Saturday 20 November 2010

White Night Festival, Brighton 2010: Antigravity.

White Night is one of my favourite free festivals in Brighton. It takes place every year at the end of October to coincide with the ending of British Summer time. At night the streets come alive with a variety of entertainment. My favourite art work this year was an installation by Brighton based artist Steve Geliot collaborating with JD Beauvallet, Andre Walker and the art department of Durrington High School.

Tilted: Antigravity.
I filmed just a few short clips of this event as it went on for hours.




When I first saw Antigravity from a distance it looked like a UFO hovering above Brighton’s City College Car Park. On closer inspection it appeared to be a huge balloon wearing a skirt, which was reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe’s iconic skirt-blowing scene in the film Seven Year Itch. The huge balloon was lifted into the air by a crane. Projected onto it appeared to be random images which danced in time with the music. As the night went on more people gathered and danced underneath. The atmosphere was quite magical and I thought this was by far the best event at the festival.

I would call the process of Antigravity to be in the field of generative art. The whole set up appeared to be a system with an autonomous factor. The balloon attached to the crane would be the controlled planned aspect. The projected images appeared to be random, but I didn't know if they were programmed to be random, or if they were on a loop. However the wind blowing both the balloon and skirt could be seen as an autonomous element, though arguably this could also be seen as an external system in place. Yet since the external system was an unknown factor (it could have been raining with no breeze) so I think this process could possibly be called generative art!

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