Española, NM — Northern New Mexico College is collaborating with Lumenscapes artist Joe Dean to unveil a digital projection mural on its Española campus on Tuesday, September 3, at 8 p.m. outside the Nick Salazar Center for the Arts.
The digital mural is a project of Northern’s Department of Arts, Film, and Media, and will feature rotating work by local artists throughout the year. While other venues in New Mexico have featured art projection, Northern’s will be the first permanent installation of its kind in northern New Mexico. Northern’s digital mural project was made possible by a generous donation from Los Alamos National Laboratory.
“Europe is the hotbed of this stuff. It’s just amazing that Española is taking this leap forward,” Dean said. Dean’s projection will be the first featured, and is an expansion of a piece he showed at Burning Man Festival in 2018, based upon the idea of a skyline. A later piece will play upon the detail work of low-rider cars.
Digital projection combines art and technology in a way that allows the work of multiple artists to be featured over time using both still and moving images. Northern’s digital mural will be projected on a south-facing wall of the Fine Arts Building, and run nightly from dusk to 11 p.m. The projection will be updated periodically to feature different local themes and artists.
“I love the idea of shared public art — the idea that you have a space that is infinitely changeable and you can share it with people,” Northern Arts, Film, and Media Department Chair Mateo Frazier said. He said he thinks the installation will add vibrancy to Northern’s campus.
Northern invites local artists who are interested in being featured in future projections to contact Joe Dean at contact@lumenscapes.com.
For more information about Northern’s Digital Projection Mural Project, please contact Mateo Frazier at mateo.frazier@nnmc.edu
About the Artist
Joe Dean was born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico and has been a digital media artist for the past 25 years. Dean has studied Scenic Design at New Mexico State University and Design, Media Arts, and Computer Science at the University of New Mexico. He has shown work internationally in places such as Guam, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Dean is inspired by light artist James Turrell and Marc Brickman, and performances like Deadmau5, Ouchhh, Joanie Lemercier, and Amon Tobin. To learn more about Joe Dean and his work, visit www.lumenscapes.com
