Project 3- Projection Art

As discussed in my last post, my next project will consist of incorporating projected art onto a public space within the St. Mary's campus. While the concept of displaying art in such a manner appeals to me, it also arises multiple issues. Where is an ideal place to project art? What should the content of the art be? How will people react to the possible messages displayed?

To take these questions and reshape them into answers, I looked towards Tony Oursler's work and began to construct a mental map of possibility. Through his use of human response projected onto static, non-living objects, I was originally inspired to record sections of an individual's face (for example a pair of eyes or a mouth) and project them onto the library wall by the writing center. These facial sections could be revealed in different orders, such as feminine eyes staring upon foot traffic and then switching to a mouth, showing forms of social communication in physical mannerisms. However after giving the idea more thought my lack of time constricts too many artistic possibilities.

A more appealing project came to mind when I reviewed Lee Kirby, who also works with the human body and projection. The main difference however is the artistic platform is reversed- with Oursler projecting active human faces onto inanimate objects, Kirby projects static photographs onto human bodies. Because the idea of a live human standing in front of a projection light for hours on end is simply cruel, my mind changed gears towards projecting onto a sculpture of the human body- specifically the Freedom of Conscience statue by route 5.

One of the seven St. Mary's wonders, Freedom of Conscience was sculpted by Hans Schuler in 1934 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of Maryland. I didn't know this until following up with a bit of research, but St. Mary's City is considered to be the birthplace of religious freedom in America. The peace itself symbolizing the original colonists who were escaping the religious tensions of England during the 1600s.

Essentially my concept shown through photoshop

After acquiring this knowledge, I feel kind of bad that students simply know it more as "the naked man" rather than a erected symbol of diversity- a concept this campus is obsessed with addressing. In terms of my own art projecting onto the sculpture I want to stray away from my usual glitching technology for two reasons: one, I feel as though I should step outside of my usual artistic genre, and two, I feel glitching would have little to no positive effect on the sculpture itself.

The class had various spurts of creative suggestion, beginning with the idea of projecting genitals onto the sculpture. Others believed it would be fun to display it with clothes on, but again this goes back to the issue of no one really knowing what the naked man really stands for.

In terms of capturing the symbolism and original meaning behind Schuler's creation I would prefer to avoid pasting crucifixes and the star of david onto the sculpture. The simplicity of a bible verse or other religious passage would function better in terms of scrolling over the many contours of the body. Other simple ideas could be projected, such as rain, fire, leaves.. in other words- forms of nature that intertwine nature and art.

However, issues with the location may arise. Due to its position by a street, cars may be distracted by the projections presence. There may also not be a close outlet for plugging in equipment- giving me no choice but to run a long extension cord across a moderately busy road towards the boathouse.

An alternative to this statute could be using a statue in Monty, but that raises issues of actually moving the art outside. At this point the creative process is spinning and will soon gain traction.