The interim exhibition has given me an opportunity to be really ambitious with how I am presenting and exhibiting my work. I felt that it would be right to exhibit the still life series as a part of this show, mainly because it was the most refined project to date but also because I felt that I could be the most adventurous with these images. I had created a lot of implications surrounding the work and it would be interesting to challenge these factors instead of just leaving them manifest as unfinished work.
One initial confrontation was what do I do with the original imagery which my work has stemmed from. The two images, my own and the original share a relationship that cannot be avoided. Recreating anyones work comes with its own connotations, it is up to me how they are being embraced. The original and the copy is heavily discussed in Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, from which I had taken a great deal of contextual evidence. But I felt my own crude representations of still life strayed away from the point Benjamin had been addressing. The first challenge was to decide how important it was to see Matisse’s original albeit in jpeg/print form. The ‘aura’ of the original could never be achieved in the space or with the resources I had available. I felt the the only viable option was that the original images had to be hidden, and only uncovered by the viewers curiosity (using their own time to find original image, the name of the painting would match the name of my work). My one reservation for this was that I had been putting a lot of effort to achieve accuracy in my own work. In some sense I felt that to feel the full effect of this would have been to pair the images together. Instead the notion of aura would become instilled in the crude curiosity that exuded from my images. The dysfunctional perspectives and mismatches of image degradation and quality are in themselves unconventional.
The second major decision to make was if these images should ever leave the screen. They are products of the internet, they are a product of algorithm, code and pixels. Taking the images away from this setting had the potential to detract from the intentions of the imagery. The original images are created with paint and brush, beauty and expression that is realised through the artists skill and manipulation of the paint. The work that I have created had an existence before, trapped in the plethora of imagery that exists online. For the most part I am utilising stock imagery, or images that are being used to sell products online. There is absolutely no expression within these images. They are the most mundane, uninteresting images but their resemblance to an object in a famous still life painting has given them purpose. Just like the artist has used paint to create beauty from the everyday objects in front of him, I feel that it is important for me to utilise the the pixel and the light that emanates from it. The alternative would be to turn these into high quality prints, but I feel that this would add a physicality to the work that detracts from its purpose. A print would lead this work to become a tangible object and in turn diminish from the illusive nature that is created when these images appear on a screen. That said I have no issue with these images ‘existing’ as prints, but when they are being exhibited in a formal setting, I would rather that they were made up of RGB pixels instead of CMYK ink.
Contemplating the issue of exhibiting on a screen I quickly realised that the ratios that I had been making this work at, copying that of the original image, would not translate on to a standard display very well. The standard ratio for a wide screen display is 16:9 but I have been using a varied range of ratios through out this project. Displaying this work on a 16:9 display would result in large black bars on either side of the image. To counter act this I intend to use projection to avoid showing any part of the screen that is not being used. There is still a small amount of light emitted in these areas but the projector is casting the smallest about possible in order to produce black.
I felt that just projecting on to the wall isn't quite enough. The image that the projector casts onto a flat wall can be very inducing but more so when showing a moving image. My own images were going to be still and I felt that I needed to add another layer on top emphasis this work as a new form of digital painting. To do this I cut down three sheets of foam board to the exact proportions of three of my images. These were then mounted 10cm off the wall using few blocks of wood to attach the boards onto. Even without the images being projected this created the effect that the board was floating just off the wall. To project the image onto these boards I had to projection map them so that the image fitted perfectly to each corner of each board. This was achieved during the install of the exhibition, once the projectors and boards had been fixed in place. It was a process of trial and error as this was the first time that I had used the projection mapping technique to exhibit work. I loaded each file into photoshop and used the distortion transform tool, which allowed me to drag each corner of the image while it was being projected to the corresponding board. On the flat computer screen this image looked skewed and distorted but on the board it created an illusion that made the image appear almost naturally as if it were protruding from a light box or some sort of screen. I was really pleased with the effect and felt that it suited the work incredibly well. It added to the sense of uncertainty that surrounded the images. The projection also flattened a lot of the colour and detail which under normal circumstances would have been quite a detrimental thing. With these collages because they were made up of different images and angles and qualities it smoothed the overall image and made it look like a much more realistic image. I felt that this allowed the audience to be fooled but there were still these underlying notions of the peculiar. Being able to reduce these awkward elements to subtleties really elevated the work. I think seeing them on the wall as faux paintings and a masquerade of the originals created a bold presence in the space.
I had a relatively small, darkened space to hang this work in so in order to maximise the space I chose to display the three images in a column. I had to use a plinth on is side to support one of the projectors but luckily I was against the wall so that hollow end could be covered, this plinth also acted as a separator between the image and the audience. This blocked the path of the viewer meaning that they firstly had to remain behind the projection and not interrupting the image but also didn't allow the viewer to approach the image and be able to pick apart each little detail. Preserving this distance pushed the viewer treat the images the best they could without figuring out how these images were being cast or what there illusive materiality was created from.
One major problem with exhibiting in this manner with so much equipment and so much sensitive placement meant that a lot could go wrong. I was constantly having to adjust and readjust the positioning of the projectors or the boards as well as having to play around with the Mac comupteuers from which the images were running from. It was an tough ask keeping on top of it all and a lot more effort than just printing framing and hanging the image. But I felt that having the chance to have a interim exhibition meant I had the opportunity to experiment and be bold with how I was displaying my work. I think that in the future I would have to do a some more careful planning to exhibit this work again, These projectors need to be in a space where they are not at risk of being knocked or bumped into and I feel I’d have to find a way that didn't rely on a mac mini for each image that was cast. Despite these set backs there wasn't anything that didn't have a solution. I think that tweaking the set up so that it was more user/audience friendly would definitely improve was is technically an installation. I have enough time now before this work is exhibited again to pragmatically go through and plan a few installation set ups to best support this work.