My thinking throughout the project has been predominantly focussed upon one aspect of the Red Ball’s presence – how it highlights certain aspects of the city’s features and architecture that would otherwise go unnoticed. There are other aspects of the Red Ball project too, of course – of which more later – but as a photographer, the altered cityscape (bet you never thought you’d hear that word in Norwich) has been a particular area of interest. In simple terms, the simple focal point of the Red Ball has transformed impressive, though perhaps less photogenic, buildings into photographic opportunities really worth thinking about.
The first location, Norwich rail station, represented a particularly good example. Myself included, many photographers appear to have struggled to make genuinely good use of the architecture of that building, for a striking and imaginative image. Cue the Red Ball:
Suddenly, there is a focal point, an object of interest for the eye to begin with as it moves around the photograph, beginning in the bottom right hand corner, and moving anti-clockwise. The lines of the building suddenly become significant, leading the eye first upwards, then on a slope to the right hand corner, capturing a host of details of the building along the way, before the eye returns to the Red Ball. The really interesting thing about it is that this effect does not necessitate the Ball being a massive presence in the image. In this, and in the other photographs, it has been enough simply to include it as an incidental detail. It's not the Ball, it's the work that it does.
This way of thinking applies to each of my Red Ball photographs, and hopefully encourages you to take more notice of the city around you, as it has done for me. Who would have thought that the railings of St. Peter Mancroft Church could play such a dynamic part in an image? Again - it's a photograph that wouldn't work half so well without the Red Ball to provide the initial point of interest.
This morning, I managed to collar Kurt Perschke for a short chat, outlining this one interpretation of the Red Ball project. Nodding in agreement, he was also keen to highlight the other effects that the project has wherever it goes. The Red Ball has the most significant element of a brilliant piece of public art: the ability to capture the imagination of all the public. I have seen children playing dead beneath it for comic effect; Kurt mentioned a pair of old ladies he observed discussing the Ball: 'It works better here than it did yesterday!' There is a wonderful humour in the thought that these ladies' attention could be captivated by something so simple, in a completely different way to young children who enjoy it in a more physical manner, bouncing off it and flying about. 'Its presence is like a Monty Python sketch', Kurt said, and he certainly wasn't the first person to say that to me.
Kurt seemed initially a trifle reticent in telling me his thoughts on the purpose of the project - with good reason. Clearly, my photographer's eyes created their own reason for the project's existence; the old ladies he mentioned had their own; the multitude of children will have had their own reasons too, as well as the parents, and all the people who have walked and driven past it over the fortnight. As these layers of meaning, individual to each different person, began to unravel during our conversation, Kurt returned to the point - the project inspires new visions, stirs the imagination, encourages thought, in more ways than any blog could hope to document. That, my dears, is good art.
Red Ball on Flickr
Red Ball Project
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