Projected Animals Light Up an Island in the Azores

A tiger walks on water off the coast of the Sao Miguel Island in the projected animations of VJ Suave's latest video series. As part of their Walk & Talk art residency, the digital artist duo projected playful illustrations onto different areas of the island, exploring how their animations interacted against various natural elements. In one particular animation, a colorful bird flies across the face of an oceanside cliff. In another, a mermaid jumps out of the ocean, sits on a rock to stretch and then jumps back in the water. The elevate the Azores island's sprawling landscapes and pristine natural beauty by casting it in a literally new light.

VJ suave consists of Ceci Soloaga and Ygor Marotta; the couple works together in Sao Paulo on different projects like these mobile projection tricycles for example. Their illustrations have a youthful charm to them, brightly colored two-dimensional characters far better fit for a children’s story than a scientific journal. VJ Suave documented each animation through long-exposure photography in order to create a series of stop-motion videos that show each animations in action. They reportedly spent roughly five hours on each piece, exploring how the projections generated different textures and reflections within the different landscapes.

According to the artists each picture was exposed for 15 seconds. The "O sopro da criação e a contemplação do universo," video, for example, of a woman lounging on a half-crescent, was made from 284 photos without any post-production. Check out the stop-motion clips in the video below:

Nature projections in São Miguel Island from vjsuave on Vimeo.

More of VJ Suave’s work can be found on their website.

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