Rendering of the temporary component of "Ecstatic City" by Chris Doyle.

CONCEPT: The artist proposes Ecstatic City, a series of urban projects where the landscape of the city is transformed or animated. For Ecstatic City (Tampa), he would like to make use of available existing street lighting experienced every day and transform the mundane infrastructure into a giant magic lantern through attaching a rotating mirror ball to as many downtown streetlights as possible, concentrating in and around the area of the Convention Center. Part of this temporary project, located at the entrance to the Convention Center, will be left behind as a permanent addition to the city.

"I employ animation in much of what I make. In fact, my interest in animation goes beyond technique, extending to the idea of animus, an energizing spirit, that extends to places as well as things. Ecstatic City (Tampa) is a project about animating a place, in this case, a district of the city that has as its hub, the Tampa Convention Center. For Ecstatic City, I am deploying seventy rotating mirror balls throughout the area. Brackets supporting the balls, as well as integrated spotlights are attached to palm trees and light poles surrounding the Convention Center and the Riverwalk. Beginning at dusk, pedestrian areas of the city will be bathed in a gentle wash of spinning light. By taking a conventional, off-the-shelf object typically used in the disco and re-contextualizing it in the city, I am attempting to amplify the sense of atmosphere, the mood of expectation and possibility that is so important to the life of a place and the experience of its people."

ABBREVIATED BIO: Chris Doyle is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, New York. In addition to recent exhibitions in New York, Miami, and Berlin, his work has been shown at The Brooklyn Museum of Art, The Queens Museum of Art, P.S. 1 Museum of Contemporary Art, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, Socrates Sculpture Park, The Sculpture Center, and as part of the New York Video Festival at Lincoln Center. His work includes temporary and permanent projects in the public sphere including LEAP, presented by Creative Time, Commutable, presented by The Public Art Fund, and 50,000 Beds, a large-scale collaborative video installation involving 45 artists presented simultaneously at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Artspace, New Haven, and Real Art Ways, Hartford. His work has been supported by grants from the New York Foundation for the Arts, NYSCA, and the Creative Capital Foundation. Chris received his Bachelors degree in Fine Arts from Boston College, and his Masters in Architecture from Harvard University. In 2007, he completed The Moons, an outdoor three-screen video piece for the new Sprint Arena in Kansas City, Missouri. He is currently preparing projects for Tampa, Florida, Melbourne, Australia, and a solo show at Sam Lee Gallery in Los Angeles, California opening December 15th, 2007.  http://www.chrisdoylestudio.com/