“A Practical Demonstration” is an exercise in suspended orbits, suspended disbelief and circular group formations.
This two part project consists of a circle of local amateur videographers documenting a stuntman leaping from Machine Project’s 2nd story window and another circle of international participants documenting the sun for 24 hours as the earth spins in its daily orbit.
Part One: On Sunday July 6th at 6pm a stuntman will leap from Machine Project’s 2nd story window. We would like to invite folks to attend the leap, with a miniDV video camera (everyone’s got one nowadays, we can probably even supply you with one if you don’t). The videographers will be arranged in a large circle on the ground around the spot where the body will fall. They will document the leap and then turn over their video footage (tapes to be provided, unless you want to donate one). This footage will then be edited to create a very clumsy “Matrix” effect that suspends the stuntperson in mid-air with a 360 degree pan. We would like to get at least 40 people to film, so tell a friend.
Part Two: On Friday July 11th Machine Project will be presenting the edited stunt footage with a live video companion piece. For one 24-hour period an international circle of people will chase the sun around the earth. This would happen by having a participant in every time zone point their computer camera to the sky between 11:30am and 12:30pm, thus a human chain, one timezone handing off to the next, following the sun around the globe perpetually holding it aloft and feeding back “mid-day” to Machine Project via live video. This event/video would be projected in the space live for 24 hours.
