AntiVJ sent me this awesome footage of some work done with projecting onto 3D surfaces. The results are really beautiful and makes you wonder what this technique would look like if it was applied to the side of a building or some other large scale outdoor construction. With technologies like LCD paper beginning to emerge you also have to wonder what ideas like this will mean when instead of projecting, we can just cover surfaces with image design like this.
This installation also reminds me of the design of Storey Hall: RMIT where we have done some of the Liquid Architecture concerts in the years gone by. Liquid Architecture 8 is just around the corner BTW. Check out this years line up!
This is similar to the technique that my good friend and partner in art crime, Daniel Crooks uses to generate much of his work. Dan has taken this technique in a bunch of different directions - from shooting off moving vehicles with one camera to shooting with up to 7 cameras at the same time. All use a post-production technique similar to the one mentioned above, which Dan likes to call “time-slicing”. One of his multi-camera shoots was blown out to the same number of plasma screens (all set in profile orientation) to make a gorgeous shifting and morphing 360º panorama of downtown Sydney. Dan has just completed a major exhibition of a whole range of these works (which he also renders as landscape style photo prints) at Sherman Galleries in Sydney.
Dan pretending to be busy at Rijksakademie in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
I’m lucky enough to get to work with Dan on sound for these pieces and it’s always interesting to sit and talk with him about the ways we can render this technique in sound in a way that is as aesthetically and conceptually interesting as the visuals. Over the years we’ve tried a bunch of techniques and a mixed bag of results. One of our earlier attempts was for a train piece which you can see here.
If you ever get the chance to go and see these works, I’d recommend it. Not as a self-serving recommendation due to my involvement, but because I think Dan’s work is truly interesting and involving. His ability to envision a different way to see the environment around us and then render his ideas with such interest and detail is rare in video art. Too much video art requires high concept - reading a bunch of supporting text (usually bullshit), or being up to speed with the post-modern justifications (usually bullshit with flashing lights). The great thing about Dan’s work, is that you can walk right up to it and appreciate entirely on it’s own terms - no art school education required. However, if you wanna go and box it in with a bunch of words, then there is plenty there for you to get verbal about.
