About Sand Animation
"In every grain of sand there is a story."
Charlene Lanzel's sand animation, sometimes known as sand art, sand drawing or sand painting, is beautiful to look at but lasts only in the moment. It is sand storytelling that makes life and time flow by, right before your eyes. Perhaps what makes this art form so appealing, aside from its beauty, is its fragility and ephemeral nature.
Sand animation is the most compelling new art form to come around in decades. A popular new trend in performance art, sand art is a form of live sand painting which evolved from earlier sand animation films. Live sand art performances are very dynamic and require the artist's presence to happen. It has quickly become very popular all over the World.
Sand animation was invented in 1968, by Caroline Leaf, for her project at Harvard University. Her first stop motion animated film was "Sand, or Peter and the Wolf", which she created by moving sand with her hands on an illuminated glass surface. By the late 1990’s, sand animators began demonstrating their works of live animated art to large audiences, adding a projector and screen.
Charlene Lanzel’s projected, live, storytelling performances explore the relationship between real and virtual spaces, and create emotionally immersive environments which provide both entertainment and instruction. Her live sand animations are projected large scale onto a mega screen, using the latest in digital technologies, and synched to a live or recorded soundscape.
Are you fully utilizing the projection screens at your venue? You can add a futuristic, artistic and informative element to your event with a living sand animation, the latest trend in projection art.
How Does Sand Art Work?
Sand Artist | Charlene Lanzel's art is created live onstage, where people can watch the artist doing her performance in a darkened room. A video camera is positioned over the illuminated glass tabletop, upon which the artist creates sand magic. Sand scattered on a light box is formed and reformed into ever changing shapes and images that tell visually powerful stories. Charlene creates these fluid illustrations from memory, for large audiences, with an overhead camera instantaneously projecting onto a large screen for the audience to see.
Charlene Lanzel's sand performances are choreographed, rehearsed and synched to a dramatic soundscape, which Charlene creates to enhance the mood. Music accompanies the entire process as the sand artist’s hands follow the rhythm.
Her hands move slowly or quickly, as the elegant artwork is created, which challenges and motivates in a captivating way. The audience amazes at the decisiveness in her hands, since the sand artist's hands can always be seen creating in the projection. The results of the sand animator's process are unique. It is never possible for the animation to exactly repeat. Each effort the artist makes results in a slightly different design.
It is a practice which uses the visual and aesthetic properties of sand to create a live animated image. Sand is a fluid material and its grains settle by chance, creating living images made of a single texture. Sand art storytelling makes life and time flow by, magically, in front of your eyes.
Why Sand Art?
Watching sand animation come to life, in real time, has an extraordinary effect on the audience. Audience members are uncontrollably drawn into Charlene’s seemingly real world made up of sand characters, trees, mountains and seas. Live sand art is a magical art form that charms.
Creating images conjured seemingly effortless, like an oracle or a magician, Charlene's hands skate on glass like a kind of dance. The moving sand creates continuously fluid and poetic figures with original storytelling. A visual language is created that transcends linguistic barriers. Old and young watch and listen together, and all is in harmony, because they all share the same emotions.
Drawings are in perpetual transformation which excite imagination, surprise and allow abrupt changes of tone and unexpected images. All eyes will be glued to the fluid artwork, shown live on the big screen. A sensory sand experience is created, that goes above and beyond your expectations. Sand Artist | Charlene Lanzel keeps audiences spell-bound by the twists and surprises that follow every sweep of her hands.
The crowd watches with amazement and wonder, as Charlene draws image after image in sand. One scene flows magically into another, which brings positive engagement with your brand. This extremely impressive live sand performance creates an intense crowd reaction with positive excitement. It is a great way for guests to remember your bespoke theme. Guests will be interested and absorbed, and will certainly be talking about this wow factor at your next event!
Reserve Charlene today for your next project or event!