I had a very productive time during my Studio4 residency at Chisenhale Art Place. It was great to have so much space. I got started by putting up the hydroponic tent to run the cloud chamber to get some more film footage.
I also ran a Cloud Chamber Workshop where lots of particle trails were spotted. The cloud chamber gives us a glimpse into the invisible world of particles produced in the radioactive decay of naturally occurring elements and those generated when cosmic rays strike the top of the Earth’s atmosphere.
My call out through Chisenhale Dance Place for a dance collaborator was successful and I met up with dance artist Paola Napolitano She has brought lots of brilliant ideas to the project with her knowledge of Rudolf Laban’s choreutics theory and her own interpretation of the dodecahedron as a Kinesphere, ascribing sequences of movement to the peripheral lines and planes within the shape. She shared some of Laban’s wonderful drawings with me
and pointed out his quote; ‘Space is a hidden feature of movement and movement is a visible aspect of space’
I then began building the velvet chamber.
Next I needed to make the small screens that the audience would use to ‘capture’ the filmed particle trails which would be projected in the chamber lined with thick black velvet.
This took some working out to fix the joints but in the end a combination of glue, V nails, double sided tape and veneer pins seemed to be strong enough. I used tracing paper, projector screen fabric, white cotton, polyester, organza, styrene, acrylic and wood as different substrates to give different effects and emphasize the porous/solid nature of matter.
The particle trail footage was edited together and the projections in the chamber tested.
Some unexpected effects appeared.
I spent quite a while looking at different projector options. When it was time to film Paola I used a pico DLP for darker shots where just her body was visible and a more powerful HD projector for other shots.
There was a lot of footage to go through and only a week to the opening event. This was my first video work and I was learning Premiere Pro on the hoof.
Movement choreographed and performed by Paola Napolitano was filmed in the velvet chamber.
This work builds on recent research that began with wondering what fundamental elements make up the landscapes around us leading to the discovery that less than 5% of the universe is visible.
Within the unimaginable vastness of the universe we trace our paths continuously permeated at a quantum scale by cosmic rays fired into our world by high energy collisions in space.
Plato described the dodecahedron as the fifth construction that ‘the god used for embroidering the constellations on the whole heavens’.
There is also a contemporary theory that the universe may be the shape of a dodecahedron, not infinite but with no boundaries this is known as the 3-sphere universe theory. If you left the dodecahedron at one point you would immediately re-enter at another point
Rudolf Laban was influenced by Plato and the geometries of the platonic solids. His choreutics theories open up new languages to describe interactions between matter and space.
‘What we cannot perceive with our senses, especially our fundamental sense of touch, remains unreal and its very existence is denied, until intuition or research discovers the unique and universal role of movement as a visible aspect of space’ Laban
Laban Archive – Dodecahedron without six of its pentagonal sides, demonstrating a diagonal orientational axis with a circular void around it representing a circular movement. Model made with metal, painted wood, wool and shoelace.
The simple sound edit was a slow transition through the chromatic scale which is a scale with twelve pitches to echo the 12 sided dodecahedron and some added Geiger counter signals converted to an original chromatic scale composition. The video was screened at the open event Scales of Intangibility and it was a relief that Paola was pleased.
Interesting interactions happened in the velvet chamber.
The polyhedral screens worked well to view the projections and ‘capture’ trails, ( a white shirt worked well too ) and I really appreciated all the good feedback from visitors.
Now the concept has been tested I am keen to take the idea to new places. Hopefully it can be developed into work for my open door residency Beyond at Allenheads Contemporary Arts.
While at Chisenhale I had the privilege of experiencing Lydia Ouramane’s The You In Us exhibition at Chisenhale Gallery alone on the floor, letting the reverberations from the underfloor transducer speakers course through my body while reading about the extraordinary tale of her grandfather pulling out all his teeth to escape military service and the night her dogs were kidnapped from her roof terrace. The sound piece is called Paradis it is about waiting for something better to come.
It is a subtle interaction that makes the seemingly empty space personal. My body is here, I can feel the effects and I will leave traces of my visit as I enter and leave pushing against the heavy silver oxidised doors, as with every visitor’s touch, slowly revealing the silver beneath.
Enjoyed an afternoon screening at LUX with Catalyst Arts presenting Looking Aside. Laura McMorrow’s The Lost Acre had a fragile materiality, creating unstable ground of the sort that might give way and open passages to other realms.
I knew we were in for a treat as Peter Glasgow was involved in the selection of films to compliment Seamus Harahan’s BL CK B X exhibition: shiny wet stones.
Fred Butler Harmonics in Space was not quite the zen experience I had been expecting. There was certainly a lot of energy going on at the private view.
And as Laban states ‘Matter itself is a compound of vibrations’
Susan Eyre 