Site-specific audio visual installation for platform BUNKER.
May 23–June 3, platform BUNKER, Copenhagen, Denmark
Leon Battista Alberti’s book On Painting from 1435 begins like this: “Let me tell you what I do when I am painting. First of all, on the surface on which I am going to paint, I draw a rectangle (…) which I regard as an open window” This book is one of the first to describe the principles of perspective drawing in the early Renaissance. Perspective drawing is a technique so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget it’s an invention. It has had a profound impact on how we depict the world around us.
On Perspective paraphrases Alberti’s treatise, and juxtaposes it with a therapeutic visualization method. In this exercise, the patient must internally visualize a garden (imagined or real) in order to open up complex emotions, or find calm. On Perspective investigates how our collective imagination of the world is shaped by pictorial representations, and how that in turn affects the visualization of our internal, emotional lives.
On Perspective delves into the history of perspective drawing: from a shining beam of light through a window, to horizons and grids, to modern and contemporary interpretations, such as the panorama painting – a genre that flourished in the 19th century as a proto-cinematic entertainment technology, and still exists today. The panorama painting has, in turn, left its mark on contemporary 3D-visualization technologies, such as virtual reality, planetariums, and immersive installations, all of which are based on the principles from perspective drawing.
On Perspective is a motorized rotating video projection created specifically for the unique circular architecture of platform BUNKER, an artist-run exhibition space housed within a Cold War-era bunker in the heart of the Frederiksberg-neighborhood of Copenhagen, Denmark.