The Anvil: January 2011

I intend to produce an installation, working in projection, the size and space that they would take up should however be scaled appropriately to the space given. The basis of the idea is that using the style I have already developed I intend to use both new and cataloged photos of my own and blend them to create a new ‘pocket’ of reality if you will.

The space these projections would inhabit will be a fusion of multiple spaces since you have not only the places or objects in the image being projected but also the objects and landscape that they will be displayed in. Although they may be very personal to me (as the way I view the world would be conveyed in the images) I would hope the audience would be able to identify some part of their lives or even their dreams in each image.

For the purpose of the installation I aim to produce a collection of different reality pockets, my original intention was to have them tightly themed (for example my originals are all about autumn) but I do feel that it does not reflect the true nature of life and indeed how humans perceive reality. This is proven by the fact that instead of one concrete idea of a space, humans often pull in several images for one space to include things like sounds, scents, feelings and memories, this results in many images blurring in the human mind or similar places being recalled at the same time, so one thing is associated with another and so on.

I would therefore like to attempt to illustrate the complex nature of how human beings deal with reality and space. The aim is to produce something that can at once look both familiar and alien to most people. I like this style in a lot of fantasy, there are many books, photos and films that use the real to create the surreal but particularly I find the ‘Alice in Wonderland’* series particularly inspiring.

On the technical side of things I would want each ‘environment’ to stay for a reasonable length of time before disappearing so I would have to set up specific time delay on each slide. It would be reasonable to have approximately a minute so that the viewer can see the entire environment before it changes and then react to that change these would be then cycled through continuously until the exhibition ended. It would be interesting to see not only the viewers’ reaction to one landscape but also the reaction of the viewer as they changed. Therefore as follow up work or indeed part of the documentation of my project I would like to film peoples reactions to the spaces, this I feel would help to see what was effective and what was not and would also become an experience in itself.

I already have a range of images that I have made whilst practicing and I have expanded on some greatly. I like the quirks of some of my expanded images and would not need to do a lot with them. I am however toying with the idea of making the colors brighter to reflect the fact that some memories are super clear in your brain. The stock images I have all vary greatly in quality and sharpness as they were taken with different cameras and at different times in different places and this I feel is important as it further reflects memories and how some memories may be clearer or blurry or more colorful than others. The act of blending these further represents how memories work.

I find my inspiration is drawn from the clever installations of Doug Aitken** since he cleverly employs photography and projection into his works to make them truly immersive I am also tempted to like him include sound in my work to make it more well rounded. I have also drawn inspiration from of the more projection-based works of Christian Boltanski*** since they are very evocative and thought provoking.

I would like if I could to use 360 degrees projection so that each environment would take up the entire room or as much of it as possible. My intended audience is the student body and the general public; I would ideally like everyone to find things they identify with in my landscapes so the target audience in essence is the human psyche.

I am intending to expand on the Photoshop techniques I have already used for my preliminary work but I would still like keep the manipulation as simple as possible so that the images still have a very natural feel to them. For instance I associate a bright yellow flower with the sun, so in that particular environment the flower would be the sun, this links real to dream and memories to feelings. From a technical standpoint the only programs that I do need to use would be photo manipulation software since I already have the images in back catalog. If I did need to do more shoots I would probably use a Nikon D80 although any camera will do and occasionally you get nice results from using a camera on a mobile phone even though mine is currently three mega-pixels I feel that given I am trying to capture the notion of something like memory and reality that the quality of picture could still be compelling. In terms of workload I intend to produce the work solo, as it is a personal project so I am the main driving force of its creation.

Technically I think I am capable of handling setup myself, however given the fact I have not used 360 projection before I am not ruling out the possibility of needing a slight amount of technical assistance.

As an end result I would ideally like to have three environments being: Dartmoor, Plymouth and a Graveyard in London. These are all fairly personal places to me and I would like to showcase them as I see them with all my memories, thoughts and feelings to truly showcase what they are like in my head and create a thought provoking environment for its audience.

*Alice in Wonderland – 1865 – Lewis Carroll

**Doug Aitken - Born in 1969 - http://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/_2/

***Christian Boltanski - Born in Paris in 1944 -http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/boltanski_christian.html