Hybrid Human-Animals Become Digital Street Art in Orlando
After touring giant Safari Urbain // Parisian Wildlife projections around the streets of Paris, French artist Julien Nonnon is back with more “digital street art,” this time in Orlando, Florida. Nonnon is in town to exhibit photographs as part of SNAP! Space’s show Wild is the Wind, so he decided to do another Urban Safari on the streets of Orlando on November 21st and 22nd.
As with Parisian Wildlife, Nonnon’s Orlando projections are comprised of human-animal hybrids. To display them, he uses a projector, an iPad, and a trolley. Nonnon’s photographs of the projections also include some light art flourishes.
“I take pictures of people in the street—I choose the animal’s head and then I draw my characters,” Nonnon tells The Creators Project. “I take all my pictures in long-exposure, so that why there are light artifacts (light painting). For locations, I spot the place a few days before and I use my phone to geolocate walls.”
Nonnon’s characters are many, and appear all over the city. One features a raccoon in a hoodie on the back of a billboard. Another features a fox and baboon remix of the Back to the Future cover projected onto a pair of silos. Yet another finds a wolf in a suit underneath an overpass.
“Safari Urbain is born of a fierce desire to take the works to the streets [and] directly to people and make them reachable without degrading the walls, and then leaving without a trace,” Nonnon explains. “This bestiary, coming right out of fashion magazines, questions our behavior, our ambivalent desire to be both unique and wanting to belong to a well-defined group.”
“In our way of dressing, we express our vision of the world, while indirectly revealing our social position and financial power,” he adds. “Fashion is nothing other than a means of communication, of integration and belonging to a group. Thus, I show through anthropomorphic creatures such urban myths and social influence which can lead to conformity.”
Click here to see more of Julien Nonnen’s work.