Move curser over image to see the effect of projecting video on a sculpture of the same image and composition. Click images for more about this project.


     Video Projection on Sculpture


     Projecting video on sculpture is an example of how two art disciplines can be used together to communicate in ways that either discipline cannot do so on its own. In the case of video projection on sculpture, the mergence of the two is not perfect since the two disciplines never precisely line up. However, this imperfection becomes useful when discussing issues of human relationships, where two people have come together but things are not perfect between them, as in the project Eric and Eric (2006).


     In Eric and Eric, the image of a man sleeping in bed is projected on a sculpture of the same man sleeping in a bed composed of real pillows and bed sheets. Because the video and sculpture are of the same composition, the video wraps around the sculptural form, creating a three-dimensional hologram effect as the qualities of the two disciplines come together. The video makes up for the sculpture's lack of colour and movement, while the sculpture makes up for the fact that video is two-dimensional and lacking in physical materiality.


     Artists like Tony Oursler have projected images on three-dimensional objects in their installation work, which bring two-dimensional image into three-dimensional space. I continue this practice by combining it with the plaster moulding and casting style of sculptor George Segal. Where Segal's live-size figures echo with a ghostly ambiance as moments in time are frozen in place, by projecting video of a figure on a white sculpture of a figure, movement is added to stagnant form. Still, because this is done along with sculpture, the motion is always in relation to the lack of motion, which creates a tension betwen the two as if the object that is moving is struggling to move.