Visuals Ideas Influenced by Anthony McCall
In 2002 I was at the Whitney to see the exhibition Into the Light: The Projected Image in American Art 1964–1977. One piece that really struck me was Anthony McCall’s Line Describing a Cone 1973 (pictured above.) It consisted of a 16mm film projector that was playing a 30 minute loop of the progression of a line drawing of a circle. This was projected into the room, and basically on the smoke that filled the space. The effect was of a cone of light, either partial or in its entirety depending on how complete the drawn circle. The thing that fascinated me was how palpable the light was — this and some of the other pieces McCall creates are referred to as Solid Light installations. Moving in close to the light left me feeling like I was sliding up to a solid mass, but of course I simply passed through it.
This week Jonathan sent me a link to an Anthony McCall show in London. The images on the site showed the cones of light I was already familiar with, but also different types of line drawings creating different shapes and intensities of forms in the gallery space. I love the multiple planes of light intersecting each other to create these spaces:
The obvious leap I made when seeing these pieces was to do experimentation of my own to create fodder for use at the next Sound Noir party. The possibilities are infinite considering the shapes that could be made and the colors of those shapes. These techniques could be continued through parties looking forward. Different shapes and colors could be used to define individual parties.
What I thought I’d do is create digital designs that I’d have transferred to 35mm slide; Kodak slide projectors are very reasonably priced on eBay these days. So I set off calling different photo labs in town to find out who’d do the film recording and how much it’d cost. I found out quickly that this avenue wasn’t going to be viable: individual transfers cost at least $6, and I was hoping to burn several rolls.
One option I’m considering is creating designs and printing them out, then putting those prints on a copy board and shooting slides directly from them. What I think I’d gain here is mainly brighter projectors. What I’d loose would be animation and a large degree of control.
Instead what I’m thinking would work would be to use digital projectors (we have immediate access to two) and building the imagery in Flash. Creating frames that merge between two different designs is trivial in Flash, so creating continuously updating imagery would be simple. I’d also have a lot of control over color here.
Considering slides, I was thinking I stop short of filling the entire carousels. I’d leave gaps between individual slides allowing the pacing to vary. At some points both, one or the other, or neither projectors may be serving up images. Even if I use digital projectors, I’m thinking it would be nice to have gaps in the projections. I wonder how that’d work to focus people’s attentions on different parts of the room.
It’s been more than a year since I’ve last worked with Flash. I left it not wanting to build Flash websites, but thinking I could use it as an animation tool. This is the first real incentive I’ve had for making work using it.
