Cracks in the moon and aliens in the sand
artist book: (PDF).
Cracks in the moon and aliens in the sand is part of a body of work 'Scanning Falling' exploring small worlds in found objects via scanning and the materiality of scanners.
This project began during lockdown when I started to scan my finds of leaves and tree seeds from my hourly walk. Because they were bulky I had to lever the lid off and noticed the ambient light was altering each scan so that no two were exactly the same. I discovered how to kid the scanner into slowing down and increase the dpi of the scan which, together with the altering daylight, increased the jittery fall-off of focus at the edge of objects. I felt this produced a sense of the scanner struggling to focus - it didn't know what to put - that played into the contrast between my pandemic-induced nervousness and the calm inevitability of falling leaves. This helped to re-connect me to the environment I was overlooking when I connected digitally to my community online.
Scanning in different places at different times of day evolved into remote methodology and a still growing collection of desktop scanners! Each scanner processes ambient light and handles what it cannot focus on differently so where that algorithm becomes visible in the blurry fall off of focus is different for each one.
In 2021, I had the opportunity to work with Coventry Biennial of Contemporary Art as they renovated rooms at the top of Coventry's new music venue The Empire which became the Hyper Lab during 2021/22 Hyper Possible and take some scans amongst the huge amount of dust and rubble mixed in with pigeon feathers and works paraphernalia. The few images I captured there prompted some COVID19-inspired writing which eventually became a photo-essay 'Cracks in the moon and aliens in the sand'. I was delighted that Coventry Biennial decided to publish this as an artist book which can be viewed here as a (PDF) or is available as a free hardcopy at some Coventry Biennial 2023 ...like a shortcut through the brambles venues.
Cracks in the moon and aliens in the sand is part of a body of work 'Scanning Falling' exploring small worlds in found objects via scanning and the materiality of scanners.
This project began during lockdown when I started to scan my finds of leaves and tree seeds from my hourly walk. Because they were bulky I had to lever the lid off and noticed the ambient light was altering each scan so that no two were exactly the same. I discovered how to kid the scanner into slowing down and increase the dpi of the scan which, together with the altering daylight, increased the jittery fall-off of focus at the edge of objects. I felt this produced a sense of the scanner struggling to focus - it didn't know what to put - that played into the contrast between my pandemic-induced nervousness and the calm inevitability of falling leaves. This helped to re-connect me to the environment I was overlooking when I connected digitally to my community online.
Scanning in different places at different times of day evolved into remote methodology and a still growing collection of desktop scanners! Each scanner processes ambient light and handles what it cannot focus on differently so where that algorithm becomes visible in the blurry fall off of focus is different for each one.
In 2021, I had the opportunity to work with Coventry Biennial of Contemporary Art as they renovated rooms at the top of Coventry's new music venue The Empire which became the Hyper Lab during 2021/22 Hyper Possible and take some scans amongst the huge amount of dust and rubble mixed in with pigeon feathers and works paraphernalia. The few images I captured there prompted some COVID19-inspired writing which eventually became a photo-essay 'Cracks in the moon and aliens in the sand'. I was delighted that Coventry Biennial decided to publish this as an artist book which can be viewed here as a (PDF) or is available as a free hardcopy at some Coventry Biennial 2023 ...like a shortcut through the brambles venues.
