If you haven’t yet, I would definitely recommend that you head down to Te Papa and check out Body Movies.
Part of the Arts Festival, the installation projects street photography in combination with the silhouettes of the viewers – producing something akin to overscaled shadow puppetry. Conceived by artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, and sponsored by Meridian Energy, it is the 6th in a series of “Relational Architecture” projects that explore “the intersections between new technologies, public space and performance art”.
Unfortunately, all the photos I took are horrible. I need to get my tripod back…
I’ll restrain myself from launching into architectural theory/analysis; the fact is that Movies is a playfull, interactive, inquisitive and entertaining piece of public art. Although there is something of a game to it (matching the shadows with the portraits), the real fun is in exploring the possibilities of silhouetted poses and motions. Mock fights, dances, push ups and King Kong impersonations seem to be the standard fare, what were some of the more innovative tricks that everyone had seen done?
Body Movies runs nightly from 9pm through 1am, on the Cable St façade of Te Papa. The installation is in place till the 16th of March.
