Mapping, Painting and Projecting.

To develop the idea of projecting my film onto a physical, material ‘screen’ and to explore the topographical effect of projecting onto a carving, I began exploring projecting maps onto my limestone sculpture.

A one-to-one crit on this work provided me with the feedback that the moving image worked more successfully projected onto the stone than a static image. I was using Google maps, positioning satellite images of quarried landscapes over the negative space of the limestone carving, giving the two dimensional images a more physical, tangible void where there is a void in the actual landscape. Scrolling across the land using satellite maps provided a much more dynamic, almost ‘video’ effect than when left as a static image, it also made the void within the ‘screen’ much more enigmatic as when the image was stationary the carving was much more blatant. To explore this in an exhibition setting I have thought about doing a screen recording of scrolling across the Cornish landscape and then incorporating this into my film piece to provide a different aspect of land into it.

Thinking further about display of the projected video and the fragmenting of it, the idea to project the film onto different ‘screens’ on a timer arose. I would have one projector facing the limestone carving and then another facing onto an installation of items (such as carvings/blocks of stone/prints on the wall/wood etc.), acting as the fragmented, sculptural screen. The timer would be set up so that the film would play on the limestone carving and then turn off there and project onto the installation and repeat this cycle so that the viewer can watch the full film clearly on the limestone, watch the fragmented version on the installation and then also be able to see each of the material sculptures sans-film when it is being projected onto the other. To take this ‘sculpting of the film’ idea further I could set up the timed projection so that it plays just a fragment (10/20 seconds perhaps) on each ‘screen’ alternately.

After the fifth and final session of granite carving this week I have semi-finished it, leaving it open to continue working on but cleaning up edges etc. for now. I have tested out making some pigment paint with some ‘Red’, a red, highly pigmented stone used at Trenoweth Quarry to mark out carvings on pieces of granite, and then painting onto my granite sculpture with this paint to make the carved void stand out. Using and making this paint sparked the idea to use it to paint onto a black and white print of the photograph of my hands, as making an accurate colour print through etching or screen printing is not possible, making a black and white photo-etching and then adding subtle areas of ‘Red’ paint to accentuate the coloured areas could be an interesting solution.

I have been experimenting with trying to make the photograph of my hands more sculptural, scrunching up a printed version and then dipping it in clear wax to slightly solidify the photograph. This sculptural photograph works really effectively to tie it to my carvings and three dimensional work, though I would like to further develop this by exploring printing the photograph on fabric, investigating the effect of different materials on the sculpture of the photograph.