Micro Grants Recipient | Belle Budden
Clint Hurrell is a professional Artist and Production Manager specializing in large-scale Spectacle Art Installations and concert stage and lighting designs. His career over the past three decades began studying sculpture and painting. After graduating from art school, he entered the theatre world designing sets and operating lighting for traditional and experimental companies. With the rise of music festivals in the nineties, Clint began making monumental sculptures, combining, lighting effects, pyrotechnics and performance. His “Spectacle Art” received international acclaim at Glastonbury Festival in 2000, and major national acclaim with a Big Day Out Tour in 2010.
Over the last ten years Clint has used his recognition in the industry to secure commissions from a wide variety of music festival directors to design and build unique live stages which incorporate state of the art lighting. He has worked for some events like Splendour in the Grass for close to twenty years. Alongside others like The Falls Festival, Byron Bay Bluesfest, Island Vibe, Earthcore, Subsonic and Woodford Folk Festival.
Clint has also focused on learning the latest multi-media software for simultaneously controlling video projection, moving lights and lasers. Lighting operators are often overlooked as an essential artistic component of a live musical performance, and Clint has earned a reputation with many smaller dance parties and concert promoters as an essential collaborator and commercial draw card.
The Micro Grants will assist Clint in making a scale model of a Northern Rivers public Band Stand, then creating animation imagery for projection mapping, then test projecting on the model in his studio.
The project will have four parts 1: Archival research and field trips 2: Printing plans and building a scale model 3: Developing projection mapping animations and designing lighting states for the model 4: Documenting the live controlled projections for online feedback.
The project will begin looking locally for traditional Band Stands in public parks. Once an appropriate structure is found, Clint will research technical plans and then make a 1:10 scale model of the Band Stand. Then, with the new projection mapping software Heavy-M will experiment with animations and archival footage to project onto the scale model in the studio.
The project could be a protype towards a fully realised event in the Northern Rivers region. The Band Stand project would be compatible with the ongoing social distancing regulations and could be held early evening on a Sunday in a spacious outdoor park setting. Now days Band Stands are often unused structures that many young people don’t even know what they were used for, or can’t imagine the type of entertainment they hosted. An event of this nature will encourage a dialogue between elderly people who can remember the live performances in the past and young artist that are looking for venues and an audience . The end goal is to create an event using the Band Stand that will interest and entertain both young and elderly generations.
The Video documentation of the project will be posted to Clint’s online portfolio www.spectacleart.com. The documentation will also be shared with online forums and invited networks with a call for critique and content collaboration from elderly and young people.
“In practical terms the project relates to my past work at festivals and events as a stage façade and lighting designer. The studio project will allow the time to develop ideas without the pressure of a scheduled deadline. In conceptual terms, the project is close to my heart, as I engage with both young people in their twenties and also relate to my father and old swing set dancers who is now 90 years old. So, I see myself as a bridge between the three generations, and believe both are a relevant audience. For years I have worked with many young people who admire DJs and appreciate the light shows which accompany the music.”
