MERCEDES HOUSE / Dancers (Red & White)

Dancers (Red & White) is a site-specific, dynamically generated animation, commissioned for the North lobby of Mercedes House in New York City. Artists Camille Utterback and Michelle Higa collaborated to create this projected artwork.

On the wall behind the reception desk, two projected lines – one red, one white – waltz across a twenty foot expanse. Each pair of dancing lines, and the parameters that control them, are selected in real time by software rules designed by the artists.

The spare yet fluid qualities of this piece are inspired by architect Enrique Norton’s unconventional spaces. As the projected lines of the artwork freely dance and morph across the wall, they echo the unfettered shifts and turns of the space itself.

Dancers hints at the possibility that the swirling light on the wall has mischievously escaped the linear paths of the lobby’s accent lighting. Instead of running in its predetermined tracks, the light now dances with a partner in ever changing, flirtatious duets.

Client: Two Trees/Mercedes House
Artists: Camille Utterback & Michelle Higa Fox
Animation: Phil Borst, Jorge R. Canedo Estrada
Programming: Slanted Studios

November 2012