Multimedia art thingamabob

I'm pretty geeked about the new exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Art called "Photoformance."

It's the collaboration between:
Monica Ponce de Leon, the Dean of the Taubman College of Architecture & Urban Planning;
Peter Sparling, a Thurnau Professor of Dance at U-M, Choreographer, and video artist
Ernie Rubin, U-M alum and photographer
Erik Santos, Composer

Each of these people is highly respected in their respective fields.  They've put together an installation that projects gorgeous images onto semi-opaque architectural structures and walls within the gallery.

What you may not realize, when looking at the video, is how carefully they were constructed.  I've grossly oversimplifying things but in a nutshell, Ernie Rubin created still shots of Peter Sparling dancing, which Peter then carefully merged together to make a film.

To be honest with you, this probably wouldn't have been on my radar screen if my husband Mark hadn't had a large hand in the architectural structures.  They are curved, sloping, soaring tunnels, but they are made entirely of tabbed triangles.  Mark helped create the programming that figured out those triangles and guided the cutting.  He also helped put some of them together, which was done by hand by a whole lot of people at the architecture school.  I think there were over 2000 of the things.  Triangles, I mean, not people. 

I'm very glad I went to the opening talk, because it's the kind of exhibit I would otherwise have walked through for four minutes, said "that's kinda neat" and not given it much more thought.  But the process that went into making each component is extremely cool--and hearing the collaborators talk about it was eye-opening.

They are still in the process of working out the projection of the film.  The opening day had only a few projectors running; I stopped by yesterday and the whole thing was locked up while they work out some glitch.    But once it's up and running, they'll keep it running each night after the museum closes.  That means passersby will be able to peek in through the portholes in the blackout curtains.  I love that. 

Not the same experience as walking through, but still a nifty way to encourage interaction with the museum and its art.

A description of the exhibit here:
http://www.umma.umich.edu/view/exhibitions/2010-photoformance.php