I walked around campus after it was dark on the night the students at SMCM presented their projection projects. I saw projections on the wall outside Montgomery Hall, on the Bell Tower, on the trees next to the Bell Tower, three in different locations on the Campus Center walls, and one on the wall outside the Library.
The first one I saw was a compilation of frames that gradually turned into an artistic-looking lion's head. I talked to the artist and he told me that he had made the music that went along with the movements of the video himself. He also had drawn each frame. The hardest part was making the music. It wasn't all the way dark outside when I went to see this one, so it wasn't as clear as I would have liked to have see it, but the project itself was pretty cool.
The projection on the Bell Tower was urban-looking and made me think of moving graffiti. The music fit it well. The shape of the bell tower also added an interesting effect. The projection next to the Bell Tower on the trees was one of my favorites. I wouldn't have really understood it if I hadn't asked the artist about it. It was basically a mess or color spilled across the tree trunks and the leaves at the top of them, but it looked like it was just a colorful image. Upon asking the artist about it, I learned that her projection was one where the colors changed very slowly over time. So I left to go see other projections and when I came back it was completely different! I liked it a lot. It was a simple yet creative idea. I also think that her projection location was the best of all of them.
I went towards the library next to see what looked like a cartoon lizard crawling across one of the brick pillars on the wall. I liked this one because it used the space creatively. I remember working on my own projects in the Mac Lab and seeing this projection as a work-in-progress about a week ago, and it was good to be able to see the finished project. The artist of this one said that the hardest part was creating each movement of the lizard as an individual frame.
The three projections on the wall of the Campus Center were all very different from each other. The first one I saw was an animated child swinging on a tire swing. My favorite thing about this one was the music that was playing with it ("Kids" by MGMT). The projection above the fountain at the Campus Center was different form all of the others in that it was a straight video, no animation. This one was a series of interviews of St. Mary's students about their own illnesses and the challenges that have come with them. This is the one that I watched for the longest, and I was startled by some of the things I heard from people I know who go here and their challenges with illnesses. THe last one I looked at was on another part of the wall of the Campus Center, and was a projection of the classic Napoleon Dynamite dance from the movie "Napoleon Dynamite". What was interesting about it was how each frame overlapped the previous ones as Napoleon danced. It was interesting to see. I also liked the brick background for all of the projections on the Campus Center walls and the Library wall.
