Artist Yannick Jacquet

William Faulkner said, “The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that 100 years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again.”

Projection artist Yannick Jacquet doesn’t so much arrest motion as he sets it free on a predetermined path. Let’s take Cityscape 2095 as an example.

That was a collaboration with illustrator Mandril and sound designer Thomas Vaquie. They started with a projection screen configured like a viewing window from atop a skyscraper, upon which was drawn the vista of a futuristic city – smokestacks, skyscraper towers, billboards galore, power lines, wind turbines planted atop a backdrop of hills, the sky.

Jacquet used 3D modeling to create many of the buildings and animated the atmospherics with shifting light and shadow as the sped-up day progressed. Mandril, the illustrator, painted details like color, rust and decay. Vaquie, the sound designer, created the noises of a city.

Traffic races by on swooping highways. Neon signs blink. Flocks of birds flit by. The city breathes. It moves.

Jacquet’s done a projection of digital art on the cathedral ceiling and organ of the Collegiale de Neuchatel in Switzerland; a projection of microbial creatures on the exterior of France’s Centre Pompidou; and an audiovisual performance on the facade of an unfinished building in Songdo City, Korea.

Jacquet says Cityscape 2095 was his first installation in the U.S. He’s here to teach his burgeoning artform to students as part of CSU Summer Arts, and to talk to the public about the work he and his cohorts are setting loose on the world.

YANNICK JACQUET presents his work 7pm Thursday at CSUMB’s World Theater, 6th Avenue and A Street, Seaside. $8-$10. 262-2714, www.blog.calstate.edu/summerarts