Limitless Pulse

I’ve been taking turns hiding from, then digging into, the pre-production for the visuals for March 6th. Today I saw an image from a post by @sfj that’s got me thinking in a direction I’d forgotten about: projecting on unconventional surfaces.

The shot above was taken by @sfj at the 40th Anniversary of The Loft which happened Sunday. Balloons have been a constant component at the parties from very early on. Aiming a projector at the balloons takes them further.

This isn’t a completely new idea for me. While I was living at 129 Vanderbilt, I was looking to fill one room’s ceiling with balloons and project on them. It would be very different from the example above as the projection would be spread across maybe a dozen or so balloons. The effect of this, and I know it from projecting on flat ceilings, is that from underneath, the projection looks completely abstract. It’s when you’re directly in line with the projected light that the image comes back together and is legible. The effect is similar to that of the 3D sidewalk chalk art we’ve seen.

While the idea isn’t new for me, it’s entirely customary for others. Tony Oursler‘s been projecting on unorthodox surfaces since 1991:

At our last Sound Noir meeting Lenny brought up the idea of incorporating installation art into the parties. He was suggesting that even lacking an artist working with installations, we could piece together our own creations which wouldn’t need to be particularly expensive, nor time consuming, in order for them to have an effect.

A couple well placed, large balloons serving as screens might do the trick.