San Francisco artist Rebeca Bollinger has created a contemporary work of art for the lobby at UCSF Laurel Heights, where a streaming montage of campus images appear on a wall-sized screen and atop five shadow boxes.
The DVD projection piece, titled "Permanent Slide Show," is the latest art installation by Bollinger, who was commissioned by UCSF as part of the University's ongoing public art program. But while permanent, the work is far from a typical slide show and is a welcome addition to the once-bland lobby.
The digital video features layers of photos from both Laurel Heights and Parnassus campuses, where Bollinger spent a few months capturing 10,000 images of campus life and objects, from children at play to beakers in a research laboratory.
Some images remain stationary for a few seconds, serving as a background on the wall-sized canvas or atop a shadow box, while other images cascade gently down or move across the wall - creating a unique and interesting visual display. Depending on what time of day a passer by views the projection piece, it can be a novel experience until one sees the entire 40-minute loop on the DVD.
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| Freelance production artist Mary Gaynor views the new projection piece by Rebeca Bollinger in the lobby at UCSF Laurel Heights. |
For Bollinger, who did not want to be quoted for this story, the work represents the idea of "in and out," using shadow boxes as if to literally bring the interior of a campus building out, and featuring shots of campus flora and cityscapes to bring exteriors inside. In many scenes, the photos contrast each other from wide shots of vertical files on a shelf to the small, almost whimsical international icons of men and women streaming by.
The three-dimensional shadow boxes - made of varying shapes and placed at varying distances from the wall -- add a sculptural element to the piece and cast shadows on the wall. In fact, people themselves can interact with the work as well casting their own shadows on the wall when standing or walking in front of the DVD projector installed overhead in the first-floor lobby.
To create the piece to her satisfaction, Bollinger built an exact model of the work in her San Francisco studio with a full-scale projection and foam core model.
An award-winning artist, Bollinger created a similar work for the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in 1999. For that work, titled "The Collection Descending," she culled together every image in the museum and streamed the small images in a fast-paced DVD projection piece. For another work, she downloaded images from personal websites and imprinted them onto the surface of cookies and other baked goods.
Bollinger's projection piece is the latest example of art work chosen specifically for Laurel Heights by the Chancellor's Committee on Art, Honors and Recognition, chaired by Samuel Barondes, professor of psychiatry. Two other works by Bollinger, one-dimensional mosaics of images presented horizontally - hang in Genentech Hall at UCSF Mission Bay.
A resident of Oakland, Bollinger received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1993. She has received numerous awards and grants, including the James D. Phelan Video Media Award in 2004 and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's SECA Award in Electronic Media in 1996. She has shown her work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the San Jose Museum of Art and the Museum Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany, among other museums.
Source: Lisa Cisneros
