WALKING ON WATER - FREEMANS BAY RETROSPECTIVE

final concept, developments and conclusions

we chose to display a screen in an old dinghy next to victoria park market, cutting movement from a live feed into a hypothetical reimagining of freemans bay. thus, placing passers by into the historical narrative as they pass by.

footage was taken at islington bay, auckland. this location being chosen as it closely resembles the topography and physical characteristics of freemans bay in 1840 (as depicted in drawings/photos from that time).
we are using the old dinghy to house the screen because this draws further on the fact that where the viewer currently stands (in situe of freemans bay/victoria park market) used to be where the ocean stood.
170 years ago they would have been splashing around in the middle of the bay.

we are linking the concepts of the missing water of freemans bay to the relevance this has to us as inhabitants of contemporary aotearoa.

we have created a window to the past;

we used MAX/MSP to program the video feeds together and decided to add the image of the back of the boat to the bottom of the shot to help the viewer identify the link between what they see on screen and the current physical landscape they see before them.
also, we added speakers and a soundtrack to enhance the experience further. we looped a brief explaination of the project (in english and in the local maori dialect) to draw in the public and help them understand the display. we kept this short as we felt the length of time most people would stop would be fairly short. we wanted to make it immediately inviting, add to the visuals (as any decent AV display should) with sloshing sounds etc, and make it clear for the viewer.

we added a square rigger mast and sail as a support frame and backing for our screen. the rigging shape echoed that of ships from the 1800’s..
as we constructed this structure it became apparent that the shape we had chosen has certain religious significance (the cross) too. we decided to embrace this as it could enhance the idea of ‘walking on water’. ultimately, we decided the small lcd screen had to go, as it interrupted the overall aesthetic of the boat/screen and was not big enough to dominate the audiences focus.

below is a demo video showing the screen output that was played on the small lcd screen initially, then projected directly onto the sheet after some refinements and tinkering;

projecting straight onto the sheet gives the whole display cohesion and seems like a much more natural way to portray our concept;

the choice to project straight onto the sail solved our screen problems. plus, viewing the video outcome at night, on cloudy days or in dark rooms gives a sense of a ghostly presence which adds to the nostalgic feel.