As it’s coming towards the end of the Masters and I am putting the final plans for my projection in place, I decided to write a post about some of the different projection projects I had been researching into to inspire mine.
Firstly is a project I found on the Processing website which is a dance installation which was performed by the Recoil Performance Group in spring 2008. The title of the work was Body Navigation and the dancers move around a reactive floor projection which will react to their movements. Processing was used for the infrared blobtracking of the dancers and drawing the open gl graphics.

Two dancers and their digital reproduction are the scenographic frame of this humorous and emotional portrait of human relations. Based on rules and structured in a game like manner, the installation makes way for a playful dialog between the man, woman and the digital “footprints” they leave behind.

Body Navigation, Zagreb Performance from ole kristensen on Vimeo.
This is a really interesting performance which I feel shows off not only the technology being used but the way it can enhance a performance and also showcase the dancers themselves as skilled individuals. Both intertwine to create a capturing performance. I like the idea of the interaction and I have looked at others projections where the audience can interact with the projection. I think this idea is fanstastic as it allows the viewer to create their own piece of artwork and also allows the artist/programmer to discover different aspects of their piece that they may not have knew about, an unpredictability that keeps everyone guessing.
You can view photos and videos of the performance at Ole Kristensen’s website.

This next projection is fun and clever way to use this technology. Urban Echo is a series of ongoing interactive sound and video installations. Urban Echo aims to collect and creatively represent the thoughts and imaginings of city-dwellers. In each installation, the participants are encouraged to send an sms/text message or voicemail presenting their thoughts, feelings and questions. The responses are the then projected and added to a dynamic spatialized audio composition.
In this projection, the messages are projected on the side of a building, starting solid at the bottom of the building but eventually each letter breaking apart as if a gust of wind had blown it apart and they float up the buildings facade. Once the text is completely broken, the letters fall back down gathering at the bottom as if they are trapped in a container. This is quite a simplistic projection visually but has a great impact when set in this location and with the way it interacts with the building. I’m hoping that my visualisation will achieve the same thing. Urban Echo was originally conceived as a collaboration between Christopher Baker, Laura Baker and J. Anthony Allen and you can find more information about this project at Christopher Baker’s website.

Urban Echo @ Kitchen Budapest from Christopher Baker on Vimeo.
http://christopherbaker.net/projects/urbanecho/

Finally I would like to highlight some big scale projections/visuals which I found through Computerlove . Accent Feed has gathered together the 10 Most Innovative Concert Visuals ‘08 and I feel that visuals from concerts can be very inspirationals to many art areas. Bands such as Massive Attack in collaboration with United Visual Artists created visuals which showed flickering references to rendition flights, detention without charge and surveillance societies light up the stage.

In a different twist to flat visuals, Universal Everything created 30 metre LED ski-slope projection for the last song of the night of George Michael’s sellout 25 Live world tour. These images move as if rotating round a cylinder with multi pop colours.

George Michael / 25 Live stadium tour from Universal Everything on Vimeo.
You can read the full list at Accent Feed.

Filed under: Project, inspiration by jenna