Liquid Light - Berlin

Liquid Light 2022 - a site-specific Installation at the Sounds of Water Festival - im Kleinen Wasserspeicher, Berlin-PrenzlauerBerg. 

Water dripping steadily into a shallow pool creates ripples that are reflected on suspended drafting film and the surrounding walls, resulting in the projection of a rhythmic, pulsating wave. The pool is 1m x 2m.

     

Foliage-flow

Reflective moment in the botanical garden of Braunschweig, early September 2021

A moment in time

Summer 2020 

Two birds flying past, making a fleeting appearance on Live Sky - a 'slice' of sky floating in the space (CCTV live feed projection on acrylic glass).

A year has passed since the exhibition @ King Edward Street, Light Works. I had used the space for nine months as a laboratory, setting up new works in response to the space and refining existing ones. It has been an intense, demanding and beautiful time, a dive into new territory, quietly challenging me on various levels. 

Subsequently the last year became a time of recovery - and also of final goodbyes, with  impromptu travel and long stays abroad. 

It would turn into August before we could take down the projection works on the upper floors. And it was then, just before dismantling Live Sky, that I accidentally captured two birds flying by, a coincidence I could only dream of during the exhibition time...

light influx

 
Figuring out light influx and possible dates and times to catch the sun for work during the first weeks from February onwards. We're on the first floor of unit 47.

Filtering light

photo: Harlan Whittingham

8 October 2019 16:35h

In the upstairs space: watching what the light does with this installation - three slightly twisted surfaces spread from the top of the front windows to the ground. Drawn with wool from the archive this 'drawing' can be easily varied and modified. The slightly curved layers bring an element of movement into the space - they seem to ask for dance performances.


The windows at the back of the building face SW and throughout October it was intriguing to watch the changing light and how the shadows cast by the evening sun grew longer every day, until - by the end of October - the sun was too low and hidden behind the neighbouring buildings.

In response to the changing light, I have developed a different shape for this space that revolves around the column in the middle of the room while checking the course of the sun and its coordinates:

www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/

More images of wandering light

Threshold

'Threshold', a site-specific drawing, nylon and mohair-wool, photo: Harlan Whittingham


Early evening sun illuminating a detail of 'Threshold'
photo: Michael Taylor

Vacant space

Blogposts April - July 2019 about work in an empty shop unit in Hull, made available by Axisweb. I'm using this space as a temporary studio to experiment and try out new avenues - mainly setting up site-specific installations.

More about this project in my interview with Axisweb.

Vacant Space, nylon thread and mohair wool

 unit47.blogspot.com

Silent Collision

September - Equinox - the sunlight just strong enough to expose this sculpture. Like Blue Moon - just smaller - it is a 3-D cyanotype. And like Blue Moon, it consists of nothing but silk threads - and light. However, here two spheres touching each other are embedded in the blue block of vertical threads. Silent Collision was repeatedly exposed to late September’s sunshine thus leading to varying cyan-blue shades that merge into each other.

dimensions: 15cm x 21cm x 44cm

Blue Moon

More photos of Blue Moon: The photogram of a sphere, cyanotyped into a body of silk threads that are attached to and sewn into two acrylic glasses.

Capturing the luminosity in a sculpture like this is one of those things. The camera "sees" an image that looks quite different from what my eyes see - as if it has its own idea of how to "translate" luminosity, shading and depth into 2D.

Blue Moon was photographed with nothing but the natural November light filtering through the north-facing studio window, and thus became a subject for familiarising myself with the manual settings of our camera...

Globe's sister

A dream come true: Globe's sister so to speak - but while the former has been screen-printed, Blue Moon is cyanotyped: white silk-threads have been dyed with a photosensitive solution and exposed to sunlight. In other words - the sphere has been 'blue-printed' into a body of white silk-threads that are sewn to two acrylic glasses.
Depending on lighting the blue varies from royal blue to a dark cyan.
Thus, this was - and is - a photo challenge too.



Details


silk-thread, acrylic glass, weights (sash window)
33cm x 33cm x 82cm (109cm including weights)
Read more about the process here.
see also Themes / Process (May- September 2017)

Blueprint

After a lengthy exposure period - it turned autumn and sun light is receding... this threaded silk piece has been processed as any cyanotype / photo / photogram:

exposure - stop(bath) - rinse and dry

--------
PS: this was four years ago - a layered version.

it works!

White silk-threads - cyanotyped. Dyed and processed as a whole body. It works. This is a study - to find out just this. - Nice to watch how over time the blue becomes more and more saturated.
The white shape is spheric - but slightly distorted and asymmetric, on purpose.



12cm x 12cm x 44cm
silk threads (cyanotyped) / PET / bicycle tube / steel

By the way, find more about the process in previous two posts.

3-d cyano print

Exposure to sun light and...

...rinse and developing bath.

Lightning

left: Lichtenberg figure from "über elektrische Entladungsfiguren auf photographischen Platten" by Anton Blümel (Berlin, 1898)
center : Hiroshi Sugimoto, 'Talbotized 011', 2012
right: Hiroshi Sugimoto, Lightning Field photograph from 'The Long Never, 2008

from St Ellock's page

projection of water ripples...

on walls and drafting film (seven sheets 50 x 70 cm each) @ RED Gallery Hull

LIQUID LIGHT (click thumbs to enlarge)






More images on facebook

LIQUID LIGHT

A site-specific installation as part of SETTING OFF at RED Gallery Hull
22 Jan – 21 Feb 2016

Water ripples projected on suspended drafting film and on surrounding walls. Seven film sheets form an arch between a pool and the skylight above
dimensions: 2.7m x 70cm x room height


A wooden frame and pond liner form a silent musical instrument. Water acts as the medium conveying the message. Light projects water ripples on the suspended drafting film and on the surrounding walls as enlarged drawings in motion.

The video below shows projections of dripping water on sheet one to four and then the entire installation.

The blueness of the sky

A '18th century instrument designed to measure the blueness of the sky called Cyanometer'.

'arborescent forms'

No. 40

I read about William Armstong's experiments with electrical discharges in his book 'Electric movement in air and water', see last post.

No. 41

While he recorded many of these experiments directly onto photographic plates and created beautiful photos all along, he had to find a different way to capture experiments that produced very bright sparks.

Images No. 40 and 41 are made on plates with a very thin layer of wax and dust. What he captures this way is describes like this [p. 50]:

Inverse image of a wintry tree

"I have already spoken of electricity as organised motion, and we have here an example of it carried apparently to the verge of life. (No. 38)
[...]in the succeeding figure (No. 40) we see arborescent forms, showing trees and undergrowth, in which stems, branches, and leaves find their approximate representatives. Lastly, in the one remaining figure to be shown (No. 41), even the root is indicated lying at the foot of the stem.”

And later on he concludes [p. 52]:
“Examples have been presented of the remarkable correspondence between some electric figures and living organised forms.”


It brings back the photos of the trees I took last winter and Drawings in the sky.

Water - and electrical currents

A few days in Northumberland. First we stay in Newbiggin, home of the Couple by Sean Henry. On the beach I find drawings created by the sea. A thin layer of black sand covers the usual beige and the ebb and flow of water 'paints' intriguing patterns into this black canvas (left pic).

In contrast the black & white image* shows the trace of an electrical current. This photo stems from a book by Lord Armstrong 'Electric movement in air and water', published 1897. We come across Armstrong's work and genius when, from the coast, we turn inland to visit Cragside near Rothbury.  Cragside was the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity. See also: National Trust site / Cragside

*Image source:
Electric movement in air and water with theoretical inferences
Armstrong, William George London, 1897

Once upon a time,

...in another life, I made this piece:


It is woven with hair-thin Nylon, cotton thread and tissue paper. I loved making it, that's maybe why I remember it now - and there's an affinity with the cloud images, see last posts. - By the way I remelted the images of the slide show in last week's post into a video.