Philly Style • January/February 2004
Klip Art
by Joseph Dennis Kelly II

Imagine seeing artworks from the Louvre in the house of a friend on Friday night only to return on Saturday to find an endless stream of moving clouds dancing on the same walls. It's not a hallucinatIon. It's the surrealistic thrill of video projection, a popular art form that's most often found at dance clubs and art galleries. It's now available for residential use thanks to the entrepreneurial ingenuity of Bella Vista's Klip//Collective, a new collaborative spearheaded by Philadelphia photographer and commercial filmmaker Pier Nicola D'Amico and local video artist and veejay Ricardo Rivera.

What makes Klip's work distinctive from conventional video projection is that D'Amico and Rivera developed a video mapping system for simultaneously projecting several digital images onto multiple surfaces - walls, ceilings, floors, windows and furniture - through a single digital projector and laptop. The light and, imagery are mixed with sound elements to create soothing, healing and rejuvenating atmospheres. Klip's projections integrate imagery and sound in compositions that challenge viewers to reconsider their relationships with the dimensions of space and the meaning of place in exciting ways.

"In its pure form, [our work] is a juxtaposition of space and art," says D'Amico, adding that his work derives its organic quality from chaos theory. "This technology allows someone to sit in a room and be [transported to] a Buddhist temple or the rain forest or the top of a mountain."

Using non-narrative imagery, Klip's projections aim to balance the conflict between technology and aesthetics. Minima owner Eugenie Perret, who hosted Klip's inaugural exhibit on First Friday this past October, is looking forward to the evolution of this medium from surface projections on walls to interactive environments where objects come alive three dimensionally. While still in its infancy, Klip's work is revealing uncharted potential that promises to transform interior residential spaces from visually static to animatedly dynamic environments.