SPECTRAL ILLUMINATIONS II SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 @ 8-11PM | MEMORIAL PARK LIBRARY Spectral Illuminations II is presented by EMMEDIA Gallery & Production Society, Beakerhead and the Calgary Public Library. Ten local media artists were chosen to illuminate the beautiful and historic Memorial Park Library with the art of projection mapping (site-specific projections that alter the appearance of the surface on which they are projected). These projections will light up and animate surfaces throughout the building, interpreting the amazing history of the first library in Calgary and Alberta. The selected artists developed their projection mapping project over the summer, having open access to EMMEDIA’s resources including mentorship, equipment, facilities, and a series of projection mapping workshops. For more information on this project and the artists, go to www.emmedia.ca
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PROJECT INFORMATION Telephone, Television, Projector Audrey Burch Telephone, Television, Projector is a mock museum responding to the viewership of the current age, showcasing terms that were coined as communication technology matures. This work draws attention to the desire we have to understand the world around us. We create authority to teach the assimilated knowledge we learn as we encounter the world. The coining of a new term is part of the discovery, and part of the history. The natural history museum that existed within this library in earlier times operated as a repository for natural findings while this mock museum only illustrates terms relating to the unnatural transpiration of technology. Telephone, Television, Projector challenges conventional museum tropes with humor, while drawing our attention to social and environmental problems relating to communication technology.
Paper Toyboxes Michael Grills Paper Toyboxes uses a combination of special effects, paper animation and automatons to explore the pre-history of the Memorial Park Library. The library was started by female members of the Calgary Book Club, who came together to get the combined support of the men of Calgary and Andrew Carnegie, a railroad baron. These groups didn’t often see eye to eye. 200 signatures were required to get Andrew Carnegie to donate the $50,000 to build the library. Like much of Calgary’s history, the Memorial Park Library is linked to trains.
Those Who Lie Under The Bed Jacqueline Huskisson Inspired by the monsters of our youth, Those Who Lie Under The Bed is a reflection of the nostalgia felt when imagination had engulfed our early childhood. Libraries were the destination that started the spark of imagination.
Recollector Mat Lindenberg For as long as there have been people, there have been libraries. Our ancestors carved what they knew into the walls around them, built great depositories of reeds and papyrus, told and re-told stories under the stars until they were etched into their skin and their memories. The library is a link to the past, but also the past’s way of pointing us towards the future. It holds what we’ve learned, remembered, written down, with the hope that we will take that and build onwards. It is also a window and portal into a world outside of our own, promising wonder and discovery.
Perimeter Greg Marshall Perimeter is a study of space, scale, surveillance and dislocation presented through aerial drone footage of a person walking through a stalled multiunit office development site in southeast Calgary. It is cut to a sound track of echoing footsteps and is meant to further disrupt the location. The plausibility of its location, landscape and framing are perhaps at odds with our perception.
A Book Inside the Temple of Knowledge Isabel Porto The importance of the Memorial Park Library to Calgarians and the city itself is incontestable; its classical architecture informs our history and memory. Investigating local places charged with these qualities has always fuelled my art practice. Above the main entrance of the Memorial Park Library is a relief of an open book set into the pointed pediment (triangular arch). For one evening, this exterior book will “come alive” on the inside of the building that mirrors the pointed pediment. The open book can be understood as a symbol for the democratic quality of libraries where all kind of books, stories and people coexist.
The Composition of Things Jadda Tsui In biology, living things are placed into five kingdoms which branch and narrow until a single species is reached. This system of categorization places organisms with genetic similarities closer to one another — a way to track and sort changes in evolution. Minerals, on the other hand, are classified on the basis of their chemical composition. Both of these methods of classification lie on the basis of relative certainty. Neither DNA nor chemical composition can easily be modified — things exist as the things they are because they cannot physically be anything else. There is a limit to everything. A piece of Fool’s Gold, next to worthless, existing as an emulation of the international standard for currency. A barnacle, biologically sessile, even in death, waiting in place day after day for the crashing waves. A deposit of salt, dried out in an old lake bed, left behind by the ocean it was once apart of.
PixelFiction Laura Anzola & Matthew Waddell A special bookshelf on the first floor comes to life when the lights go down and the librarians aren’t looking.
Electric Mushrooms Aran Wilkinson-Blanc When you look at a mushroom, what you are actually seeing is only part of the whole fungus organism. The main portion of a mushroom (the mycelium) is usually underground and can form complex networks over large distances. The small stalks and caps of the mushroom are the “fruiting bodies” of the organism. With this project, the mushroom represents the locations of Calgary’s libraries - physical structures with weight and presence that are access points to a service network operating behind the scenes. The overall piece connects two different locations and create a relationship between people - the video subject and the viewer, neither of whom could experience the piece by themselves.
Tyranosaurus Thesaurus Julian Zwack Tyrannosaurus Thesaurus is a skeletal dinosaur head formed of card stock paper that is illuminated by projections of dinosaur fossil recordings. The piece pays homage to the natural history exhibit of the Memorial Park Library that once showcased dinosaur fossils to visitors 100 years ago. It is formed from pages of paper and serves as a metaphorical book where the symbolized fossilized remains become a window into the natural world. Allowing us to read and interpret the story of a creature’s life and its species as a whole in a chapter of our planets natural history.
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