The Space Out of Time Site-responsive installation comprising Dark River III, physically manipulated archival pigment print (9 x 7m), mirror, books, stones.
Installation views: The Space Out of Time,
Terminal Creek Contemporary, Bowen Island, CA.
Terminal Creek Contemporary, Bowen Island, CA.
Note: Based on data products from observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla or Paranal Observatories under ESO programme ID 179.B-2002.
Dark River III was presented as part of a site-specific installation, The Space Out of Time at Terminal Creek Contemporary (CA, 2019). The exhibition considered the idea of cosmic immensity in relation to conceptions of time in astronomy, which as a discipline is rooted in the practice of looking back in time, collecting celestial light in telescopic mirrors that can have taken thousands of light-years to reach us.
The installation utilises the three sections of the site-responsive sculptural work Dark River, which is made from one of the largest images ever made of the Milky Way’s central areas. The data was obtained with the VISTA survey telescope at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. Making use of pre-existing cracks in the gallery floor, the sculpture emerged like a lava flow from the gallery floor.
Mirror is employed for its dual nature, in both science and fiction: Mirrors are the primary light gathering component within most major reflecting telescopes, as well as illusory objects in folklore and fiction. The mirror acts as a portal, hints at other dimensions. Stones: an earthly reference to cosmic timescales. The Edge of Physics: part travel memoir, part history lesson, explores extreme landscapes as the sitings for physics experiments and includes a chapter on the VISTA telescope.