User:Sebastian Cimpean/gradproj/artofprojection

Art of Projection / Stan Douglas and Christopher Eamon / 2009

The Long and The short of it: Centuries of Projecting Shadows, from natural magic to the avant-garde / Tom Gunning

Notes

[…] its velvety eclipse of space, its obscuring of orientation. As Maurice Merleau-Ponty said of night, “it is pure depth without foreground or background, without surface and without any distance separating it from me. All space for the reflecting mind is sustained by thinking which relates its parts to each other, but in this case, the thinking starts from nowhere.” What happens in the dark? How does light structure and create its own world? Projection indicates a throwing forward, in this case of light, but also of shadow, with a collision occurring between light, shadow, and a surface or screen. There is a space in front of a screen that seems to be cancelled out by darkness, the “throw” of the beam of projection. If darkness cancels out this space, the screen or projection opens up another space, a space of illusion perhaps, or representation, or simply of the play of light. (pg. 23) // this text brings forth the idea/importance of darkness when thinking of projection. Also the idea of the screen opening up a space for me relates to the work of James Turrell (especially, The Royal Flush).