• Recommended public spot for viewing for Expanded Cinema: 777 Sports Street. Check the Facebook page for updates.
• Tune in to KXT 91.7 at 8 p.m. sharp Sunday for the soundtrack to Expanded Cinema.

Imagine a movie screen 23 stories tall. On Sunday, you can watch one.

The Omni Hotel in Downtown Dallas will be the canvas for Expanded Cinema, a collection of work from 10 video artists and teams. It’s the third year for the project, which is sponsored by Dallas VideoFest.
Jenny Vogel is a German born video artist who splits her time between Dallas and North Texas. Her work appeared in the first two Expanded Cinemas. This year, she’s curating the evening. As a child in Germany, the TV show Dallas formed her impression of the city. She remembers the combination of grime and gloss – oil, explosions, cowboys and sleek buildings – that opened the show.   And that wasn’t far from her mind when she chose the theme for this year’s show: Mirage.

“The Omni is such a great venue for that because it’s a façade, but it’s also a screen or a window into an imagined or fantastical version of the city.”

Vogel says the size of the LED lights on the Omni and the space between them makes creating work for the building very different

“So there are huge gaps in between the lights so it’s very much about figuring out the distance to the building and how images will actually blend using this very complicated system. A regular video probably won’t show up. So it’s a challenge for the artist to imagine what could work.”