Lorie Novak's Projected Vision

All this talk of projectors has made me think of, um... projecting. And not in the psychological sense, although I do plenty of that. The slide projector has really been an incredible tool since it came on the scene, and someone who has used it well consistently is artist Lorie Novak.

I started to make projection work when I was in grad school, and people always thought it was derivative of Novak's work, which I had never even seen. Funny how that happens. Here are images from two sets of her work; these up top are from Out of Darkness: Projections on the Night Landscape, 1987-1991.

I believe most of these exposures were several hours long.

Black Spring, 1990

Night and Fog, 1991

Family, 1990

Midnight Swim, 1990

(night swimming!)

These below are from Novak's project: Interior Photographs, 1983-1998.

The Barbeque, 1983

My Mother, 1984

Uncle Sam, 1983

Mirror Image, 1983

Fade Out, 1990

Here are two of mine. I had to dig through the vault to find these. Both are circa 2001, I believe. I sometimes projected images into my bedroom, and also just used the powerful light of the projector to make images in the dark. In the second one, which was a several minute exposure, I danced back and forth over the bed. I was wearing something glittery and gold, hence the trail. Also I seem to have liked flamingos.