Fascinated by the ‘invisible visions’ acquired through the use of Science’s cybernetic eye, I am captivated by images of lands we cannot empirically experience.
Current studio practice stems from research into NASA’s Magellan spacecraft and its mission to map and image the hostile environment of Venus in the early 1990’s. Intrinsic to Magellan’s radar visions are technological distortions offering a different kind of perception to that of the photographic. It is in this sense that these images are unintelligible, and therefore ask the viewer to fill in the blanks.
Through the use of appropriation in the form of paper collage, to creating and inhabiting a virtual landscape through 3D printing and animation, I have built up an inquiry into one particular place. My vision of this landscape ‘Dickinson Crater’ has been fabricated through scientific research and the few radar images that exist, the outcomes of which manifest themselves in different forms. I see the translation between the virtual and the tangible within my practice as having a strong relationship to the language of printmaking; whilst each work shares the same content and conceptual methodology, each also shares a material relationship to print.
Interested in the idea of only ever knowing something through representation, I have been attempting to make the unknowable palpable, trying to comprehend something on the very edge of our imagination. It is for this reason that I see my work as oscillating between the realm of the scientific ‘virtual rendition’ and that of science fiction.
Dickinson Crater
Moving image
SAR Venus 1-6
Duotone photo-litho with screen-printed varnish
Also with silver leaf and fluorescent screen-printed background, available in orange and pink
27x34cm (sizes vary)
April 2013
Dickinson Crater 1
Photo-litho with aluminium leaf
57x67cm
February 2013
Animation work in progress screenshots
Screenshots from 3D model