Anthony McCall's 'First Light' at SF's Fort Mason (Special Musical Performance)

"Anthony McCall's 'solid light' installations invite viewers to step away from the screen and into the sculptural beams of projected light themselves. As theatrical haze catches the projector's light, evolving geometric forms materialize in three-dimensional space, creating elegant structures that viewers can walk through, touch, and interact with."

"Over the course of their durations, these works transform spectators into participants and galleries into playing fields, making space for both contemplation and action. The works begin as film animations, with Line Describing a Cone featuring a single white point extending into a slowly curving line, building to a full circle across its running time."

Anthony McCall's groundbreaking 'solid light' works from the early 1970s transform cinema into interactive sculpture. Three seminal pieces—Line Describing a Cone (1973), Conical Solid (1974), and Cone of Variable Volume (1974)—project animated light through theatrical haze to create three-dimensional geometric forms in physical space. Viewers step into these luminous structures, becoming participants rather than passive observers. The works blur boundaries between film, sculpture, drawing, and performance, converting galleries into participatory environments. McCall's innovation predates contemporary immersive art by over fifty years, establishing foundational concepts that influenced later movements.

Read at Funcheap