Completed the installation of the pieces into the corridor. Made a last-minute adjustment to the lighting in the ‘sublime’ vitrine…it now looks right after matching the last light to the first 3. Completed the ‘blacking-out’ of the void interior and installed it’s soundtrack, many thanks to 2nd year students Mark and Stephen for the interior matt black paint-job. The installation of the DVD/projector into the cube went OK but an issue over screen dimensions resulted in a projected elipse rather than a circle. A trawl through the “set-up” procedures of the projector and the DVD player sorted the problem last night. First pics of the installation are posted.
One week to go and this last 2 weeks has been seriously busy, the making of 3 large pieces has been a real physical challenge. However, they are almost complete. The dressing of the vitrines (‘the difference between sublime and beautiful’) will hopefully be completed tomorrow and the completion of the ‘black-out’ of the interior of ‘site specific void 1’ should also be done, thanks to help from 2nd year students Mark and Stephen. Today I have adjusted the soundtrack of the video to play inside the cube (‘forcing the emotional sequence of the sublime experience’) and its DVD/projection system can now be installed, probably on Tuesday.
Once complete, I will photograph the pieces and post the “show” pictures.
The ‘fear’ piece is nearly complete. After trials with the projector inside the cube I decided to build-in active ventilation rather than passive ventilation as originally planned. The top of the cube now has an instrument fan and air intake holes. The bonus is that the sides and base of the cube have no holes in them..so far! Also adjusted the joint for the cantilever to support the cube, this was very tight and courtesy of a very sharp chisel and the steady hand of Barry (thanks!) this is now a good fit.
The next job was to design and make the enclosures to go over the vitrines in the piece comparing sublime with beauty. The width had been set by the amount of space needed to contain the lighting for each tank. The decision was then to either have a rectangular (lower in height) or a square profile (taller). Since, the viewing port to the tank was to be square and the ‘fear’ piece to be exhibited near it had a square element (the cube) I decided that the square seemed to be the right decision. So square it was and the wood cutting list was drawn-up and the materials purchased. The cutting of the pieces took a morning and the frame was assembled that afternoon and the boxes were assembled the next day. I still find myself quite edgy when building stuff like this as design or cutting errors can really set you back. However, I am relieved to say my brain, eyes and hands did their stuff again.
I have also been thinking about the titles for the pieces and have taken the decision that I want to be direct about them. The title for the vitrines is to be ‘How to distinguish between the sublime and beauty’ and the ‘fear’ piece is to be ‘Forcing the blended emotions of the sublime’. The void piece is to be ‘Site specific void 1’ as it is hoped that the building of void pieces into un-promising places could turn into a series. Such thinking reminded me of Dan Flavin who commented that he was able to get his early light pieces into the normally unworkable parts of galleries…we’ll see.
