"San Antonio: The Saga" is a unique-to-San Antonio multimedia installation created by French artist, Xavier de Richemont. The projection of images and music upon the walls of the cathedral is a blend of new and old media which premiered in 2014. The 25 minute art/history video uses images to teach local history in the same way stained glass, statues and oil paintings for centuries have taught the lessons of the Bible. It is shown free of charge at Main Plaza on Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 9:00 p.m., 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.
We watched with a small group of friends sitting on outdoor pillows amid tables of tourists and locals mindfully spaced apart. This was the third time that I had seen the show over the past few years, but last night it seemed like the first time. Blame it on Covid Fog.
The show has surely outgrown the term from the 1960's, "multi media," which calls to mind the mind-bending 360 degree Dome Show about Texas heritages that was a highlight of HemisFair '68.
"High Resolution Audio Video Animation Digital Projection" is too clunky. While a new word to more accurately describe the show eludes me, I will try my best to describe what the experience of watching "San Antonio: The Saga" evoked.
We watched while partaking the refreshing autumn climate taking us gratefully into a new season. Against the night sky, the facade of the nearly 300 year old cathedral transformed with brightly colored still and moving images. They drifted, flowed, floated and swept in and out of the frame of the night sky, fitting precisely onto the corners and curves of the ornate, hand-carved surface of the three-story structure.
The images interacted with the physical surface of the cathedral to create a new medium. For kicks, let's call it a History Hologram: The center medallion on the front of the church above the doors became the face of Quanah Parker, Comanche chief. Later we saw the image of Catholic priest and Mexican revolutionary Padre Miguel Hidalgo and then, the United States' President, Abe Lincoln. The Edwards Aquifer was portrayed as springs gushing from each of the Cathedral's windows. It was a tall order for my Covid Fog brain to make sense of each of the images but the audio collage of music helped to guide the passages from one era to another, from the native flute at the start to "Jessica" from the Allman Brothers at the end.
Viewing the images and music projected onto the cathedral’s façade brought to mind an idea that we were witnessing the birth of a new medium. Marshall McLuhan wrote extensively about the evolution of media. It was easy to see the arrival of something new, born from the application of high tech digital projection system onto the three-dimensional facade of the limestone structure displaying beautifully curated images and music to tell the story of San Antonio through the centuries.
There is something in my brain--maybe the same part that, each time while standing at the rim of the Grand Canyon, struggles with the scope and majesty of that natural phenomenon. Similarly, the projection onto San Fernando of color and music was perceived by my eyes, ears and heart as very, very close to real. So close, the mind can temporarily lose any distinctions. It is understandable. The color, sound and size are of such realistic proportion and detail. They very likely appear just as they would have appeared to anyone walking past the church on the plaza anytime during the past two or three hundred years. Consider, in contrast, the difference in the same representation on a postcard or screen of whatever size, whether still or moving. No contest.
McLuhan might have appreciated the intersection of media and the façade used as an instrument for teaching and transmitting the story of us and our city.
Seeing how the installation was placed on a church, and not a bank or a civic building, I see now that I’ve actually traveled more centuries and than three. In a church, every statue and image has a function and that is to teach a story, a parable, a lesson. San Antonio: The Saga continues the tradition of teaching a story, now on the exterior of the building.
