3-30-11 (Wed)

Last weekend new media artist Charles Sandison was a featured speaker at the Logan Lecture Series at the Denver Art Museum. His technologically driven installation, “Chambers,” was also on display at Blink! Light, Sound, and the Moving Image, also at the DAM. I experienced his intriguing installation prior to hearing his speech and I was then very interested in hearing his thoughts and what motivated his artwork.

In the first part of his lecture he discussed the importance of his Scottish heritage and highlighted other early influences that shaped his artistic style and future. As a young boy and young man growing up in Scotland, he felt a deep kinship for his homeland. The harmony, beauty, and love of this land grounded him with a sense of personal strength and a soul connection which has inspired him spiritually and artistically throughout his life. In many ways his ethereal philosophical outlook and sensitivities seem similar to Taoism, a mystical union with nature.

Sandison also discussed the challenges he faced as a dyslexic student in the typical left- brain traditional school environment. Perhaps his ability to perceive life and his surroundings from a little different vantage point have added to his conceptual ideas. Computers at this time were just becoming common and he found it easier to visually learn digitally. Later, while at art school he experimented with impressionism and photography but eventually found the his true passion in conceptual computer programming.

The second part of the lecture Sandison showed photographs of his work, animated digital projections of light and texts projected onto architectural forms, such as the exterior facade of the famous Parisian landmark, the Grand-Palais. His video projections have also transformed many museum gallery spaces and some non-gallery space from the Peabody Essex Museum, MA to the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland. Sandison specifically emphasized that he is “more interested in the exterior facade of a museum than the interior.” It was very obvious that he has a sense of the nature and spirit of buildings. He stated, “Buildings have souls and life.” He works with these souls and they communicate their emotions and personalities through his art.

His installation, “Chamber,” is remarkable. The viewer is sensorially immersed in the installation in a darkened room except for the projected lights which send abstracted computer coded text pieces through what looks like blood vessels or molecular structures. The swirling internal text pieces are codified and I felt as if I had access to another language and a private world. I felt enveloped, treated, and transported to another realm. Some people have said that the space he created in “Chamber,” was a metaphor of a cave and a fireplace, prompting a primitive instinct. I didn’t have that vision. At his lecture I felt he was calm, composed, and creative, and at his installation I felt a part of his artistic magic.