CHRYSOPYLAE : Video Projection installation at Fort Point

Doug Hall challenges the familiar picture-postcard vision of the Golden Gate by presenting a pair of contrasting perspectives. Hall’s immersive two-screen video projection combines views of the structural grandeur of the bridge with footage of massive container ships passing beneath it. Emphasizing the monumentality of both the ships and the structure above them, the interplay of images reveals the bridge as part of an environment that is at once natural and human-made.

Hall recorded portions of the video from the deck of a boat operated by the San Francisco Bar Pilots, whose job is to guide large vessels entering and leaving San Francisco Bay. The work’s title, Chrysopylae — Greek for “golden gate” — references the name given to the entrance of the Bay by explorer John C. Frémont in 1846.