Shambala Art Exhibition: fun with YrWall
Written by Nicky Getgood on Saturday, October 11th, 2008 ( Start discussion )
Tags: floodgatest, jibbering, newso, shambala, tommohogan, wildbuilding, yrwall
yrWall at Bristol Festival 2008 from XD.Nitro on Vimeo.
On Thursday evening I went to Jibbering’s Shambala Art Exhibition at the Wild Building on Floodgate Street. It was a great ligging opportunity with widely-advertised FREE BEER, although you’d have to have been a heartless soul not to donate something when all profits were going to the Banunule School for Orphans, Kampala, Uganda & Malawi Education Project, Malawi.
I felt a lot more relaxed than I normally do at these art launch events, probably because it didn’t feel as self-consciously uptight as most. There were crowds of people chilling out in the back yard and the only hint of officiousness was the pretty girls with clipboards taking bids for the art pieces.
But I must admit to getting a lot more excited by the YrWall in a side room than I did about the artwork. It’s like a giant telly screen you use a spray can topped with an infa-red light to graffitti over, or in the designer Tommo Hogan’s own words:
‘YrWall is a new and exciting interactive drawing tool where users create images on a large wall using a modified spray paint can. The can contains no paint, only a button and an infrared light which is tracked using a computer and a camera. A digital palette is provided on the left side of the wall which enables the user to work with digital paint, images and animated clips.’
It’s loads of fun and according to my new friend graffiti artist Newso, pretty close to the real thing. It’s been doing the festival rounds this year and has been really successful. I can see why, when users can email themselves their creations to come home to festival souvenirs in their inbox, which they can forward at will. ‘This email will have a link to the YrWall website, from which t-shirts featuring their design, with the option to include your festival logo, can be ordered.’ This guy’s a genius.
The Shambala Exhibition remains on display in the Wild Building until this Friday 17th October, open 10.30am-6.30pm.
