Buckle up and project: that was the mission of a group of art “interventionists”, firing guerilla projections at the public installation of artist Sol LeWitt in Manhattan’s City Hall Park. The weapon of choice itself is one of interest: a self-powered mobile projection rig means live visuals can appear anywhere.
The production team describes the project:
Wikipedia defines an art intervention as ‘an interaction with a previously existing artwork, audience or venue/space.’ Integrated Visions Productions and National Media Services approached the Sol LeWitt exhibition ‘Structures’ in New York’s City Hall Park (sollewitt.publicartfund.org) with this concept in mind. Utilizing one of NMS’s ProjectionMan self-powered mobile projection units to redefine the idea of guerilla videomapping, the IVP/NMS team was able to line up the template and accurately videomap the three sculptures seen in this video with about 5 minutes of on-site prep per piece. The results are stunning; the sculptures come, literally, to life. [Ed.: Uh — literally, they come to life? That’s terrifying. -PK]
Creative Team
Producer: Brian Blessinger
Animation and Art Direction: Michelle Dodson, Bryan Dodson
Soundtrack: Crawwwl by Big Friendly Giant [on SoundCloud]ProjectionMan by
National Media Services Inc
and
BlueBlast MediaProjectionMan operated by Tyrone Tanous
I asked producer Brian Blessinger to tell us more about the backpack projection setup, pictured below:
As far as the ProjectionMan rig, it was designed by our logistics partners at BlueBlast Media and National Media Services. It’s battery-powered and is designed to be fully mobile. The rig is built as a suit that fits around the operator. The 12 volt battery is worn like a backpack. Each battery lasts about an hour before it has to be swapped out. It supports a 2500-lumen HD projector.
