THE AGE
TODAY 3
FRIDAY 5 NOVEMBER 1999
Architecture
light on
subject
By SUZANNE BROWN
iIn a darkened room above an inner-city mechanics workshop, artist Ian
de Gruchy sits surrounded by the detritus of his work. Empty film canisters
and piles of slides in plastic sheets cover bench tops. Electrical cords
snake and dangle from every corner. Drawers bulge, boxes are ready to
burst, plugs connect to plugs like a Lego set and eight projectors sit
high on a shelf.
De Gruchy is fine-tuning some of the images he will project
on to the Capitol Theatre's facade on Sunday night to celebrate the Melbourne
treasure's reopening and launch of the new owner, RMIT's restoration fundraising
campaign. De Gruchy specialises in light projections as art installations,
theatre sets and a method of transforming buildings.
He has worked all over the world for the past 20 years,
in cities such as Venice, Amsterdam, Chicago and New York. Last month,
he completed slide projections for a major retrospective of Barbara Kruger's
work in the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. His work has adorned
Melbourne nightclub walls and has been included in numerous contemporary
art exhibitions.
The lighting of the Capitol Theatre is a smaller-scale
project than many of his big-budget works, but it has captured his imagination
and features the interconnection of many themes. Naturally enough the
lighting designs began with Marion Mahony and her husband, Walter Burley
Griffin, the theatre designers.
De Gruchy spent months scouring national archives and
poring over Mahony's sketches, A part-time lecturer in projection and
audio-visual production for RMIT's architecture department, he says he
had an abundance of material from which to choose.
A selection of these images interpreted by de Gruchy
will be projected on to the Capitol theatre as part of opening celebrations.
The theatre's fragmented facade, with many windows and a tree marring
full view, presented problems for de Gruchy. To compensate, he has chosen
graphic, busy images that will catch the eye.
Inside the theatre, de Gruchy will install a nine-minute
slide show of images charting some of the Griffin's and I Mahony's designs,
including their fascination with India.
De Gruchy says large-scale lighting installations reach
large audiences and often evoke strong responses. Projections are powerful
and can transform and camouflage a building's edifice, de Gruchy says.
"Art as being public is terrific. People can look at it or they can
walk right past, To operate on a large-scale is really exciting."
De Gruchy sees his projections as a fluid skin on, a building that can
alter it's structure with light, rather than simply being decoration.
