Bruce McClure: what remained to complete a circumnavigation of the planet

In Person: Bruce McClure

The “projection performances” of New York-based artist and architect Bruce McClure are immersive cinematic, or proto-cinematic, happenings. Lightning surges of luminescence and thunderclaps of sine waves create visceral experiences on the screen and in the body. McClure’s illuminations are time-based: they are essentially ephemeral and singular, existing outside the bounds of simulation and reproduction. His alchemical, hallucinatory experiments with light, darkness and sound employ anywhere from two to four projectors running simultaneously. As beams of light converge with optically generated sound, the audience is enveloped in interactive play with apparatus. His projection performance art, McClure claims, developed from an excursion into sound experimentation while employing his professional skills of draftsmanship: “[I] crossed over into the realm of the proto-cinematic as a consequence of trying to represent the beat of a metronome in time with the ultimate goal of laying down a line equal to the circumference of the earth at the equator. By recording the tempo and duration of my markings on paper I could calculate the distance traveled and what remained to complete a circumnavigation of the planet.”

McClure will conduct four unique performances using two projectors: You Know My Methods (2003), Christmas Tree Stand - Part 1 (2004), Evertwo Circumflicksrent Page 298 (2007), and Cong In Our Gregational Pompoms (2009).