Introduction

Sculpture nowadays involves the use of new technological means and the artwork looks very different from the traditional works which have been created until now. One of these new means of creating sculpture is video projection, which could be considered a kind of art with the power of immediate impact on the audience. The new dimensions that video projections offer to an artist were the major reason for using them in my work. This was a completely new way of working, as my previous work was mainly based on traditional methods. Previously I had been a student at the Athens School of Fine Arts where my drawings and sculptures had more to do with the study of the human body. During the last two years at the school I worked using shapes and forms mostly from my imagination rather than recreating nature.

As a postgraduate student at the Wimbledon School of Art (WSA), under a scholarship from the National Scholarship Foundation of Greece, I had the opportunity to create contemporary artwork. My work at the W.S.A. (instead of working with raw materials like marble, clay, steel which I had used previously) involved video projections onto objects. In this work I recreated the dialogue of Socrates and Crito, written by Plato, called "Crito" including in it not only elements of classical sculpture but also of film and cinema.

The title of my work is as Plato's dialogue, "Crito", and is an art installation by two sculptures talk to each other with the use of two video-projectors. The projection of this dialogue offers the audience the possibility to see as well as to hear an ancient Greek dialogue in a different way, more contemporary, more vivid than a book.

 

Historical report on video projection

Before presenting my research I will provide a brief history of video projection and of the work of those artists, who have established this kind of art.

The history of video projections starts with Robert Whitman. He projected 16mm film onto objects in the sixties, and in the seventies the Italian film-maker Fabio Mauri made a series of performances where he projected films (for example Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Mathew (1964), Miklos Jancso's Red Psalm, (1972)) onto the bodies of the directors. He then made a series of projections onto objects whose surface became the screen, including Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky (1938) which was projected onto a large pail of milk, and Carl Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) which was projected onto the naked body of a woman.

One of the artists who uses video projections nowadays is Oursler who takes Mauri's work a stage further, setting up a tension between the hypnotic monumentality of film as depicted by the hidden screen (and repeated on a large scale of the movie audience's impassive faces at which we gaze), and the undermining of that monumentality by the small, individual figures. Mauri drew attention to the physical space between the projector and the object. Oursler makes this relationship more complex, uniting the objects and the screen by making visible the projection apparatus for both in the same space. In Oursler's work, the body becomes a screen onto which action is projected. This projection of moving images onto objects owes more to the history of film than video, and reveals another filmic aspect of Oursler's work. Oursler unites the figures with the viewer by subjecting both to the gaze of the movie audience. The viewer, moving around the space and engaging with the figures and their traumas, is gazed at and becomes part of the narrative; the space becomes the film. A viewing circuit is set up: a system for dramatic feedback (Chrissie Iles, 1996).

(1) Tony Oursler: Metro Pictures

According to Sarah Ward, in Tony Oursler's exhibition at Metro Pictures, you are confronted with the low hum of electronic media along with huge disembodied human eyes, irises darting and lids blinking. Thirteen white fibreglass spheres, hanging from the ceiling and placed on the floor, each with a video projection, of a gelatinous orb, magnified to disproportionate size, bring home the mortal nature of our beings, showing every wrinkle, every discoloration, every delicate vein. Within these huge irises, one sees the reflection of the video screens that these eyes are intently focusing on, showing porno-films, video games, music videos, and classic films. Oursler has explored the use of video-projection in a sculptural installation since 1981. Although this installation lacks the dark humour that defined much of his earlier work, it is possibly his most disturbing and effective. Oursler uses technological parlour tricks, but in his hands they have power to trigger strong emotional responses. He has created a sculptural, thought-provoking environment, not just an exhibition (Ward S., 1996). read more...

(2) Tony Oursler: Metro Pictures

In the Museum Fridericianum's shapeless bundles of material and clothes with stuffed cloth heads make up Oursler's dummies and effigies. The blank heads act as screens onto which videoed faces are projected, making them come to life as disturbing versions of the internal voices and media presences with whom we continually converse in our heads.

(3) Tony Oursler: I can't hear you

Nauman is another artist who devoted himself to sculpture, performance, filmed performance, cinema and even holograms. When portable video equipment arrived on the market in the 1970s he made several taped performances exploring various parameters in his studio. At the same time, the possibilities offered by the sound track led him to experiment with the orally acoustic properties and rhythms of text. In some cases, the precise, computer-assisted editing inevitably evokes the effects of the world of media and spectacle (Assche C.1998, p 13,14).

(4) Bruce Nauman: ANTHRO/SOCIO

In one of his works ANTHRO/SOCIO (Rinde Facing Camera): a close-up of a shaven-headed face is projected onto three walls and six monitors, screaming with deafening intensity: ‘Feed Me/Eat Me/Anthropology…Help Me/Hurt Me/Sociology…Feed Me, Help Me, Eat Me, Hurt Me’. The repetition of the imperative inflections and the simplicity of the injunctions obsess us. The difference of the piece forces contact upon us. Rinde's face becomes inescapable, compelling us to recognise his demand. The amplification system and the dimensions of Rinde's shaven head reminds us of other faces, other commanding words. The installation no longer appears to be addressed to a single person or to a small group of persons, but to a crowd - to the social body. Stadium logic. Bass-note logic, dispossessing us of the desire for any other thing except this chant (Massera J., 1998, p 26,27).

In another case Nauman plays a conceptual game, and to understand it one must follow his game plan- the narrative pattern of the exhibition. Seated on a bench, one can watch, on five projectors, huge images of four women and one man jabbering about world peace in a work titled, appropriately, 'World Peace.' Listening carefully to the loudspeakers, one begins to decipher what their overlapping voices are saying: 'I'll talk, you'll listen to me', 'You'll talk, I'll listen to you', 'They'll talk, we'll listen to them', and so on, until all the possibilities of singular and plural repeats. The figures speak somewhat assertively, more or less like preachers or teachers trying to make a point. At the back room: three screens projected giant images of hands peacefully playing rather repetitive, monotonous Western Country Music (Kuspit D., 1996).

Bill Viola showed of the ‘The Arc of Ascent’ (1992), a huge, slow motion projection of a man in loose clothing jumping into and floating around in a pool before, tape reversed, gathering all the air bubbles to himself and shooting off screen into darkness and silence. Our understanding of the body is a fundamental factor in Viola's art. It is 'the neglected key of our contemporary lives', and its trajectory from cradle to grave is pictured in his Nantes Triptych (1992) in which a similar floating figure is flanked on the left by film of Viola's wife giving birth to their son, and on the right by his mother, nearing death, lying on a hospital bed.

While Oursler emphasised the projections onto objects in the space, Nauman is interested in the filmed performance and in the orally acoustic properties of the text. The way these artists played a conceptual game combining film, sound and action was the motivation for me to work in a similar way.

 

The project

To create the dialogue of 'Crito' in a sculptural way I used raw material which I combined using technological means. In particular, in my work, I used plaster, two video players and two video-projectors. Since the dialogue involves two people - Socrates and Crito- talking to each other and having a philosophical discussion I had to create two heads. In the beginning I made an armature big enough for a double of a life size head. Then I used two photographs of a student studying in the Wimbledon School of Art, a profile one and a full face one, and I made his head in clay. The student modelled for me for about a day. I needed about two weeks to finish, and then I made the cast using rubber and plaster. I was provided with the materials from the W.S.A. When I finished the first head, I did the same work using another student as a model. The whole process lasted about two and a half months, and finally I had two heads, double life size in plaster. The whiteness of the plaster helped me a lot in the use of video-projections.

I borrowed a video camera from the film and video room of the W.S.A. and I recorded the two men while they were reading Plato's dialogue 'Crito' from the book 'The Dialogues of Plato' translated by F. J. Church. It took me three weeks to edit the dialogue in the film and video room. In the end, I had two VHS tapes. In the first one I edited Crito's part of the dialogue while in the second Socrates's part.

When the presentation took place in the Lecture room of W.S.A. during a private view, I placed the two heads at the end of the room, on the floor and I set the two video players and the two video projectors in front of the heads. I also placed some chairs at the back of the room in case someone wanted to follow the dialogue. When the two video projectors were switched on, I switched on the two video players at the same time. The film of each VHS was projected to each head, transforming them into live heads where the one was speaking and the other was replying. The whole dialogue lasted forty minutes. The outcome was like a hologram in space, saying the ancient dialogue of Plato.

(5) Crito: installation view

'Crito' is a Plato dialogue which has mostly to do with obedience to the law. Socrates was sentenced to death by the Athenians and the day before he dies, a friend of his, called Crito, powerful in Athens goes to his cell and tries to convince him to escape. He says to him that he and his friends are going to be humiliated in Athens because that they couldn't help their friend by saving his life. Socrates replies that honourable people are not going to think about this, and that the opinion of the masses has no importance, since many people are not able to do something good, or even something bad, without seeking the opinion of wiser men. Crito says also that he has friends in Thessaly where Socrates could live with for the rest of his life, if he escapes from jail. Furthermore he says that by accepting the punishment it equals the abandonment of his family as he's going to die. Socrates replies that he spent all his life obeying the law and speaking about justice and virtue, which means that if he disobeys the law this time, at the age of seventy, he would become a liar for the rest his life. What kind of life could he live in another place, even in Thessaly, while he could listen to the truth about his previous behaviour at anytime? What is going to become of his speeches when he supported justice and virtue all his life? What would become of his children they had a father humiliated in that way?

(6) Crito: Socrates

I chose this text because I wanted to present an ancient Greek philosophical dialogue to an English audience in a contemporary installation. This dialogue was in the English language, which was even more interesting as it was being presented by Greek people. In this case the dialogue plays the role of a symbolical tongue that transfers ideas and gives a chance for critical conversation. The text is taken out of its original context as it is addressed to a contemporary audience through an installation but it does not lose its meaning and significance. The idea of moral values becomes an important concept here. It is up to the viewer when these ideas are being presented to him to take them further and think about them in a more critical way.

(7) Crito: Crito

Most of the video projections I've seen show mainly psychopathic faces, sick people and sounds, lots of traumas. The audience can be shocked and get emotionally hurt viewing those images instead of a positive development that an artwork can create. I wanted to use video projections in a different way taking ideas from philosophy, religion or nature.

Although this work is still in an experimental stage, some of my basic intentions have been achieved. I was successful in giving a new dimension to these two pieces of plaster that would seem rather unimportant without the video projection on them. The new space created, involving the presence of an audience taking part in the whole process, becomes an active setting where philosophical ideas are presented.

A way to improve the piece would be the use of real actors reciting the dialogue in order to avoid technical problems like the undesired movement onto the plaster. If also the heads were of a bigger size, they could be placed in a bigger space like a shopping centre or a square. I could imagine myself, in a park or a square, where all the statues are silent, and suddenly some of them start speaking about philosophy, contemporary ideas or art. Such an idea would be very important and fit well with the ancient Greek dialogues which usually took place in front of the public. In the ancient agora of Athens people used to express their ideas in the presence of an audience. This fact invites us to ask a question about who speaks in the public arena today. Television is a simple example of talking heads who speak in public. Politicians, scientists and public persons in general use television to present their statements in public. As a sculptor I am more interested in considering art as an alternative way of expressing ideas that are addressed to a large number of people usually considered as a social body and not as individuals.

Setting an installation like this in a public space would also mean that it becomes a monument. The question is: what is a monument and what is its use? Most monuments represent authority, usually depicting Gods, priests, generals, politicians etc. According to Krauss the logic of sculpture is inseparable from the logic of the monument. By virtue of this logic a sculpture is a commemorative representation. It sits in a particular place and speaks in a symbolical tongue about the meaning or use of that place. The equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelious is such a monument, set in the center of the Campidoglio to represent by its symbolical presence the relationship between ancient, Imperial Rome and the seat of government of modern, Renaissance Rome. Bernini's statue of the Conversion of Constantine, placed at the foot of the Vatican stairway connecting the Basilica of St. Peter to the heart of the papacy is another such monument, a marker in a particular place for a specific meaning/event (Krauss R., 1985, p 33).

Taking into consideration the previous historical summary I would say that using projections onto objects such as monumental sculpture needs further research as to the specific use of them, in a specific space, for a specific concept.

I am already organising another work which is going to be an installation concerning ants and I think that it is going to be more developed as I am already familiar with the problems of using a camera. I intend to record a busy ants nest for an hour, find the sound effects that ants produce and project it onto the floor where I will have installed a very big ant nest made of plaster. The concept in this case has to do with nature: a world that we almost never notice and the common elements that it has in common with human behaviour.

This research project is an effort to organise a work process in relation to video projections. The study of similar works that other artists have done in the past has helped me to experiment in a different way than that which I am used to. W.S.A. offered me the equipment and the support needed for converting my concept into art.

 

Bibliography

 

Web-references

 

List of illustrations