Vision

this essay was a reaction to the artist colloquium on february second, and i believe the history and future of projection relates to the viewing experiences we've been discussing in class:

Gavin Jackson
Extra Credit Colloquium--2/2/07

Last Friday, Perry Hoberman and Anne Friedberg of USC came to speak about the “parallax between theory and practice,” especially when it came to projection technology and art. Hoberman, an installation artist, was interested in stereoscopic imagery, and his 2004 installation, Public Objects, displayed an anamorphic image 4 times, that was only visible in 3-d at a certain point.
Anne Friedberg showed her website based on her book, The Virtual Window, which examines viewing technology’s history, and how it has shaped our perception. Both talked about treating “the screen as an object,” or recognizing the importance of the viewing experience and its context. For example, Hoberman showed video of a piece he did where people had to line up objects on a screen from three different locations: a computer screen, actual life-size objects, and I believe the projection already on the screen. Interactivity such as this is one reason they both sort of hinted that new ways of projection are on the horizon that will change our perception of art and the world.
Friedberg and Hoberman’s websites also emphasized the viewing experience as one subject to the tools and technologies available. Hoberman made a point in his vectors article of classifying the eyes as a tool of the mind, and nothing more, for the mind arranges and classifies all the images, as proven by the different forms of malperception he researched.
I’m very interested in reading The Virtual Window, for the website, at least as presented, looks less cogent and ordered as the book sounded. I still got a good idea of a few things from the viewing tool she brought up though, with a silhouette watching Uncle Josh at the Picture Show. The question for artists of the future, and film viewers everywhere, is how will that silhouette be engaged in moving images in the future?