Filling the Void and the Materiality of the Screen.

I have begun to explore the idea of tangibly filling the void in my granite sculpture, initially starting this through, as mentioned, photographing my hands post-carving and stuffing the void in the sculpture with this photograph.

This could potentially work better as a print on fabric, especially with the juxtaposition between the solid, hard granite and the softness of fabric against each other – the malleability of the human body against the Earth, perhaps?

I have been continually editing and updating the film piece I made a few months ago, adding in new footage, exploring the absence of an audio track, beginning to layer and merge clips and also exploring the materiality of the video/screen through projection.

Still from my film piece exploring local geographies, cultures and heritage in terms of their materiality.

After some feedback during a group crit this week I have removed the clips of my Morse code Mass sculpture, this edit of the film moving away from the exploration of that work and its meaning in relation to the landscape and into an investigation of the processes, geographies, histories and communities surrounding my local area. I explore the meanings that the materials and work holds in regard to these key areas and the materiality that the subjects themselves hold – the negative space in the dormant quarry for example representing the negative space in the local community where quarrying used to be such an active part of the culture.

This process of an ongoing, fluid editing process works to (unintentionally) explore the materiality of the film, despite it being a digital, rather intangible matter: I am sculpting the video almost as if it was made of clay, inquiring into the malleability of such an ephemeral substance.

Further to this ‘moulding’ and ‘shaping’ of digital film clips, I explore film’s materiality and substance through projection. I have experimented with projecting the film onto different ‘screens’, including a flat block of Portland Limestone, Silence (my Limestone carving), a sawn, carved piece of wood from Trenoweth Quarry and also my granite carving.

The ‘screen’ with the most interesting effect was the Portland Limestone voidal carving. The voids in the block of stone interacted really interestingly and relevantly to the exploration of mass and ephemeral negative space in culture and geography that the film explores, however the granite carving works most effectively from a material point of view – being sourced very locally and being such a material symbol of heritage and culture in Cornwall. I will continue to grapple with this issue of locality and materiality in the coming weeks, continuing to explore the projection onto the granite sculpture as it is gradually excavated.

During the group crit this week the idea of projecting the film in a more almost sculptural way was discussed. We tried facing the projector at a collection of materials, distorting the film itself and fragmenting the ‘substance’ of the video. This proved really effective at pulling the film into the space and exploring its interaction with multiple objects, though it did cause the contents and ‘narrative’ of the film to disintegrate and become indecipherable. I was not so keen on this as I do want audiences to be able to interpret the film, however it did work as an almost metaphorical representation of the decline and break down of the local histories the film explores.

This issue opens up the persistent dilemma of display the work: how do I want audiences to view the work and how will its display affect the interpretation? I currently do not know the answer to this, so will continue experimenting with different methods of projection until I find a balance between these two readings.