BigShinyThing

Face On is an interactive art installation incorporating a 3D face powered by a 10,000 lumen projector, bespoke 3D graphics and video content combined with laser sensors. As a piece of public art, the installation dramatically raises the stakes of what can be done with projector technology as well as providing a new surface for artists to work on.

The installation is the product of Hear Colours who worked with a number of different artists to produce the work. We spoke to one of them, avant garde artist Patrycja Grimm.

BST: How did your involvement in Face On come about?

PATRYCJA: I got involved in the project through a friend who recommended me as I was often in an audio visual environment and would wear colourful faces and costumes on a daily basis.

I use my face as an alternative surface on which to paint; I experiment with colors, shapes, decorative writing and tagging the skin. Through this I’m looking for a more graphical way of reflecting my own personal being away from the traditional use of beauty make up.

As I grew more experienced I found people’s response to my self-expressed exhibition very positive, and this soon lead me to be invited into professional collaborations like the Face On project with Nicola Romanini.

What are your ambitions for the project?

The aim was to create animation with expandin face-paintings and also capture facial expressions to use as samples for each of the sensors that the public will activate. With Nic’s agreement my proposal was to implement tribal designs from Kabuki, the Congo, Kathakali, and Papua New Guinea — as these are disappearing arts, along with more contemporary face-paints — such as clowns, pierrot, and some modifications with free-styling. It was a great opportunity to combine my need to paint with video art and interactive installation.

With these designs I wanted to reflect the subjects impression, aura, as well as their natural qualities and energies.

The project is visually stunning, but what — other than spectacle — do you hope people will take away from it?

From my personal point of view, I think Face On has good potential for interactivity which brings about a great joy of discovery.

As well as making people perform, The Mask brings a relaxed confidence about their own image which can now be used as a canvas for a visual game and hopefully reflection on our appearance in the era of absolute conformism.

Face On will be at the Glastonbury Festival 26-28th June and Glade Festival 16-19th July.

Normally, any combination of the words ‘colourful balloons’ and ‘public art’ would have BigShinyThing running for the first bus out of Hackney. But the good people at Haque have converted us: their project for the opening of London Fashion Week — Burble, which will lift-off Sunday September 16, 2007, 20:00 in Holland Park — is monumental in scale, intimate in engagement, and looks fun for all. Commissioned by Moët & Chandon, Burble is comprised of around a thousand helium-filled balloons, LED lighting and more electronic microcontrollers than you could shake a geek-stick at.

Members of the public come together to compose, assemble and control an immense rippling, glowing, bustling ‘Burble’ that sways in the evening sky, in response to the crowd interacting below. This massive structure, the form of which the public has themselves designed, exists at such a large scale that it is able to compete visually in an urban context with the skyscrapers that surround it.

Burble was premiered last year at the Singapore Biennale (see picture above). Haque have more photos from that event on their site. See you there!

Christo and Jean-Claude’s installation in Central Park, The Gates, was responsible for a surge in visitors to New York during a traditionally slow travel month, generating three times the spending that City Hall expected: some $254m

‘The Gates’ attracted over 4m visitors to Central Park during the two weeks it was up, a tremendous gain over the 750,000 people who usually visit in that period. Hotel occupancy rates were near 90%, compared with 70% at the same time last year. Elsewhere, international tourists increased 74%, spiking attendance in local restaurants and museums. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which has a roof garden overlooking Central Park, had a 90% jump in visitors.) Even Broadway felt the impact: ticket sales increased 17% during the first week of ‘The Gates’. Carriage drivers usually stable their horses in winter, but this February they were hardly ever without passengers.

‘The Gates’ didn’t even cost the city anything to install since Christo and Jeanne-Claude funded the $21m project themselves. Some 1,100 workers were paid to install, maintain, secure and remove the piece, with everything dissembled by March 15th.