Abstract:
The site-specific installation of architectural screen-prints and models are preparatory studies for an observatory in Waikereru Ecosanctuary, Gisborne. Premised on the use of the picturesque Claude Glass, a handheld device for distorting and capturing landscape views, and the mirrored works of Olafur Eliasson, the proposed architectural exhibition focuses on how reflective effects can influence the occupation, measurement and representation of spatial environments. The architectural media explore how these distorted reflections can be used to explore two further architectural devices that are recurrent within our practice – the measured grid and the penumbral shadow. Robin Evans writes, “The drawing has intrinsic limitations of reference. Not all things architectural … can be arrived at through drawing. There must also be a Penumbra of qualities that might only be seen darkly and with great difficulty through it.” In this manner we seek to bring forth in these works, an attention to the way repeating grids, shadow and projected light are used with our constructed works and explored in our use of representational media. A gridded field is interrupted by objects that explore a splitting, offsetting and partiality in volumes of innate mass. The ephemeral quality of light moving through space and revealing physical bodies is imagined as a frozen form. This sequence is designed to carry a spectrum of lighting effects as screen printed and acid etched patterns are projected over their surface. The sawn and fractured surfaces are arranged to allow the projection of illuminated surfaces, umbra and penumbra.