Watching the tourists at Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon, 2012, digital photograph
As an experiment, this installation was a huge success; as a final, realized piece, it needs some tweaking. Up for one night, the installation included utilizing a bank of windows in an industrial building as the backdrop for projected photographs.
The installation, Somewhere Else, (created for All That Matters To Me) skips my usual steps of drawing and painting and simply presents the edited photographs usually used as my subject matter – see my post from May 15th – as the final piece. Playful and obviously edited, these photographs work with the idea of daydreaming and wishing to be somewhere else without trying to create a complete illusion. The household furniture begins to act as my surrogate within the landscape but never quite fits within the surroundings. The short show on June 23rd was the perfect opportunity to explore a different way of addressing the concepts of place, home and disconnection.
When proposing an installation for the Screw Factory which required projecting onto a bank of windows, I had an image of this in mind:
Which is awesome when playing around in Photoshop and everything is possible. What actually happened was a whole lot of blocking light with foam core and drop clothes and a little bit of crossing my fingers and hoping it would be over-cast on Saturday. Below are some shots of the installation process.
The space pre-install. That’s 65 window panes in case you’re wondering.
Beginning to install; if you look really close you can see a very faint projection on the foam core. Was NOT very encouraged at this point.
Testing out the projector with more of the windows blocked. Started to feel a little better about this whole thing.
Hung 12′ x 15′ drop clothes from the ceiling with some help from 1/2″ pvc pipes. This really helped block out ambient light.
Almost finished!
Used a small shelf to hold my laptop and a borrowed projector (thank you, brother!), taped down the cords and we were good to go.
At 7pm when the show opened it was pretty difficult to see the projection but once the sun set the images became much clearer. I’m not sure the concept of looking out the window was conveyed successfully (if anyone has comments on this, I’d love to hear them) but the idea of vacation photographs displayed as a slide-show seems to fit. Like I said, this idea needs a little tweaking…
7 pm installation shot
8 pm installation shot
9 pm installation shot
10 pm installation shot
Before all of this started I hosted a photo-shoot with my furniture, cropped and cleaned up the images and then popped them into landscapes. I’m happy with the final images and think they’re the best part of this whole experience. I’ll end with some of them here.
Enjoying the nightlife, Berlin, GE, 2012, digital photograph
Trying to fit in, TX, 2012, digital photograph
Enjoying the shade, Houston, TX, 2012, digital photograph
Kicking back, Tampa, FL, 2012, digital photograph
Blending in, Mentor Headlands, OH, 2012, digital photograph
Lounging on the lawn, Krakow, PL, 2012, digital photograph
Taking a break, ID, 2012, digital photograph
Spying on the neighbors, Ostrava, CZ, 2012, digital photograph
With the fall colors, Montreal, QC, 2012, digital photograph
Hitch-hiking, Prague, CZ, 2012, digital photograph
Special thanks need to go out to my brother, Paul, for all his help in brainstorming solutions for this installation and for his patience when I called him at 11 pm on Friday convinced this was going to be a total failure. Thank you!
