NOMAD × HUFF Interactive Projection Installation

For the NOMAD ＠ SEAN RUSH installation (2020–2024, West Palm Beach, Florida), I created a bespoke, site-specific, digital projection platform which covered the 271×43½" (688×110 cm) horizontal surface of NOMAD’s signature, ten-seat wine counter with a single, seamless, animated image. Using custom software and a series of sensors mounted above the surface, I included a playful element of interactivity.

For the first project on the Surface, pulling from the deep archive of photographs taken during travels and life abroad over the past fifteen years, I curated a collection of meditative images, evoking wandering memories of exploration. A new selection and sequence of these photographs was shown every day.

Backstory

Late in the summer of 2020, I was invited by a dear friend, artist and designer Sean Rush, to create an interactive projection installation for his space. Earlier that summer, Sean had the opportunity to double the size of his retail space. Rather than simply expanding the design showroom and art gallery, he wanted to incorporate something that was more experiential. The idea was to open the space as an aperitvo wine lounge in the evenings. Part of the space would incorporate a 271×43½" (688×110 cm) residential-height counter on which the projection installation would be displayed.

When Sean invited me to NOMAD, it was for a more “traditional” projection installation on a 45×6 foot wall. Very soon though, we both came to the idea that projection on the counter would be much more interesting.

Whether wall or counter, an installation with such an extreme aspect ratio (6.25:1, in the case of the counter) requires the use of multiple projectors (four, in this case), the images from which need to be aligned, distortion-corrected, overlapped, and blended together. I had thought (hoped) that any number of commercially-available software platforms would be able to accommodate this, allowing me to jump quickly into content creation, but I ended up creating the software platform myself, using openFrameworks as a code base.

Mounted alongside the four projectors were four video cameras which captured the entire surface and allowed for rudimentary motion tracking of staff and guests. This motion data feed into various interactive elements over the course of the installation.

Content-wise, the first project I created for the installation was based on photographs I had taken during my travels when based in Singapore for almost nine years. Photography had become a fundamental process through which I explored and documented the places I visited. Out of hundreds of thousands of photographs, I already had a tightly-curated collection I was incorporating in a body of photo haiku work and from those I started looking for images that could be cropped to work with the 6.25:1 aspect ratio. Over time, I curated a collection of more than 600 photos for the projection project.

Each image was shown for three minutes and then gently cross-faded to the next. There was a very slow vertical scroll to keep the images “active”, along with an interactive layer involving “pixies” which picked up their colors from the photographs and would scatter whenever motion was detected.

Each day, a randomly-shuffled subset of images was automatically selected and sequenced according to some coded heuristics. It was important to me that, as the images were shown in the daily sequence, there would be visual and conceptual contrast from image to image. Warm colors followed by cool. Extreme closeups followed by majestic landscapes. The scared followed by the profane. No back-to-back photos from the same country. I often was delighted by the re-contextualization of my memories the happened because of the juxtapositions.

Over time, I also realized that I needed to be conscious of playing not only to the overall vista of the installation, but also the more intimate view that any one of the ten people sitting at the counter would experience. An interesting creative challenge…

Other projects for the installation included:

• The kaleidoscopic piece, based on my photograph and a collection of found images (mainly Japanese ukiyo-e, including shunga). The projected image was entirely animated and ever-evolving, much like a physical kaleidoscope. Compound layers of animated motion were based on sine waves, each with a different period, the lengths of which made it so the overall image would not come back to the same configuration for well over a year.
• An experimental version of my Strange Attractions work (never shown publicly).
• A project based on vintage found footage of female burlesque performances, playing with reflected symmetries and repetition.

The different projects landed at different points along the art–spectacle continuum, with that last piece based on found burlesque footage having the most “art world” potential to my eye.