‘Glowing Video Projections On The Benjamin Franklin Parkway’
The Winter Fountains exhibition, part of the city’s Parkway 100 Celebration, illuminates the Benjamin Franklin Parkway this winter with a stunning nighttime display of glowing videos projected onto four large domes.
These inspirational installations will be showcased until March 18, 2018 and can be found at Aviator Park, outside the Rodin Museum, at the Park Towne Place Residences and at the Spring Garden Triangle.
Exhibition Overview
These installations are created by multimedia artist Jennifer Steinkamp and commissioned by the Association for Public Art with support from the William Penn Foundation.
When Steinkamp was invited by aPA on behalf of the Parkway Council to consider an installation for the Parkway, she studied the historical significance of the city’s grand boulevard, the collections of its art and science institutions, the architectural elements of the landscape including its landmark fountains, and the Parkway’s more recent namesake – Benjamin Franklin. The resulting work draws on these investigations and is punctuated by Franklin’s explorations into a form of energy that was little understood in his day – electricity.
The fountains are comprised of translucent domes that features four 13ft-high and 26ft-wide architectural domes – metaphorical winter fountains – that glow with Steinkamp’s phantasmagoric and dream-like animated video projections. These surfaces are interlaced with glitter to capture and play with sunlight during the day, just as true fountains would.
At night, the installations transform through the activation of 16 projectors. Each dome will feature phantasmagoric and dream-like imagery in its own distinct hue, whether cool green or blue, or warm red/pink or yellow. The imagery reimagines the formation of electricity in clouds, inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s research and evoking the art and science explorations represented by the Parkway institutions.
Gail Harrity, president and chief operating officer of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and chairperson for the Parkway 100 Committee had this to say.
“Not only will Winter Fountains animate the Parkway Museums District at night during the coming winter months, but its themes will also serve to deepen appreciation for the Parkway’s significant collections.”
Overall, you will witness asteroid-shaped particles hurl forward in space, cave-like features, inconsistencies like jagged bolts of lightning that appear to be drawn by hand and showers of bright, tiny, spring flowers that seemingly appear from nowhere and much more.
Location
Four points along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at Aviator Park, outside the Rodin Museum, at the Park Towne Place Residences and at the Spring Garden Triangle.
Philadelphia, PA
Dates
November 30, 2017 – March 18, 2018
Times
Best times Sunset to Midnight
Cost
Free
Web Site
Photos by Jeff Belonger for MyPhillyAlive
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