STRINA ROSS PROJECTION RESEARCH
About Me.
Hello! My name is Christina Ross but I like to go by Strina. I am a student at the University of Colorado Boulder where I major in Media Production. I am currently interested in this idea of projection on the human body. I have been researching what it actually means to project on the human body and what all can be projected and how it can be projected. Below I will introduce what this entails and then show my research! Hope you enjoy it!
What is my Projection Research about?
I am interested in the different ways that projection can be used on the human body, especially when it is in a performance space. When I say “performance space,” I mean the physical space the performance is being portrayed. This does not mean it has to be a live performance. I am especially interested in how projection has been used in ways that have not been explored, or have minimal work done around the idea. One example of projection on the human body that has little to no previous artworks, or performances, done is this idea of using some kind of see-through material. What happens if we place something see-through, such as plastic or glass, between the performer and the projector?
Although I haven’t been able to find too many examples of performance using this see-through idea, I have found some videos and photographs that somewhat portray what I am trying to convey and reinvent, or at least made me get an idea from what I saw. I am pretty sure Kristy Sellars, in this America's Got Talent video, used a green screen along with projection mapping. I am not interested in those but the concept and execution are something that intrigued me and piqued my interest. This performance made me think about how to do something similar with projection without mapping because I do not know how to do projection mapping and would like to discover another alternative. I love the visual aesthetic of the mapping but because I do not know how to do it, I want to find a way to create a similar effect without the hardship and complication that is projection mapping. This performance by Kristy Sellars shows how a green screen could possibly be one way of creating this effect without mapping.
.png)
"Le Mouvement" De L’air by Adrien M. and Claire B. shows a performer dancing with smoke. Seeing how the smoke moved with the performer and how the body is seen through, and around, the smoke made me wonder if projection could do the same thing. What if the projection is on the smoke and the body manipulates the smoke which in turn manipulates the projection?
This performance called “The Cheshire Cat,” created by Ryan Talbot and performed by Tara Choat, made me question how one performer can move in and out of a projection while still being in the performance space. Within this piece of work, you can see Tara dancing on stage moving with the projection. There are a few times when she is still on stage, within the ‘performance space,’ but she is far enough downstage to where the projection doesn’t hit her body at all. She is an integral part of the performance and of the projection itself but sometimes the projection doesn’t touch her, yet it doesn’t change the beauty of the work.
.png)
.png)
Laurie Anderson did a piece called "Habeus Corpus" with Mohammed El Gharini, and I fell in love with it. It made me wonder how one could project liveness onto a still object. What Laurie Anderson did in this project is create a statue of Mohammed and then project a live feed of Mohammed onto his statue. This is something that I have never even thought about trying since I always do video projection on a still body, or dance within/behind/around the projection. There is something intriguing about a video where both the object and the projection are both still.
These works don’t totally encapsulate what I am researching, in terms of the projection with see-through materials idea, but it makes my mind spiral into a creative state. I don’t exactly have a research question, it is more research that is experimental in how to use and execute projection on the human body using a variety of forms to see what happens. Each experimental improvisation takes a different projection idea and tests the outcome. Sometimes it creates something very pleasing to the eye and sometimes it creates something that is not so pleasing, some may even call it ugly or disturbing. I guess to that extent my question would be something like, “In what ways can projection be used on the human body while using see-through materials to create something unique?”
In the portfolio section, you will find my research in the form of experimental videos. Each video will be paired with a brief description depicting what exactly the performance was comprised of and how I felt doing it.