Comments(0) Just a few links about the vernissage/exhibition of RT… for historical purposes. Please add any other links that you come across, especially those who will be created during and after the exhibit.
Montreal Mirror (this links will die)
Canadian Art News (this link will die)
Comments(0) I’ve sketched some ideas on the layout of the main gallery, capturing some of the discussions with Patrick, Harry, JA, Tim…. (Also had conversations with Flower, Lenka, Elena for the blackbox, and Louis-Andre, Elena, Tim, … not represented in these sketches.)
Waiting on other folks.
The idea is to cluster the head-height cells near the corridor side of the space, leaving a scattering of them in the central area. Harry suggested bouncing the ceiling projection from a suspended projector (2m from grid), off of a 2m wide mylar, for effective throw of 6m. JS should confirm with Harry & Patrick+JC whether this would yield enough coverage of image-bearing cells on the ceiling.
Perhaps the Weaving (20′ x 4′ Sensate Tapestry) could be suspended from the ceiling near the entrance to the Gallery. (Marguerite and Elliot can confer with Patrick et.
Currently, I’m assuming that JS projections go onto the walls, eg the Atrium, ceiling, and Mackay walls (if we can fit the Sensate Tapestry parallel to the short wall on the corridor side of the Gallery). Need to confirm this.
Spoke with Harry re. Lightfield. Current idea: one good place to mount the moving beam (light) would be near the grid, about 1m out from the center axis of the Atrium wall. Its beam should have a clear play over the floor, over the bench. It may (or may not) scatter through a few carefully placed, transparent, head-height cells that “trickle” into the main air space.
The other lightfield installatio, along the base of the St. Catherine wall, would work best if that wall is left blank, I think. We could project from a projector suspended from the grid flush with wall, beaming down to a 3.7m wide x 5 cm high image-bearing custom-made screen / reflective surface. The point of that projection is to transmit and transmute (perhaps contrapuntally) the activity from the sidewalk. (We can mount a web-camera atop the St Catherine wall, looking out to the sidewalk, and process it through a simple Jitter patch.)
The main atmosphere effects: I’ve been emailing / talking with JS, Tim, Morgan about the states of the room. Now I have some semantics for the VISIT topology; it can be a fusion of season and weather: spring (EXFOLIATION), summer (verdant), fall (FIRESTORM), winter (GLASS stillness).
Comments(0) Moment
People
Keypoints
Summary
Xin Wei introduced the second major influence in the upcoming FOFA exposition: the work of painter Remedios Varo. As described in the linked wikipedia article, Varo “[…] was as fascinated with the legend of the Holy Grail as with sacred geometry, alchemy and the I-Ching. She saw in each of these an avenue to self-knowledge and the transformation of consciousness.” And thus a mix of naturality (”terrarium”) and mystic surrealism (”remedios”) are now underlined themes for the exposition.
Highlighted ideas from Varo’s work were the many forms of peeling — either on surfaces or characters to reveal other inner symbols & meanings (added meaning, oppositions, trompe-l’oeuils, etc) — and the transubstantiation of the natural elements into physical objects (eg. rays of moonlight transforming into the strings of a lute from which the music transforms into flying doves, etc).
Ideas for the Black Box room: having tiny treasure chests (as in a piece by Varo), possibly each representing a TML researcher, which hold tiny secrets and a main TML treasure chest — which could be technologically enhanced to capture the faces of the visitor’s peeking into it. JS reckons these faces could be stored and used in a manner to represent past visitors by re-projecting them somehow.
Ideas for the corridor: using the entire corridor to present the history of the TML through printed (and possibly televised) artifacts that would be related to each other as a horizontally suspended tree structure referring to a horizontal timeline of TML activity. Printed medium could be various types of paper, cloth, etc. Small electronic displays or slide-projectors were also considered, but the use of projectors was deemed unnecessary to instead favor low-tech, analog technologies. A single plasma screen (maybe with a Jitter patch) could although be used at the end of a corridor to represent the current status of TML activity (end of the timeline).
Ideas for the main gallery room: making it seem underground, or as a box within a box (ie. a space within a space) to give the feeling of an enclosed space for the terrarium concept. Also, ideas of hanging cloth to cover the ceiling to enclose the space, to be projected on from below. A natural material is preferred to go along with the terrarium concept; a material related to plant-life and growth. Also ideas of covering the floor (with straw, to give smell and texture — sort of like a door mat but more natural and wild — or some sort of carpet-like natural botanical fiber discussed by Josee-Anne for smell and biodegradability (change over time of exposition)).
Medias
