Pros and Cons of Mini Projectors

Through my experiences in Sienna I have arrived at several conclusions regarding miniature projection as a medium for art production.

The good:

The size of the projector and the ability to use an Ipod for the video source. This mobility makes mini projection seductive to think about in terms of quick street performances, or public art spectacles.

The possibility to project onto alternative surfaces. I was especially interested in the projections onto statues and people. This is something that needs to be pushed further by future artists using this technology.

The not so good:

It was difficult to escape the 'screen,' both in terms of rectilinear format and the use of flat surfaces for projection.

The size and strength of projection is a limitation.

Battery life does not allow for long use.

-John

Mangio

For the month of July I documented everything I ate while in Sienna. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and desserts were photographed before or during consumption. Each photograph was taken at a similar top view orientation.

In the corner of a dark room is a large wooden table with a single chair. A white plate, place mat and utensils are set neatly on top. On the middle of the table is a small tripod housing a miniature projector that illuminates the table setting. Images of the food I have consumed cycle slowly. The photographs are shaped by the concave plate and leak onto the place mat and utensils. Viewers begin to understand through the images displayed my personal eating habits that were defined by my stay in Sienna.

-John

Final Thoughts

In art, we are always searching for new relationships, trying to push things together that under ordinary circumstances repel.  Because people are so familiar with the stationary quality of projections, the mobile projectors we were provided with gave us exactly what we needed as foreign performers: the benefit of novelty in such a way that it was not us as people who were initially noticed, but rather the images we made appear in the dark.  While there were certainly limitations as far as the size of the projections, battery life, finding the right lighting, and resolution, I feel it was some of these limitations that made our projects most exciting.  The fact, first of all, that we could only perform at night, or that we had to move quickly because otherwise our projectors might die, or that sometimes our pieces faded like ghosts when we walked through the better-lit nighttime streets—I believe these circumstances matched our purpose.  Our projects were fleeting, bits of information that we interjected into a culture that existed long before our arrival and will continue to exist long after our departure. We were projecting our culture onto theirs.  And if they were in the right place at the right time, passersby caught a glimpse of us.

-erin 

Traces

 Previous to my experience in Siena, my work revolved around notions of perception, displacement, and vertigo.  Maps provide structure and stability, while they simultaneously can appear chaotic and tangled.  As a foreigner in Siena, I immediately felt the need to ground myself to something.  I was most drawn to the surfaces of buildings, their ages revealed by countless layers of peeling paint.  These sound edifices have remained structurally unchanged over hundreds of years, recording only in the subtlest of ways the life of each person or family that has passed through them.  As I studied my tourist map of Siena day after day, I gradually began to form some sense of orientation. But this feeling was easily disrupted as I continued to stumble upon new alleys and pathways up until the last days of the month I spent there.

I wanted to show this strange sensation of lost and found.  So I decided to videotape myself drawing a map of Siena.  In doing so, I aimed to document the parallel searches that come both with beginning a piece of artwork and physically orienting oneself through an unfamiliar map.  The video is over once the mess of wayward lines becomes a map of the city. 

For the final presentation of this piece, I projected the video onto one of the peeling walls I found while wandering through Siena’s meandering streets.  I chose a wall that had markings that echoed the shape of Siena, so that as my drawing unfolded on its surface, it was tracing the age lines of the wall, mapping out its history.  When the drawing is complete, the map of Siena is revealed in its entirety for a moment, made up of the peeling layers it has traced, embedded within the wall.

-erin

Venice Biennale Response

Biennale del Venezia:

Denmark Pavillion

I feel that when a piece of art stops you in your tracks and evokes an intense emotional response that is so personal, yet the piece is universal enough to touch many people, that is successful art. The Denmark Pavilion evoked that response for me. A number of artists worked together to create an experience, a place, that reflected the darker underbelly of domestic life and the struggles that happen within relationships and the home. 

One piece in the entry of the space had a mirror with flowers laying in front of it and a scrawled note written on the mirror reading "I'll never see you again." Another room had a heavy axe tied to the door on a rope so the door would slam closed behind you. I felt this exhibition represented powerful ideas executed in a recognizable and effective way.

Another aspect of this particular pavilion that worked so well was the lack of distinction between the pieces. There were no placards to distinguish the artist, title, date; there was nothing to distract from the work, and therefor from the entire experience of the space that was obviously the main goal for this group of artists. Good job Denmark!

Contrada March

Here it is! Our final animation.  For the presentation of this piece, we used 5 projectors along a dark wall on one of the streets in the Turtle Contrada.  Each projector served as a window and as the video moved through one of these "windows" the person holding the next projector would begin their movie, creating the illusion that the march continued from screen to screen, until all 5 were activated.  Throughout the duration of the piece, we played audio of the contrada singing their song, which we had previously recorded during one of their marches. 

Venice Biennale

One of the opportunities we've had through this program is to have experienced the Venice Biennale.  Located primarily in two large venues, and additionally in pavilions dispersed throughout the floating city, the Biennale showcases some of the world's most innovative and provocative new work.

A piece that has continued to play in my mind since my visit is a lovely animation I witnessed in the Italian pavilion at the Arsenale, by artist Valerio Berutti.  When I entered the room this piece was housed in, the first thing I noticed was a large painting of a young girl sitting in a chair framed inside a square of dripping paint.  The image is simple, using minimal line and color to poignantly convey the subject and her setting.  As I walked further into the space, I saw that there were several of these paintings, each slightly different, and each taking up its own wall on a cube structure that opened into a small theatre through one of its sides.  I was invited into this room by soothing, airy music emanating from the dark space.  I enjoyed the simple structures Berutti employed to make us aware of inhabited space and the effect it has on us.  With his painted wallls he built a house that we could enter, where we suddenly detached ourselves from all that was outside. Inside, I found the familiar images of the girl in her chair, only this time she was in motion.  She looked curious but content, safe yet trapped.  The repetition of her movement and of the music sent me into a simpler state of mind, one soothed by rhythm and cushioned containment.   

I noticed that the size of the projected animation was about equal to the scale of the paintings, both larger than life.  The connection between the moving pictures and the stills was an important part of experiencing this piece, as it allowed me to become closer to the artist's hand in the process of creating this work.  The childlike manner in which the paintings were made brought me to a timeless place where I could imagine myself painting in gestural strokes, watching the little girl emerge out of a line.