Lina Maria Giraldo's Blog

Big Screen Proposals

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to approach and develop the idea and of which piece will be the most compelling and successful.

I have two ideas that I’ve been considering. They are very different and the final goal is distinct as well.

I come from a strong social-political art background in my work and I feel compelled to continue working along this path. The magnificence of the screen makes me think about accumulation, wasting, consumerism, brightness, contrast and oversize. This is why I believe I could create a reflection of my first impression of New York: TRASH.

My biggest challenge is to create a clean beautiful image to do this reference without being literal.

I’ll be working with Java, Open frames, After Effects, Final Cut Pro and a good HD camera (I’m not sure yet which one). It would be ideal to have a nice background sound, I understand the system is mono so I would probably need to do some research on how to overcome this.

As interactivity goes I’m not sure how to address this issue because of the many restrictions the space has. My first idea would be to have a performance where the conductor guides the images instead of his orchestra. The other would be to have an infrared sensor that triggers the images. In other words the audience becomes the conductor. Last but not least, I would like to include data of pollution, trash, recycling information, etc.

The second idea is more subtle and I could say more romantic.  I would like to create a world behind the screens where people are watching us.  The gray human-size shapes that are in the other side would walk on the street, buy coffee, go to work etc and once in a while they will get close to the screen and touch it. Their touch generates a wave kind of movement on the screen’s “surface”. The goal with this idea is to create a beautiful simple video/animation where shadows figures fill the space with movement. The interactive part will be using cell phones to call the “people” to get closer to the screen and touch it. The only problem is that I don’t have any mobile experience.