Cave soy ink print on tissue (16 × 9m when flat), powder coated stainless steel, water,
steel. 5 × 4m
steel. 5 × 4m
Installation view:
A Stone Sky, Thames-Side Studios Gallery, London.
A Stone Sky, Thames-Side Studios Gallery, London.
The sculptural installation reworks telescope data from the James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI camera which sees in the mid-infrared range, revealing intricate structures – the ‘delicate tracery of dust and stars’ – within the spiral arms of barred spiral galaxy NGC.
The sculpted form emulates a cavernous formation to provide an experience of intimate immensity: data is reworked into an ‘affective space’ that affords an imaginative and bodily engagement with the viewer. An underground pool reflects the print into an infinite night, confounding senses of inner and outer, earth and sky (Water being intrinsic to the sculpted formations and cavernous spaces found within most cave systems). Water replaces mirror, its reflective surface standing in for the fabricated mirrors that are the light gathering components within many ground and space based telescopes. If water is ‘the gaze of the earth, an instrument for looking at time’, what ways of knowing does it engender?
The sculpted form emulates a cavernous formation to provide an experience of intimate immensity: data is reworked into an ‘affective space’ that affords an imaginative and bodily engagement with the viewer. An underground pool reflects the print into an infinite night, confounding senses of inner and outer, earth and sky (Water being intrinsic to the sculpted formations and cavernous spaces found within most cave systems). Water replaces mirror, its reflective surface standing in for the fabricated mirrors that are the light gathering components within many ground and space based telescopes. If water is ‘the gaze of the earth, an instrument for looking at time’, what ways of knowing does it engender?