artist Journal - Lloyd
Godman - June/July 2001
I had always
been intrigued how standard black & white photographic paper develops
under the action of light. If you leave a sheet of paper out in the light with an object on it, after several days an image of the object is left on the paper. From the process I drew an analogy with the process of photosynthesis that I had worked with earlier in 1996. I was attracted to the idea of an image growing on a sheet of photographic paper and decided to experiment with projecting a shadow image of a Tillandsia plant. A 35mm slide projector was positioned in a small cupboard on the opposite wall that projected onto through the plant casting a shadow onto the photographic paper.
A mask was constructed and mounted in a 35mm slide mount that confined the light to fall only on the photographic paper and the associated text that sat beside the photographic paper.The projector was coupled to a relay and infrared sensor that turned off the projector when the audience stepped forward to look at the work. While the title Disturbance in the Field came from this interaction, I was also attracted to the idea of human intervention in the organic field of photosynthesis on the planet. How we disrupt the energy gathering action of plants through deforestation.
In 1997 I undertook a poetry course at Otago University. This came from my engagement in the James K Baxter project I worked on with Lawrence Jones. I found a simple text with an explanation of Bromeliads, and through the use of colour, text fonts and size of these fonts, I reconstructed the original text by creating another series of encoded messages within the main body of text. Also in 2001 I began writing a poetic reading of my graduating students work, a tradition I have carried forward into my role as independent assessor at PSC in Melbourne.
This work acted as a preliminary experiment to the larger work @ the Speed of Light |
