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Reflections
(Venetian Light on Water)
An Eco-Art Video Installation by Aysha Quinn, with sound design by Sašo Fajon.
Aysha Quinn is a pioneer video/performance artist, originally emerging from the Southern California eco-feminist performance genre in the mid-’70s, and has continued to create pro-environmental and personal healing work throughout the advancement of the video medium.
Blending experience and perception, Reflections holds a unique space at the intersection of documentary and abstraction. The recorded view of a serene, natural environment is no longer untouched but captured and minimally edited, retaining its original form. This provides a realm, through art and sound, that highlights the common points between cultures that might initially appear distant. What connects us more than water and light?
This piece represents the dichotomy of an endangered planet and a vast technologically advancing digital landscape, the division between them, and attempts to reconcile them as one. It touches on themes in my work that have transitioned throughout the years yet still remain apparent: organic processes, healing connections, intuition, and collaboration. In plain-speak, during these times of chaos and separation from the natural world, we can seek to benefit via technology.
An international endeavor, Reflections began during an Emily Harvey Foundation residency in Venice, Italy. I was seeking rising water to be used as a metaphor for emotions. . . . then the light captured my camera. The tranquil, undulating water illuminated by the sun mesmerized me with its calming, moving shapes. The imagery is also something of a living Rorschach test that the viewer can project onto. The original audio had constant intrusive tourist sounds so Slovenian musical artist/composer, Sašo Fajon, worked with me and created an immersive, quiet Venetian soundscape with beautiful open-air ambiance.
The display aspect is flexible, with options of projecting onto a wall or floor, mapping it onto various three-dimensional objects, or can be otherwise modified to adapt to the space. If projected onto all walls, it would be immersive. If on the floor, viewers could walk around it, or, if it’s put through projection mapping software to make it interactive, viewers could walk on/ through it and affect the graphics – change the playback speed, coloration, zoom in/out of video – it could sense a person’s position and/or body movement and, accordingly, affect the graphics.
Video and Projection
Reflections (9 min. clip)
Please press play to start the video
Video Projection Test at The Emily Harvey Foundation, NYC
