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VIDEO: Artists Project Massive Images of Sleeping People Onto Buildings

By Gwynne Hogan | March 24, 2015 3:11pm
 Photos from Dawn of Man project Projection Napping. 
Projection
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BROOKLYN — Sweet dreams, NYC.

Huge video projections showing people deep in slumber have been beamed onto buildings across the city for nearly a year, lighting up blank walls after dusk from Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan.

The sleeping men and women, filmed and projected by the artists collective Dawn of Man, have adorned the walls of the new Whitney Building alongside the West Side Highway, decorated archways beneath the Manhattan Bridge and transformed blank walls from the West Village to Crown Heights.

The pop-up projections cleverly beam the subjects bodies against handpicked spaces to make the people appear to be cradled inside the building's exterior walls or curled up inside an archway in a bridge overpass. In one projection, a woman sleeps with her face smushed against a wall, which aligns perfectly with the edge of the building.

Projection Napping
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Dawn of Man

"It actually originated just sort of as a joke," said Max Nova, 28, who works out of a Crown Heights studio with partner JR Skola, 29.

The duo met at NYU film school in 2006 and got their start working on short films and music videos together, they said. They formed Dawn of Man in 2008 and soon began to realize the potential of projections.

Over the years they became skilled at projection mapping, the technique used to customize videos and images for projection on irregular surfaces. The idea for "Projection Napping" emerged from that concept.

Over drinks about a year ago, the two were talking about "projection mapping" and one of them just threw out the words "projection napping."

"There was this long pause after some laughter and I think everyone's eyes got really wide," Nova recalled. "'I think actually that might be a good idea.'"

They started filming last fall, beginning with 15 sleeping subjects and slowly growing to about 25 nappers. They started appearing on city buildings last May and are expected to continue through the summer. They've also created a movie about the project, which they recently released.

Viewers' reactions to the projections have been mixed. Some stop and ask questions and snap photos, others trundle on by without even gazing up at the spectacle.

One couple thought the sleeping figure on the side of a wall was a still image until they saw the napper fidget for the first time, prompting them to start screaming, Skola and Nova said.

The duo often announce their next destination on their FacebookTwitter or Instagram, though there's always some level of spontaneity.

"We like to do it unannounced and share something like that with someone who wasn't expecting it," Nova said.