Topic: The art of Jeffrey Shaw

Student name: Lee Ching Chi (Billy)

Student number: 60170220

Jeffrey Shaw devoted his life primarily to exploring interactive new media art, such as using inflatable structures, circular domes, and moving platforms to expand the boundaries restricted by the traditional 16:9 rectangular cinematic view. Shaw was the Dean of the School of Creative Media at the City University of Hong Kong from 2009 to 2016. I am particularly interested in his architectural approach to cinema, where he tried to dematerialize the screen and projected his vision of live performance with architectural imagery. Shaw truly redefined the relationship between the audience and the cinematic image, transforming the traditional cinema experience from watching directly from a movie on the screen into active participation.

 

[Circular inflated dome in CORPOCINEMA]

(Img source: https://www.jeffreyshawcompendium.com/portfolio/corpocinema/) 

For my research this week, I focused on CORPOCINEMA, a work he collaborated with many other artists, such as Tjebbe van Tijen in 1967. The artwork delves deeply into the concept of how images could be projected. It questioned and criticized the rigidness of traditional cinema by exploring new ways of projection, such as projecting images onto a spherical dome rather than a fixed, passive rectangle, showing how cinema projection could be tangible.

[Images of the CORPOCINEMA dome with projections and internal actions] (Img source: https://www.jeffreyshawcompendium.com/portfolio/corpocinema/)

CORPOCINEMA contained a large transparent inflated dome as the artwork’s main element. After observing the archives of the work, I believe that this special form of art performance had a connection to a living biological cell or some cosmic bubble. The moving images projected onto the dome constantly change, as if they spawn and die just like in a contained universe. I noticed that this feature of the work is not just a simple screen for projection, but a 3D volumetric space and a stage for a live event where the cinematic fiction is made physically tangible. The transparency of the dome means that the images have no presence and meaning without the actions of the performers happening inside, creating an artistic connection between the virtual light and reality.

It got me thinking that, for my own work in the future, I could explore unconventional ways of projection and unconventional surfaces and materials for my projection screen. The combination of projection and interaction in Shaw’s works also inspired me to make use of multi-layer performances to create a new vision for cinema, hence the so-called “expanded cinema”. His vision inspired me to reflect more on how an image could be given a body (such as the inflated dome) that can grow, be twisted, and decay in real-time, allowing me to understand the concept of “expanded cinema”.