For this media class, I wanted to focus on
using projections. When considering composition, so far, I have been thinking
about how I want to present the projection rather than what will be projected.
In the initial stages of researching
projection artworks/artists, I had come across a video of Ryoji Ikeda’s “The
Transfinite” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omDK2Cm2mwo)
and I was interested in how he chose to project not only on the wall but also on
the floor. I liked how Ikeda used large projections compared to the sizes more
commonly seen in classrooms. I quite like how the height of the video makes the
people watching it look as if they are apart of it instead of an audience and
his work in general made me more conscious about the lack of limitations that
come with using a projector.
I then watched Y-3’s Spring 2013 runway
show in New York Fashion Week (http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/y-3s-new-york-fashion-week-runway-projections-were-a-colorful-triangulated-masterpiece).
In the show, they had projected images onto pyramid shapes that pushed the projections
to another level and dimension. This led me to look at others who had projected
onto non-flat surfaces, such as Katja Loher. The video sculpture artist does
something similar in her piece “Video Planets” (http://katjaloher.com/videoplanets.htm),
where she has projected videos onto floating chloroprene balloons. Also, her
work “Bubbles” (http://katjaloher.com/bubbles.htm)
pointed out the opposite to that of Ikeda’s, as she made me consider the
potential smallness of a projection (although Bubbles does not use
projections). However, Loher’s projections still managed to compliment the
spherical shape of the balloons.
I then came across Dev Harlan and Olek’s “Suffolk Deluxe Electric
Bike” (http://vimeo.com/19817933). Because the
bike was a single colour and its shape simplified, the projection was able to
alter the look of the bike. The crochet pattern projections combined with the
plain silhouette of the bike made the lines and shapes melt and created the
slight illusion of a new form.
“Lit Tree” by art duo Kimchi and Chips (http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/communicate-with-a-potted-plant-using-projected-light)
projected onto trees to produce a light pattern that has a sci-fi-outer space
look. I was particularly interested in this piece because of the way the
artists had used the trees to make the projections more abstract. I found this
video to be the most interesting because of the distorting nature that occurred
to the projection from the leaves.
However most, if not all, the artworks above
had projections that were intended and planned to be somewhat “synced” or
complimentary to the “canvas”. One idea I would like to create is more similar
to that of Lit Tree and Suffolk
Deluxe Electric Bike where the use of a textured and/or
an unconventional canvas would distort a projection while still being
interactive to an audience like Ikeda’s mentioned work. I thought about
projecting onto balloons of different shapes and colours, asking for audience
participation as they throw darts to pop the balloons and reveal the true
image. The image/video would (hopefully) be distorted enough that people could
not tell what it was unless the balloons were popped.
Another idea I had would be to project into
a dollhouse. Like Loher’s Bubbles, I thought it would be interesting to use the
insides of a dollhouse as a canvas due to its smaller size. Based off a song by
Melanie Martinez titled Dollhouse, I also like the concept of dollhouses being
the example of a perfect life. So there could be the projections of different
people in different rooms and situations around the dollhouse to either emphasize
the “perfect” life or contradict it.
