With the help of 60kg of equipment mounted to a bicycle, projections of the common dolphin, a pair of seals, schools of fish and other animals will soon be seen — and heard — around the central city, during the Dunedin Arts Festival.
Artist and designer Marcus McShane, of Wellington, said his performance Velocine was a "wandering installation work" that brought representations of wild nature into the city.
"I ride around the streets in a big loop, finding little alleyways and dark spaces and projection mapping animals on to buildings while I’m travelling."
These projections were normally between 15m and 20m long and 10m high, and included dolphins, dragonflies, a pack of wolves and an albatross that required about 100m of street frontage to cast.
The bike’s speedometer was hooked up to a program that changed the rate the projection looped, in proportion to the speed of the bike, while a laser running through a laptop controlled the zoom to keep the projections in focus.
In total, it added about 60kg to his bike, handmade in Copenhagen, he said.
"I’m not taking it over any BMX tracks in a hurry, let’s put it that way.
"You don’t do a lot of pop and curbs and wheelies on it."
It was set up to only project on to the second, third and fourth floors of buildings, so it would not blind drivers or pedestrians, and each projection was accompanied by a unique soundtrack.
He planned to ride around the area south of the Octagon — including in Moray Pl, around Queens Gardens and Stuart and Dowling Sts — in a kilometre-long loop.
In the past, the installation had produced some "quite unexpected results", Mr McShane said.
During a test ride in Nelson, a "pack" of children had once chased him and his bike down an alleyway.
"I felt a bit like the Pied Piper."
Some people had even created an online group chat dedicated to tracking him and his projections’ movements.
The largest projection he had ever been able to do was that of a blue whale, which Mr McShane said required riding in the middle of the road to get the right distance.
"It’s quite fun to swim a blue whale down a street at life size."
Velocine is performing around the city until Saturday.
