When I started my residency I began with an Over Head Projector, projecting from an old dried hydrangea head hung on its arm. The visual effects of the projector itself were as much what I was projecting as the image from the old flower head. Colour is coming only from the OHP.
I was also thinking about reflection itself and how reflection can be a metaphor for memory. An OHP projection (as appose to a digital one) is a reflection because it’s the image bounced up to a mirror and then to the wall. I wanted to emphasize this again, so have ordered a paper print to mirror the projected image.
The reflected image is less strong, more transparent and uncertain. Therefor I intend to flip this and have the OHP image on the wall and the artificial ‘reflected’ floor image on paper, a more tangible strong material image. This is purely to play with the idea of the phenomenology of reflection itself.
The blurry image seems to swim up to the surface and is ambivalent. The fact that it came from a flower head is no longer really relevant.
The other image I have chosen to work on is a medium format photo I took, which is again ambivalent, you can see its something natural, leaves or grass or trees. But it sits on the line between abstract and representational. Where abouts on that line I do not know. How this image is seen is the next set of questions.
To keep softness in its material form as well as the image, I am trying it on fabric. I have tried an organic natural organza and I did not like the sheen and the stiffness of the fabric. I am now trying muslin and silk. I will again juxtapose the softness of the material with paper prints and play with mirroring the fabric or setting up reflections or diffractions with the same image in both the formats.
I am also making a film with the image. Recently I made a film from 120/ medium format photos of clouds, panning across them. I want this next film to only be one photograph and for the view to move across its surface, digitally or by setting up a camera to do this. The way film inherently has narrative and a chronological timeline is fascinating, I want to see how this interacts with the abstract photo, which also doesn’t move. I will also try different speeds of movement for this reason, possibly playing the same film along side each other, but one on a slower time, so it may be perceived as a time lag. This time lag and perception of chronological time is really what I want to investigate, as well as the photochemical mark that is contained in the photo. These two things combined may throw things up, I hope.
As well as this I have been reading The Future of Nostalgia by Svetlana Boym again, and Elizabeth Grosz ‘Time Travels: Feminism, Nature, Power (Next Wave: New Directions in Women’s Studies)’ & an article by Karen Barad ‘Diffracting Diffraction: Cutting Together Apart ‘ Parallax, Year 2014 : Vol.20 : Iss.No.3 : pp.168-187 . Reading was and is a main aim of this residency time.
Other plans are to use the fabrics being printed with metal sculpture and lenses, and to continue to make sure photos, prints and installation mimic the effects of reflection.
Leave a comment