aesthetics around what the creature would’ve looked like in the myths themselves.
  • At the start of Marisol by José Rivera, Marisol is on a subway car on her way home from work where she encounters a man with a golf club. In my design, the first scene is a realistic subway car interior that plays in stark contrast to the rest of the show’s style. I built a model in ½” scale then used photoshop to create overlays showing my design.
  • At the start of Marisol by José Rivera, Marisol is on a subway car on her way home from work where she encounters a man with a golf club. In my design, the first scene is a realistic subway car interior that plays in stark contrast to the rest of the show’s style. I built a model in ½” scale then used photoshop to create overlays showing my design.
  • A ground plan view of the proposed empty stage. In my design with a completely unrealistic budget, the floor and walls of the space are plexiglass cubes with translucent tarps inside covering garbage bags, metal hardware/wires, and various objects. Theoretically some of these cubes are able to come out of their place for various reasons.
  • Marisol’s room in act 1 scene 4, when Marisol first meets the Angel. I like the idea that the Angel isn’t actually a physical person in the space, but a bodiless soul. Having the Angel projected onto the wall makes the angel free of a body but also trapped in each box she visits.
  • The model of act 2. The curved platform adds disorientation to the set as Marisol wanders lost in the drastically changed New York City. Some cubes have been taken out of the walls, spilling out the death and spoils of the angelic war happening in the heavens above the earth to stop God from swallowing the rest of the universe as they die.
  • The model of act 2. The curved platform adds disorientation to the set as Marisol wanders lost in the drastically changed New York City. Some cubes have been taken out of the walls, spilling out the death and spoils of the angelic war happening in the heavens above the earth to stop God from swallowing the rest of the universe as they die.
My soundscape of the underworld in Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl is a culmination of sampled material as well as a self evolving synthesizer patch. The group of collaborative designers in our seminar class leaned heavily into the water motif. This resulted in the a soundscape of mangled trickling water and traveling water from the usage of toilets back on Earth.
This is a sample of the transition between scenes 2.1 and 2.2. In this process I wanted to discover what makes the underworld different, or mirrored, of the plane of existence of ‘life’ in the play. After a deep dive of researching the setting of the play, I was able to source sounds of wildlife that can be found in Southern Louisiana. I found this transition was a good time to draw a sonic line between both planes, mangling dripping water and frequency shifting the sample to resemble birds chirping while fading up the sound of the Carolina Wren and Tufted Titmouse.

The sonic representation of Eurydice falling down and passing over to the underworld as well as the moments before. While she is being intimidated by the Interesting Man, “musty dripping sounds” fill the air, getting more intense as the Man reveals more evil. As she escapes his clutches, the sounds of death fade out. She trips to the sound of a water drop in blackout, then the clatter starts. Taking instruments (supposedly)on the Brazilian jazz record the Interesting Man put on earlier in the scene, a huge mass of instruments clunks and bangs with metallic grit. Eurydice takes her last breaths amongst the sound of screaming instruments to close out the first movement.