A truly Warholian project is set to launch tonight, precisely at midnight, to commemorate the iconic Pop artist's 85th birthday.
via EarthCam
The live steaming website EarthCam and the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh have teamed up to present "Figment," a collaborative multimedia project that will include a live feed of Warhol's grave with sound (though we wonder what said "sounds" will consist of), as well as a live streaming webcam (also with sound) of St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church, where Warhol was baptized.
And that's not all: The grave project will involve "one-of-a-kind artwork with Warholian image effects and color palettes integrated into gravesite snapshots," according to a statement. In order to do this, EarthCam created a filter over the HD megapixel gravesite images that pulls from millions of one-of-a-kind color combinations and will be updated (fittingly) every 15 minutes.
The project is also interactive. "The public can influence this special pop art experience by sending flowers to Andy and watching live as they're delivered to his gravesite," EarthCam founder and CEO Brian Cury told ARTINFO. And, of course, if people pose in front of the webcam, they will be part of the art.
Cury thinks Warhol would have approved of the stunt. "I met Andy at a dinner and we discussed the culture of fame and television," he explained. "I believe he would have been intrigued with using a live webcam to make art."
Also taking part in the project is Warhol Museum director Eric Shiner, who will join Cury tomorrow at 3 pm at the gravesite, along with the artist's nephew, Donald Warhola, Father Tom Schaefer from the aforementioned church, and local artist Madelyn Roehrig, who has been filming people at Warhol's gravesite since 2009 and, to date, has recorded hundreds of fans paying tribute to the artist there in a myriad of ways, ranging from serious and passionate to lighthearted and whimsical.
Via email, Shiner explained why the initiative made sense: "Via innovative EarthCam technology, itself inspired by Warhol through his conversations on voyeurism with Cury, we are now able to welcome virtual visitors from around the world to visit Andy in his final resting place."
-Eileen Kinsella, ARTINFO
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