Chiaroscuro (Étude Op. 3, No.3) from sougwen on Vimeo.
For artists whose skills lie in drawing, motion can be elusive – the forms on paper, when working with traditional media, stay frozen. But artist Sougwen Chung, a regular subject on this site, uses projection and installation to suggest a work that takes on new life between light and shadow, vision and obscurity. She describes it perfectly in her description, so I leave the discussion to that:
Ink on paper
Projection & LEDs
8ft x 5.5ft
2012
Chiaroscuro is an installation piece that utilizes light as an artifice of visual perception. It explores the interplay of light and shadow on a dimensional drawing form. Strata of abstract, monochromatic line-work are suspended on a wall, giving off the illusion that lines themselves are extending beyond the flat plane. Coils of light are nested asymmetrically within the form, responding to the variations of sound in the environment and illuminating the surface with a pulsing ambiance. Projected light is mapped onto the exterior from a distance, revealing and obscuring the piece throughout the course of the installation.
Exhibited at “Of Art and Artifice” hosted by Ghostly International at The Art Directors Club Gallery in NYC.
Thanks to Adam Harvey for designing and programming the Arduino.
Technology: Arduino, Processing, Madmapper, Modul8, Adobe CS, paper and ink.
—
Music: “Hockey Nights in Canada” by Downliners Sekt
Detroit-born label Ghostly International’s event is itself something I hope we can talk about soon, a unique convergence of music with visual imagination and design – evidenced here by Sougwen’s appropriate use of musical etude numbers, as she explores the connection of drawn form to time and tune.
Ghostly’s teaser video itself tracks some of this fertile territory, as the label talks about the significance of pairing the visual with the musical – something dear to our hearts.
Ghostly International: Of Art and Artifice from Art Directors Club on Vimeo.