Installation and Apparition
Guest: Laurent Liefooghe
This session will focus on the creation of presence through mediation starting from the project Viewmaster by Laurent Liefooghe, Heike Langsdorf and Ula Sickle. Viewmaster uses an optical trick originating in nineteenth-century theatre, the so-called Pepper’s Ghost illusion. The spectator looks at the stage through an invisible angled wall of glass. What she doesn’t see is that there is another space to the left of the stage. When objects or figures are illuminated in this hidden space, they are reflected onto the glass wall so that they appear as ghostly apparitions on stage.
Liefooghe, Langsdorf and Sickle (re)created the apparatus of the Pepper’s Ghost illusion and explored its potential for creating a performance, the result of which will be presented in theater Huis aan de Werf (Boorstraat 107, Utrecht, http://www.huisaandewerf.nl) on February 2, 20.30h. They now offer the installation to other artists to create performances with. The first one to explore the potential of the Viewmaster is Inari Salamvaari and her performance will be shown on the same day as our Seminar, February 26 and 27 (again 20.30h in Huis aan de Werf).
During our seminar session, Laurent Liefooghe will present the Viewmaster project and discuss it with us in the context of the following literature:
- Jeremy Brooker: The Polytechnic Ghost: Pepper’s Ghost, Metempsychosis and the Magic Lantern at the Royal Polytechnic Institution. In: Early Popular Visual Culture 5,2, 2007, pp. 189-206.
See also: