Reflections: Photography Instillation Idea

While watching the short documentary piece by Paul Sermon about the use of the space in the coal mine showers (A Body Of Water), I began to think of how I might use an environment to display the photography project.

I actually decided upon how i would like to display my work before landing on a concept, in fact the idea for the display led to my idea for the concept.

While watching A Body of Water and the Echo piece, i liked the idea of the viewer moving about and experiencing the piece , feeling that a more immersive experience would stay with the viewer longer and make a larger impact (a sentiment similarly expressed in the YoHo piece). As such i decided that my photos would be in the centre of the space (whatever that might be) and displayed in a manner which would allow the viewer to move about or to stay in one spot and still be able to view the whole thing. Too this end I thought to display my five photos on the faces of a cube that is suspended in the middle of the room on a chain or rope that spins the cube around.

From the above idea and the research i had been doing for Image Factory, I decided that each of the our vertical faces would display an image that in some way denotes each of the four seasons and the bottom face that of death. I felt this was fitting for the square that moves in a circle, as i felt that it represented the way that we humans attempt to make everything clear cut and definable by manageable arbitrary integers, like the four seasons , which in reality aren't clear cut and run into each other (this is denoted by the turning of the cube, which also represents the constant progression/changing of the season). While the image seperate from these four, underneath, will be one of death as that is the only escape from the turning of the seasons (on Earth that is).

However upon thinking on the doc's i began to like the idea of projection more and more, thinking that if the images where in fact projected out from the faces of the cube into the exhibition space, it would make for a more immersive experience, and also would be synonymous with the way in which humans force our perception of the universe onto others through communal understanding. We don't truly know whether the person sitting next to us is seeing the same thing as us, yes they would be seeing the same visual light being emitted, but there is no way of knowing for sure if their brain perceives it the same way you do.

Our understanding of the physical universe being what it is we know that in reality we are 99.9 percent empty space, being made up of electrons and the forces of the universe holding them together, and the human brain instinctively fills in the gaps. So how do i know that my green is your green.

Upon thinking further on the idea, i felt that a hellish image would be better for the bottom face than one of purely death, the two concepts are synonymous in my catholic/jesuit upbringing/force feeding. also the idea that hell is below us works well with the image being projected onto the floor. This projection will be in stark comparison to those on the outer faces, those i decided would be photo montages, as this is a more interesting way of showing all the facets of a season rather than like just falling leaves for autumn etc. I also thought that in addition to the hellish image i would include some coloured LED lights underneath that will add emphasis to the image and also help to create a sense of vertigo and unease as the viewer looks at the swirling image.

I would also ideally like to include sound in the exhibition, creating a general atmos track for each image that will all play together creating a cacophony of sound.