Shadow Tree Projection
Site-specific outdoor projection
Washington Park
Denver, Colorado - 2007

Click to view a video of the piece.

Shadow Tree Projection explores the ephemeral quality of projection and the temporal elements of light and shadow. It is a continuation of the Hot Air Balloon Projection guerilla art piece.

Experimentation with Hot Air Balloon Projection led me to discover that projecting onto a shadow creates an indirect relationship between the projected image and the object that is creating the shadow or “screen” for that imagery. The shadow acts as a representation of the object, placing more attention on the relationship between the light and shadow that is occurring in the surrounding area.

In Shadow Tree Projection, a short animated video of a small handmade tree is projected onto the shadows of trees in Denver’s Washington Park. The result is a short video piece that addresses both the natural and unnatural light that occurs around these trees. Natural sunlight allows the trees in this area to exist and unnatural light coming from a nearby street-lamp creates the shadows. Most importantly, the creation of the piece relies on the unnatural light coming from the video projection.

These trees are part of the larger environment of Washington Park, which has a visual identity that depends on the amount of light (natural or unnatural) it is receiving at any given time.

Documentation:.
Converter and projector running off car battery:

Images of projection:

Click to view a video of the piece.

Hot air balloons are transient; they are easily inflated, easily deflated, and, aside from finding beauty, can be viewed as wastes of time and money. On the contrary, factories are moneymaking assembly lines that don’t deviate from the norm. They are technological, functional, difficult to build, essentially permanent, and difficult to destroy. Projecting this video of hot air balloons inflating, lifting off, and deflating onto this partly demolished factory creates a compelling visualization of these differences.

Image of projection surface in the daytime: