Mobile Projection Unit

Mobile Projection Unit (MPU) is a roving studio that presents new, experimental, site specific outdoor video projections throughout Portland, Oregon. Our work as an artist team focuses on spatializing video through projection mapping, and live interactive video performance through creative coding. Founded and directed by Fernanda D’Agostino and Sarah Turner in 2018, the MPU is also a curatorial project. Part of our curatorial ethos is to put the tools of production into the hands of artists. Throughout Fall 2019 and Winter 2020 MPU layered the nighttime city-scape of Portland with works by a cohort of media artists that included; Sharita Towne, Sabina Haque, Ruben Garcia Marrufo, Jaleesa Johnston, Craig Winslow, Megan McKissack, Victoria Wells, and Hasan Mahmood. Sites ranged from abandoned grain elevators to grand openings of community centers. In Spring of 2020 Mobile Projection Unit was commissioned by the Northwest Film Center to create three site specific video installations “Phases of the Moon,” for public events surrounding the Portland International Film Festival. More recent projects include “been there,” a series of experimental works by Black filmmakers curated by Ariella Tai and presented as a drive-in movie, and screenings with Snack Block in support of BLM. MPU is funded in part by the Precipice Fund the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Calligram Foundation, and the Regional Arts and Culture Council. Sarah Turner is an artist, new media curator, creative producer, and art director. Fernanda D’Agostino is an interactive video installation artist, public artist, and creative coder. Both are based in Portland, OR.







 

Against the Current; Commissioned by the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art for TBA2020






Video artists and Mobile Projection Unit Founders Fernanda D'Agostino and Sarah Turner bring their new piece "Sea Creatures" to the Portland Art Museum for the Portland Winter Light Festival. "Sea Creatures" was conceived as an investigation of the ocean's transformational power and its age old position in myth and cosmology in every culture. Each of the three video installations investigates a different mood or aspect of water and how it pervades our consciousness, our mythologies, and our rituals of health and healing. The work features digital performers Jaleesa Johnson, Sophia Emigh, Yaara Valey, Sahra Brahim, and Sarah Turner. D'Agostino's virtual performance space "Liminal Performance Space" captures work by the Kusanagi Sisters in Tokyo and Sparrow Dance in Astoria. Crystal Quartez performed a live musical score to the piece from the Museum's covered entryway.







Phases of the Moon-Portland International Film Festival Commission-Cinema Unbound.

Phases of the Moon is a three-part project unfolding over the course of three evenings and in three locations in and around the Portland Art Museum. Each phase expressed a unique mood reflecting how the moon has acted as a guide to time, influenced the tides and illuminated human endeavors. Phases of the Moon was commissioned by the Northwest Film Center for the 2020 Portland International Film Festival. The theme was Cinema Unbound and our mission was to suggest to festival participants all the things that cinema could be beyond what they had experienced in the past or what they imagined.






Che La Luna-Virtual Venice Biennale-Commission by Portland art Museum and Northwest Film Center

During the Venice Film Festival this year the new media section was exhibited at 24 outposts around the world. The Portland Art Museum was the only site in the United States. The Mobile Projection Unit was commissioned to create a room size mapping project to enliven the VR environment with a major installation. Che La Luna expands on the themes introduced in Phases of the Moon to put visitors the Biennale immediately into an immersive environment of color, ritual, bodies and arcania. Although the installation was silent the sound here is by Guillermo Galindo. Performers appearing in the video are The Kusanagi Sisters; Juju and Lisa Kusanagi, Yunuen Rhi, Sophia Wright Emigh, and Jaleesa Johnston.









© 2023 Fernanda D'Agostino