Anthony McCall works link different disciplines together; they combine in an harmonious connection , cinema, drawing and sculpture. Light describing a cone is an example of how a projection can be used as a sculptural element. The cone of light is visible, almost tangible, the spectators can interact with it by moving around the projections and casting different shadow. The dot projected, which take thirty minutes to become a full circle, represent the base of the light cone. People can watch it from different point of views, they can choose to be inside or outside the cone, exploring the projection in different ways. The simple line animation, as a film, needs time to be watched, but, unlike a movie, it exists on his own without any reference of space and time. It is a unique experience which exists only in the moment that is projected, a sculpture that will disappear when the light of the projections is turned off.
I am personally really interested in the connection between cinema and sculpture, in particular between cinema and architectural forms. The reason why I have decided to work with projections is that I wanted to integrate a tangible structure with a non tangible element(the light of the projection / element projected) to change the way people percieve the space. Also i am interested in making a projection unique for a specific space: that means that the same projection somewhere else would not have the same effect.
I started to be focused on the national theatre as my tangible structure mainly because I was interested in the way it changes when it is illuminated at night. The light changes the color and also the texture of the structure making the building look different and more appealing. The theatre is also made of different "cubes" and elements with crisp, straight edges which provide perfect surfaces on which to project on.
Looking at McCall work i was thinking that part of my projections could consist in lines which are going to have the same lengh of the surfaces where they are going to be projected on. Theyr size, strictly dictated by the architectural forms, is going to make the projection unique because of the relationship it creates between itself and the surface. The people can look at the projection from different points of view creating different narratives according to where they are and where they look. The lines are going to focus people attention on the architectural forms of the National theatre creating a closer connection between the viewers and the building.
This is one of the ideas that I had during this holiday after thinking about what to project. Still i have many questions about how to put it in practice, but also possible questions could be:
why the choice of lines?
are the lines going to move?
if yes do they move according to a specific route?
The answer of the first question could be that a line is a basic element of drawing,and a drawing is a basic element from which every building is created. projecting lines on a building means bringing back the structure to its roots, to a drawing that is indeed a combination of lines.
The lines could move and highlight different parts of the building, pheraps they could form some sort of drawing or a texture. The idea is that they could move as if they were the actual lines of the building becoming alive and detaching themselves from the sctructure to create new patterns.
The route could be dictated by what i want people to be focused on or what i would like to highlight, but of this I am not entirely sure yet and I am trying to investigate to find a solution. I quite like the idea also to see the lines scattering on the surfaces almost in a casual way, creating different drawings which are again going to be dictated by the form of the surface they are projected on.
