Shopping Carts and Zed with Sheep
The first two weeks of my second semester at CCAD has been a lot slower than I expected. Things just aren't moving like I would like them too. Part of that has a lot to do with deciding what to do with Zed. I made a movie and will likely be revisiting that movie in order to add a few panning shots. At the moment it is a little stagnant and doesn't do a very good job of displaying what it is like to stand in front of the piece or to move around in the space. So there is that.
There is also the challenge of doing something completely different because as the saying goes, semester two is the semester to fail forward in. Why though? Because I have two more to be safe in after this? Here is the conflict. On one side of the coin, a lot of me (most of me) wants to explore the potential rabbit hole that exists with Zed and find grounded ideation to support this largely intuitive construction. On the other side of the coin, I see the benefit of doing something that seems entirely ridiculous personally. If it works, great, if not, then I learned a lot. So in response to all this conflict I decided to do what I do and just make things. For me, difference will come through doing and not diparting as I normally look for new ways to solve problems.
To get started I did a few experiments on Zed. First I attempted and failed a quick attempt at using the projector to make the 3D elements of Zed flatten out. Basically I took a photonegative of Zed and projected it onto the surfaces. Light filled the shadowed areas and sorta made things flatten into 2D space but not very well. The white balance was off and the Image was shot with a wide angle lens and created distortion that can’t be corrected in the projector. I believe this will work with a little more understanding of projection mapping. In the end I think I can create an illusion that will make the sculptures shift between 2D and 3D space and bend the mind into perceiving the existence of a lie.
Why and I doing this experiment? I believe that a lot of the best art involving light uses it in a way that creates lies or illusions in much the same way that a painter uses paint to create a lie of a realistic tree in a landscape. Tames Turrell’s ability to make a space any shape he would like with the use of light is an example. Robert Irwin is another example, blending light and paint to trick the mind into believing that the light is drawn or the drawing is projected or vice versa. Illusions Illisuons Illusions.
After this first attempt at flattening space I decided to see what video looked like projected on the surfaces and came up with this.
I am really excited about what I discovered through this experiment. The subtle interactions between colors is really exciting for example with a green becomes a deep orange. Geometric forms interacting with the surface communicate well with the modular characteristics of Zed (squares with squares). Again this lead me to thinking about the projection mapping possibilities of lighting the contours of the forms and having lines dance around the surface. Lots of thoughts.
Yesterday I started making "shopping carts" (called this because they are made of only steel rods and remind me of the silver buffalo). These forms are free standing or hanging (haven't decided yet) sculptures that will be wrapped like the forms in Zed. I will be displaying them in a similar way to zed but with the intention of learning how to projection map so that I can explore the potential of that avenue.
Here are some sketches of potential forms and applications with space.
And here are the "shopping carts"