On Sunday, June 12th, I and assistant Ruslan Eliseev created a pop-up image among the trees on the Minervalaan.It was in fact a figurative image. In the winding slightly chaotic shapes there is a recognizable human figure. This figure is in the so-called prostration posture: sprawled stretched out on the ground, face down and arms stretched forward. This attitude expresses surrender and is practiced in various spiritual traditions.
Why here?
For two reasons it seemed to me a good idea to precisely put this figure here. First of all, this place evokes associations with a church/cathedral of trees. The trunks of these trees are splitting relatively low above the ground in curved branches which grow very vertical and exuberant upwards. So the trees form a canopy of leaves and under this roof a very special high space.
Reason two is that how perspective works is very visible on this place. The trees in the two rows are getting smaller towards the end. So does the lawn too. A long elongated figure consisting of lines could benefit and respond optimally to this phenomenon. Challenge was to lay the figure in such a way that a powerful image and virtual reality experience is the result. Photo and VR are after all the legacy of this fleeting pop-up image.
Design
The figure Echoes the symmetry of the design of the environment. The curved branches get back in the limbs. In this way the image is harmoniously inserted in the surrounding area. The strictly geometrically symmetric structure is mitigated and compensated by the free form game in the lines. The use of the blinds material in a figurative way leads through the nature of the material (tightly geometric, smooth and flawless white) very easy to highly idealized forms and figures. By introducing a kind of chaos, by freely braiding the lamellae around each other, has been tried to get a counterbalance. On the one hand, viewed at a distance, there is a fusion of form to a few powerful light chaotic lines on the other hand is close, for who walks alongside the image, an order to be seen in many surprising shapes. This game of forms provided by the material, could be directed toward shapes that resemble human anatomy. With the necessary imagination associations can be made with knuckles, muscles, tendons, and bones. At other places associations can be made with people / animals who flatter each other.
Free use of the organic form leads easily to figurative associations. The linguistic/figurative aspect naturally arises out of the organic form.
Open space
This figurative is an important feature of this work. A second feature is the open space in and around the figure that has been consciously managed The open space is provided for the figurative. Aim was to get this open space into the figure itself and to open the figure above and below to this open space. Furthermore, it is important to note that the lines are mostly separate from each other causing them to gain independence within the image.
thanks
For the realization of this picture I've worked in a pleasant way with assistant Ruslan Eliseev I want to thank him warmly for his commitment and creative contribution to the realization of this work.
More pictures of this work can be seen here at 'location Minervalaan'.
June 13, 2016