Project Proposal

For my final project as part of my Masters in Interactive Media, I will be working with Interactive Digital projections. I hope to be able to do this with film and still photography.
I would like to experiment with projecting the film in outdoor spaces, in particular
under bridges. The reason for this is twofold. Firstly, I am interested in subject matter that is water related, both fictional, and real. Secondly the underside of a bridge presents an ideal dark space for digital projection and it also an ideal location for light reflection on water. Acoustically the reverb in a space like this would give an additional element to the work.
While I have done one outdoor film projection in the past and used sound, I was never
convinced by my choice or mix of sound, however after working with Logic I feel my vocabulary has increased and I am really looking forward to composing a sound track to fit the piece.
The type of projections that I would envisage for such a space would involve water,
images of fish swimming, grasses waving etc. I will also use imagery, which is not
native to that particular location. It could be a larger species of fish or more surreal imagery of people swimming dressed in various attires, playing instruments,
snorkeling or to give it a real twist, figures in the water photographing the viewer on the outside.
The intention is to project this imagery under the span of a bridge. This is the guiding principle of the piece, but as of yet I have to work out how feasible this would be in practical, technical, and financial terms.
Therefore, I have to take in to account the possibility of this not being applicable in terms of site specifics. If this were the case the work would also have to situated in a more practical site, like a darkened space. Even though this would bring a very
different ambience to the project, it should also be able to hold its impact within such an indoor environment. In fact it could work quite well if it was projected on to a floor space and the viewer could interact with it in this way. Their are many commercial examples of interactive projections to be found on the web.
I have had some discussion with the manager of the University of Limerick
Swimming Complex with regards to using the old pool in the university. He thinks it
will be possible if the appropriate arrangements are in place, to film in this setting.
This would enable me to photograph and film swimmers from outside the pool
through the glass wall. I hope to be able to work with a group of people and film them
together and individually in the water. From this I will edit the images in Photoshop,
and rework and mix them to give them a more mysterious element.
With the still photography images I will experiment with projecting them onto three dimensional objects and also work with the images so they are interactive. I have
already seen projected imagery that is reactive when a viewer interacts with it. This is one of the ways in how I would see the work as being interactive.
With the film images I will edit them in Final Cut Pro and experiment with mixing the
imagery to similar affect.
In the last six months I have made new work both in the university and elsewhere (as seen on my website). As this work is new and emerging, I hope to be able to continue working with this type of imagery. See figure 1.and 2. This allows me to concentrate on exploring the technical aspects such as the three dimensional interactive projections, filming scenes both in and out of the water, and projecting and photographing these images on to three dimensional surfaces.

I have not yet fully figured out the full interactive nature of the work, and this is fine as I would also like to leave this aspect as a creative dimension to the piece. This area needs to be looked at. Suggestions are welcome!