To close out a very busy 2016, I was invited to have a solo show at Warren County Community College for the month of December. Ontotechnologic: Where the ontological and the technological meet. Here's how the work came to be:
After visiting the gallery space, which existed in a hallway, what struck me was the long stretch of windows on one wall that overlooked the library down below, as well as the inherent traverse of the space. I decided to make this the central reference point for the work's site specificity.
As this solo show gave me free rein to self-curate art that represented my entire body of work, I wanted to make sure I included some projection, some drawings, some computer vision, and some site specific installation. So I decided to make these windows a focal point of the exhibition with a new, large piece on that window, as well as a corresponding projection negation project on the wall opposing it, along with several existing pieces that dealt with the theme of windows and site-specificity.
Google Sketchup rendering of the WCCC gallery space
The first major new project to tackle was the focal point, the windows. On the back of my recent show at Andover Newton Theological School's Sarly Gallery which also had a massive wall of windows, I had a plan up my sleeve. Using theater lighting gels, I could create a stained glass-like mosaic that could be temporarily adhered using suction, sort of like DIY window decals. I began using the gallery floorpan as the inspiration for the layout, converting it into abstract geometry, with doorways assuming the typical T-shape that's conventional to Yamantaka mandalas.
The name owes to the site specificity of the work. Just as a file extension references the location of the work, these works reference the venue in which they is installed. It in turn becomes an extension of the windows themselves, in a sense using the "pixels" of color to digitize the space in an analog way. Hence, .windows/WCCC.
3D rendering of the windows
My initial design concept, with swatches of gels represented below the image for purposes of mapping them to the design.
Fitting the colored gels into the shapes (and hoping for max material efficiency and little waste). However, a fun surprise came when I visited the site and found the bottom row of window panes to be whited out. Some adjustments would be needed. But either way the design sat a bit higher on the windows than I would have liked for viewing purposes, and had a lot of issues with the edges not lining up with the window leading. This would lead to issues of peeling and unsightly seams, and just felt like an all-around pain in the butt to cut and piece together.
My final design accommodating the altered window dimensions. This design allowed for a much more elegant geometry, better window placement, and, to be honest, less cutting.
Then it was a matter of cutting out the gels to the proper sizes, and then squeegee-ing them onto the windows.
The view from the library down below, on the other side of the windows
Obligatory self-portrait looking through my reflection in .windows/WCCC, to my reflection in the mirrors across the expanse, back through my installation. Also a glimpse of W(ith)indow 4 in the reflection. More on that to come below...
Windows glimpsed through windows
Ontotechnologic
The next major new project to tackle would be to use the window piece as inspiration for a new, corresponding projection piece. As the ambient light would be bright, not dark, I decided to go in the direction of my projection negation series rather than my Hyalo series. This would also capitalize on the hallway's role as a thoroughfare, allowing students to inadvertently interact with the pieces and be startled by nice moments of discovery on their way to class.
A digitized version of .windows/WCCC. This would be projected on the wall, then taped off, painted, and then the colors of the projection would be calibrated to optically blended with the painted colors.
The calibrated colors that would be projected onto the painting. With the proper blend of complementary colors, one can get every color to negate each other, resulting in tones of gray. In some similar projects I chose to have every color blend to the same neutral gray, including the background. In others I left the background uncolored, but had all the geometric shapes blend to the same gray. In this one I decided to let there be some tonal variation in the gray blocks as well.
If you're not familiar with this series of work, the premise is an attempt to create an experience of apophasis - that is, mystical negation - in which the viewers's perceptual expectations are undermined as they paradoxically reveal the painting in their shadow as they obstruct the projection. The result is a somewhat sublime interactive experience in which, true to the Greek notion of aletheia, the work is simultaneously revealed and concealed.
Artist Christine Romanell interacting with Ontotechnologic.
W(ith)indows
The last piece of the puzzle was the inclusion of two pieces from my w(ith)indow series, which also had its origins in the above mentioned exhibition at Andover Newton. In that exhibition, I had created 8 site-specific frosted glass window projections that fit the architecture of the venue, entitled without_within. I had recently begun excerpting those windows one at a time as standalone pieces.
For this exhibition I decided to include the one that I had already built, plus a new, second one.
The two "windows," built to appear to function like monitors, but actually function as projection screens
The code was already written for without_within, but now I had to rescale and modify everything to work with two projectors and two screens, both run by a single computer, and remap the interactive zones to fit the venue (essentially a matter of cropping and isolating the vision of the depth camera in 3D space). This was made especially tricky by the fact that my Kinect sensor was occupied in another show at the time, so I was essentially coding blind, with no way to test the output. By some miracle, when I got the Kinect back with just days to spare before install, everything actually worked perfectly with only some minor tweaks (which almost never happens).
On to building mounts for the projectors and Mac mini, and then to begin installing.
Tidying the wires was more of a challenge than anticipated, as you can see the cable tracking up across the ceiling, then across the room, down along a door frame, to the floor where the Kinect sensor was housed and plugged. I also had to run an extension cord down and along the base of the windows to where my other projector was located.
This is why Epson projectors are amazing - the ability to adjust each corner individually when keystone correcting is a life saver for projection mapping at odd angles.
And with that, I was able to test out the interactive hot zones and make sure everything was working. All that was left was to hang the 2-D works, and then set out the promotional materials.
This show was a really great experience getting the artistic freedom to curate my own work in a way that seemed appropriate for the space. I very much enjoyed the opportunity to share my work with students and faculty, including one of the art classes during a gallery tour, and I hope those who passed through when I wasn't there to witness got something meaningful out of their experience with the work.
