On Perspective by Magnus Pind
23 May-2 June 2024 – Part of Art Matter Festival
11 October 2024 – Part of Culture Night
On Perspective is an audiovisual installation featuring a rotating video projector, designed specifically for the unique globe-shaped architecture of platform BUNKER. The installation is a contemporary interpretation of a panorama painting; the 19th-century proto-cinematic precursor to modern day entertainment technologies such as virtual reality, IMAX, and immersive installations.
All of these entertainment systems rely on semi-naturalistic 360-degree reproductions of the physical world, and therefore employ principles from perspective drawing. This technique originated in the Renaissance with a desire to represent the world as accurately and naturally as possible.
Today, perspective drawing is a fundamental premise for how we depict the world around us. On Perspective investigates the relationship between our perception of the world and our experience of it.
Leon Battista Alberti’s book On Painting from 1435 begins like this:
“Let me tell you what I do when I am painting. First of all, on the surface on which I am going to paint, I draw a rectangle (…) which I regard as an open window”
This book is one of the first to describe the principles of perspective drawing in the early Renaissance. Perspective drawing is a technique so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget it’s an invention. It has had a profound impact on how we depict the world around us.
On Perspective paraphrases Alberti’s treatise, and juxtaposes it with a therapeutic visualization method. In this exercise, the patient must internally visualize a garden (imagined or real) in order to open up complex emotions, or find calm. On Perspective investigates how our collective imagination of the world is shaped by pictorial representations, and how that in turn affects the visualization of our internal, emotional lives.
On Perspective delves into the history of perspective drawing: from a shining beam of light through a window, to horizons and grids, to modern and contemporary interpretations, such as the panorama painting – a genre that flourished in the 19th century as a proto-cinematic entertainment technology, and still exists today. The panorama painting has, in turn, left its mark on contemporary 3D-visualization technologies, such as virtual reality, planetariums, and immersive installations, all of which are based on the principles from perspective drawing.
On Perspective is a motorized rotating video projection created specifically for the unique circular architecture of platform BUNKER, an artist-run exhibition space housed within a Cold War-era bunker in the heart of the Frederiksberg-neighborhood of Copenhagen, Denmark.
For over a decade, Magnus Pind has created video works as an ongoing visual analysis of the technological, societal, and personal systems that shape our lives. Pind’s video design for theater has been shown on some of Europe’s largest stages, including the Vienna State Opera (2014) and the Royal Danish Theatre (2016). His installations and performances have been shown at venues such as Kunsthal Aarhus (2023), Kunstforeningen Gl. Strand (2023), and Transmediale (2017).
Credits
Photos by Ole Akhøj
Thanks to Wahlberg Motion Design.
This exhibition was organised in collaboration with Art Matter Festival and supported by Culture Night, Frederiksberg Fonden, and Frederiksberg Kommune.