You’re projecting… art on Kitchener City Hall

My friend Marcel O’Gorman, an Associate Professor at UW and makerly art instigator, shot me an email a couple weeks back suggesting I come by Kitchener City Hall on a Sunday night to see something cool.

One of his XDM students, Matthew Schwager lit up an installation piece that projected on the west wing live video of eyes captured down at street level. The piece was called Behemoth. It was as if the building looked out at the city. Hey, you may remember Matthew from this Critical Media Lab post I did back in April.

The photo above shows the rooftop laptop hooked to the Christie projector and showing video of Laurel O’Gorman’s eyes from down at King and Gaukel. There’s 305 King in the background.

I’ve got a few more pics for you but first, two things:

1. I like this place where we live. Where a friend reaches out and says come downtown and check out this art. We’re not sure it’s going to work.

2. Where makebright provides value, I sometimes ask for a few words describing that value, so I can promote my business and hopefully keep it all going. Marcel offered the following, which I’ve cross-posted to my Recognition page: “Quietly haunting the inner city, Darin White is the region’s most inspired and talented urban documentarian. I would be hard pressed to find anyone else who is as dedicated not only to the local arts scene, but to the life of the city itself. Darin gives us new eyes through which to see our urban life, powered by his contemplative curiosity and contagious enthusiasm. Were he not such a great photographer and storyteller, I would urge Darin to run for mayor.”

Ok, with Canadian modesty re-enabled, here are the pics…

Artist Matthew Schwager in animated explanation at street level.

BluesFest was just that night being dismantled, delightfully leaving an ice machine in my frame.

Here’s the rig. The box on the card table. Luring in curious passers-by.

Ron takes a look in the box. He was also projecting images off his phone. That is *the* best when you put a tool out there and people try different things with it than you intended.

Show coming down and show going up.

A test projection.

Some funky image distortion.

I was spotted wandering in the square below.

I love sunk blacks against night colours. Fell in love with this watching Michael Mann movies back in the day.

The more I shoot around City Hall the more I appreciate this building.

Ok… I’ll move on.

I think this is Annabelle Girard, Manager of Public Programs for KW Art Gallery talking with Matthew.

Better shot of the box. You look into these LED-strip-illuminated mono-goggles and a Mac computer camera captures and streams the video.

Marcel had a look after descending from rooftop deployment duty.

Matthew and Ron.

Laurel looks in the box at right and the projection appears in realtime up top on the left.

Ice machine. Not art?

Artist and work.

See this great space to hang out in at night? I wish we had this up in Waterloo where I live.

Super low light in the square. Matthew fields questions and encourages people to try it out.

This corner is so cool. We should make a live-work studio for artists in the old PUC building behind Matthew on this corner. In fact that building was one of Critical Media Lab’s temporary haunts in DTK.

Friends show up.

Hey, let’s give a nod to Community Access Bikeshare in the foreground. Join. Ride. Prosper. Right Jane?

Marcel O’Gorman.

I grabbed a few shots up on the roof. Unknown eye model.

Artist silhouette.

Matthew makes a few tweaks while the eyes are distracted. Focusing up there was a fun challenge.

There’s the transmitter down on the corner.

Y’all know I’m always going on about Christie Digital tech. Well, here it is again kicking ass in your city. Duct tape mask FTW!

Matthew thinks of next steps.

Always great to see Marcel’s smart crew of XDM (Experimental Digital Media) Masters students get their freak on. Delightfully bringing art to the people.

At King and Gaukel, this is Kitchener.

DW