Anthony McCall

Anthony McCall’s work is a subtle, yet pivotal weave between media that touches on cinematic, sculptural and architectural elements. Rays of projected light pierce dark, smoke filled rooms and come together disturbed only by the occasional passing of a person.

From the beginning of his artistic practice to his current works, bridged by a 20 years hiatus, there is a flowing discursive line being aided by technological advancements. Although McCall makes a point out of technology not representing a source of inspiration at the Q and A of the Masterclass at Eye, it is perhaps worth noting that he makes a clear distinction between his analogue and digital works.

There were a few aspects that struck me when visiting the McCall exhibition at Eye this Monday. Temporality seems to play an important part in the way he constructs the experience of his work: the tempo at which the videos are displayed, allowing the visitor to observe the pieces, as well as their duration, provide tools for intervention: the visitors can pick and choose their own pace and rhythm at which they wish to examine McCall’s imagined environment. This reinforces the connection between perceiver and the perceived, by having the videos displayed continuously and not deciding on a fixed set up. Interacting individually with the piece is the differentiating factor between the two. As a result, the audience’s movements and gestures become part of a whole. Anthony becomes the facilitator, the moderator of his own work, and succeeds in creating a relational experience for the participants.

Another aspect that I found intriguing was his shift of focus from the projection to the apparatus, that Hal Foster aptly compares to being "no longer captivated by the mere illusion projected on the cave wall". His switch was most evident in his initial experiments with the conic light sculptures, that were accompanied by the flicking sound of the analogue film projector, as well as the scratches that would reveal the imperfections of the medium on screen. However, this has changed in his most recent works: by using new techniques, such as verticality, the audience transits between the tension of projection as drawing and projection as sculpture. This has been of great interest to me. In my own work, I would like to explore the mechanisms behind seamlessness and attract attention to auxiliary information that is normally unconsciously registered by users of a specific medium.

In terms of technological means, one would wonder how you could further increase the level of interplay. Netykavka, by artist Dan Gregor, is a project inspired by the light sculptures with the added ability to respond to touch (https://vimeo.com/72222918). In comparison to McCall’s originals, the interaction with visitors is of a different nature. The dialogue that is created between the two sides extends the liveliness of the act of touching the light and takes away from the monumentality of rigidity. At the same time, it loses part of its architectural qualities and enveloping capacity: the human is not "the fastest thing in the room” anymore, as McCall intended. Taking this into consideration, it is interesting to see how McCall intentionally used technology only up to a certain extent in order to maintain his original conceptual preoccupations.