P003 → The stars are projectors yeah, 2022
The stars are projectors yeah, 2022
Image projection, cotton fabric, analog circuitry, vibration motors, plinth
Smith’s third year BFA project, The stars are projectors yeah (2022), reflects on our interactions with human-made light and sensory experiences encountered during the trauma response of derealization. Throughout their life, Smith experienced heightened sensitivity to light and colour during derealization. This magnification provided them with the “superpower” of seeing light and colour instead of just recognizing the two as signs for us to decode. The Stars Are Projectors, Yeah attempts to defamiliarize everyday lights and colours for viewers to experience them in a new way–heightening the average to encounter the sublime.
Viktor Shklovsky’s theory of defamiliarization from “Art, as Device” (1917) can articulate links between colour, light, mental health, and human connection. Shklovsky proposed that defamiliarizing concepts for the viewer–or what he calls “enstrangement”–is what allows the viewer to engage with artwork–or see it–instead of being solely recognized and then passed by. Semiologically, something that asks for more interrogation is the meaning we have imposed on everyday light, colour, and coloured light which has left us to recognize them, but not–in Shklovsky’s terms–to see them as objects of wonder.