The project I have been considering is a projection mapping that will integrate digital art, visual images, architecture, placemaking, and possibly sound and movement. I am interested in exploring the concept of placemaking: what can be done to invigorate dying downtown areas or residual urban spaces? How can these places be activated to make them comfortable, exciting, and meaningful spaces that people want to inhabit? Can this be achieved with projection mapping?
The Project for Public Spaces (pps.org) suggests “the best spaces experiment with short-term solutions that can be tested and refined…” So project mapping, as opposed to a more permanent piece of art such as a sculpture or mural, or a new piece of architecture, could create a simple, dynamic solution to changing the character of a space.
Some of the resources I have been looking at are LumenARRT!, Urban Projections, projection-mapping.org, and artist Raphael Lozano-Hemmer.
LumenArrt! Is a Maine based collective that creates projections, often with political/current topics, that have appeared in Maine cities. A recent piece was projected on the Maine State Capitol that was a graphic reading “Property of the NRA”. Welcome to Maine, (2016) was a video projection addressing the experiences of new immigrants to Maine.
Lozano-Hemmer, whose work was featured in Digital Art (Paul), uses projections related to architecture to make historical links between places. One piece, Displaced Emperors,
had an interactive component: “Moving their hands over the building, participants could seemingly unveil it’s interiors, which appeared as a projection on the building.”(Paul, p. 75)
It is this interactive component that intrigues me. As I think about the potential project, how can I make people’s movement through the space activate graphics, light, and sound? Can I design a project that allows participants to create their own graphics, movement and sound, thereby becoming placemakers in the process?
These are my first thoughts. What will follow are researching the tools, software, equipment and knowledge needed to create. Where will the projection mapping take place? I question if a project of this complexity is beyond the scope of this class? Perhaps a scale model of the project would be the beginning.
Resources:
Project for Public Spaces, Eleven Principles for Creating Great Community Places, retrieved from https://www.pps.org/article/11steps
LumenARRT!, Video Projections for Change from the Artist’s Rapid Response Team
Retrieved from https://anitaclearfield.com/section/436870-LumenARRT.html
Paul, C. (2015) Digital art, London, U.K, Thames & Hudson