After the fire I have returned to the affected area more than 25 times from a few days after the blaze to the present time.
I approached shooting the regenerating bush scene as a series of disjointed triptychs where visual elements repeated from image to image but with some disjuncture.
Entropy String - Projection at TarraWarra Art Museum
I built up a huge resource of several thousand images that I then combined these into a series of huge composite images. Working with Alex Hayes on the IT aspect of the project together we produced a complex randomized projection piece. The projection application was written in C++ and when playing began by selecting one of 30 large composite images and randomly generated a pathway to a single image which eventually filled the screen before returning to another large composite image. Initially the application was written in Java but this proved to be not as smooth as we anticipated so the application was then rewritten by Alex in C++. The projection played at 120 frames per second and manages over 5,000 images.
Video of how the sequences were constructed
Alex Hayes working on site at Tarra Warra before the exhibition opening.
Viewing the Entropy String - Projection
Lloyd beside the entropy projection at Tarra Warra - with a triptych screen on the screen
Projection Scene Sequence |
Lloyd discussing the projection work - with a triptych screen on the screen |
1. The projection with a composite image on the screen - the sequence begins by randomly selecting one of 30 composite images which fills the screen. |
2. An area of the composite remains illuminated white the remaining images fade to back and then this random image zooms up to fill the screen - projection with the top left section of a composite image on the screen |
3. the application then selects a line of triptychs which stays illuminated while the remaining images fade to back - projection zoomed in with two triptychs on the screen |
4. the line of triptychs then zoom up until a single triptych fills the screen. The line of triptychs then scroll across until the sequence stops at a selected triptych. |
5. The other images of the triptych fade to leave a single single image illuminated which then zooms to fill the full screen before dissolve fading to bring up another composite. |
6. From here the sequence begins again by selecting a different composite. The projection is not a loop, but a never ending sequence that the computer application generates. |
The Composites where each projection sequence begins
entropy string 23 - one of the composite images fro the projection
Lloyd Godman - image is mapped click on a section to enlarge or - enlarge image above
Still images from a randomized projection of more than 5000 images - With assistance from Regional Arts Victoria and Arts Victoria
entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system. This on going series is based on the disastrous bush fire inferno that devastated the St Andrews Kinglake area of Victoria, Australia - Feb 2009
As an element of variability, weather is something we understand on an hourly or daily basis. In contrast, climate encompasses a wider range of variables but ironically suggests relative stability. Through carbon emissions and deforestation, human interaction introduces an accelerated change in climate where disorder enters a system once believed be to “stable”. Difficulty arises in deciphering abnormality in a variable system assumed to be ordered. Where is order in the fabric and where is disorder in the eroding threads?
As a vehicle to investigate entropy, this series of triptychs juxtaposes visual disharmony against the human desire to perceive visual order. It plays one gestalt against another. Based on a landscape affected by the disastrous bush fire that devastated the St Andrews area of Victoria, during February 2009, the work metaphorically relates the effects of environmental catastrophe to potential cause.
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