The piece was presented by The Beck’s/ARTANGEL Commission. Oursler has worked in video and mixed media since leaving art school in the mid-seventies - when the cumbersome Sony Portapak reigned supreme.
Conceptually, the work - which was simultaneously running in Madison Square Park in NY - is devised from the human attraction to virtual and moving imagery. It explores how this fascination and the technology allow us to enter different psychological states. As a result, giant talking heads, hands and eyes rolled around the trees and buildings. Eerie and ghoulish voices ranted and hissed in the night, interacting with the natural elements and sounds.
Oursler positioned five Sony LCD video projectors around the Park, beaming images onto trees and buildings. Footage included references to some key characters in the history of telecoms and media. Emphasis was also placed on the advent of the telegraph in the mid-19th century. Source material for the event combined art history with science and spiritualism - the ideas of ‘spirits’ trying to communicate with the ‘living’ via tapping, knocking and Morse techniques. It also featured early pioneers of moving image and magic lantern theatre techniques.The installation was production managed by Simon Byford and Simon Corder - who often team up for more leftfield projects as ‘Simon Squared’. The site manager was Ruari Cormack.
The video equipment was supplied by RSVP; the Sony projectors were chosen because they were small, bright and weather-resistant - educated guesses pre-empting the schizoid November weather!
Each of the five video ‘stations’ was self-contained with its own projector and rack-mounted VHS player, small mixer and amplifier, plus a pair of EV S200 speakers for the ‘local’ soundtrack from the player. Two of the projectors were mounted on customised ‘fluid head’ camera tripods, and manually panned and tilted around the park by their operators. One projector was tipped on its side to scroll text vertically up a tree-trunk.
Essentially low-tech in production for a high-impact result, the challenge was not in mind-boggling technology, but in getting the results exactly to Oursler’s precise brief. Central to the show was not hiding the machinery. When the video tapes ran out part-way through each three hour session, they were simply re-wound and restarted.
The audio equipment was supplied by Dimension Audio. In addition to the above, four further EV S2000s resided in each corner of the square, emitting a soundscape of weird and interesting communication sounds and voices. The audio source came from a CD player located in the quaint ‘house’ in the middle of the Square. An audio feed from the same CD player was sent to a ‘talking light box’ customised by Oursler which contained a 500W halogen lamp located in the bushes, which pulsed in unison with the dialogue.
In the house, another audio feed from a Sony Discman was connected to a 200W BC light bulb - the largest they could find - for a similar effect. Also inside was the Spirit Folio Notepad feeding the external light box. Two JBL Control 1s were rigged outside the house, radiating outwards into the Square.
The drama of the work was enhanced by five smoke machines, one at each equipment station. This is a difficult production element to get right outdoors at the best of times! Two F100s, selected for their gusto and instant reaction, were supplied by Jon Cadbury at VLPS and used to build up a general haze. Three MiniMists were then steamed in to fill the gaps.
The ‘house’ yielded a 32A power supply that was more than adequate for production needs. Overnight security was provided by the Westminster Parks Department, who were ge
