The next time you're downtown after dusk, look up.
The Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower at 21 S. Eutaw St. (near the Inner Harbor) has a new exhibition 16 floors up in all four faces of their famous clock.
Kelley Bell, a local artist, graphic designer and teacher in the department of visual arts at UMBC, has created a new set of colorful animated projections that light up the clock faces from the inside and can be seen from a variety of city viewpoints.
Bell created a successful series of projections this summer for the clock tower and now has applied her unique vision to a new set of animations.
The moving images are visible from dusk until dawn, and, with Daylight Savings over and the winter nights growing longer, there is a wide window of opportunity for viewing.
The opening reception was held last Saturday with the artist in attendance and the interested public ascending five at a time in the tiny elevator — the Tower is from 1911, and only measures 30 feet on each side.
But in the area between the clock faces there is plenty of room to be awed by all four projections.
One of the most attractive parts of Bell's installation is the chance to "be in the space," as she explains, rather than being in the normal passive position in front of a screen.
Inside the clock tower an array of color spins out of the darkness on all sides to surround the viewer.
Bell personally finds the projections' effect on the inside of the clock tower the most "striking" — it hits the complicated machinery from all angles, lighting up old metal with bright digital color.
Unfortunately, the public will have to wait until the next Tower open house on Dec. 3 if they want to get up in the clock tower and experience the immersive aspect of the installation.
Partially inspired by the Astronomical Clock in Prague and the ‘30s rotoreliefs of Marcel Duchamp, Bell's designs focus on astronomy, each animation featuring different stellar bodies moving in carefully orchestrated patterns.
On the west face Pluto (a small revolving skull) makes one rotation every hour to represent its approximately 249-year orbit. On the east face, the most fascinating and colorful face, the earth goes around 249 times in that hour, with the zodiac wheel turning as the moon moves from star sign to star sign.
On the south face the sun blinks a pair of huge eyes, and on the north face reside Saturn, Mars and Jupiter.
What Bell wants to emphasize is the movement, not the detail, in her designs, although the details are quite stunning — her style is full of bold colors and lines.
The projections are special because of the way they move in their circular space. The nature of the project blurs the details; they fade when viewing the tower even from a few blocks away, but the movement is still visible.
The circular movement in a unique "screen" is an important aspect of the project.
Bell wants to challenge and overturn the normal boundaries of a screen in animation, she explains.
She created her first projections eight years ago in 2003; guerrilla art installations of ravens (to represent the city) on various significant buildings around Baltimore, liberating her animations from the typical small rectangular screen by giving them an entire building wall to play on.
Over the summer she experimented with the clock tower, and this winter project is a refinement of that concept.
"Once I get the idea it goes pretty fast," Bell said of her design process and inspiration. But she doesn't just have ideas for pretty images. She wants her art to mean something.
She's not into art where artists whip up a cool-looking image and just project it — anyone can do that.
"I call it the jazz hands effect," she said — flashy skill without any real depth.
Her projections are more than just pretty pictures on a clock face.
They're reminders of time beyond hours and minutes, beyond class from 10:00 — 10:50 and 15-week semesters.
Time exists on a far wider scale, and her projections help recapture the awe of the movement of time that we forget in our day-to-day lives.
Let's hope one of these years Gilman can get a colorful face-lift from Kelley Bell or an inventive Hopkins student.
