Designs for a glass tetrahedron

– MN

Transparency, instability, flexibility

“Such projects, had they been built, would have produced a rich, shimmering and illusory world of reflections.”

Rosemarie Haag Bletter’s 1981 paper The Interpretation of the Glass Dream explores glass/crystal symbolism in Expressionist – in particular Bruno Taut’s and Paul Scheerbart’s – architectural projects, and charts references to iconic glass buildings in legend and literature from the Old Testament to Novalis. Taut’s post-Glashaus proposals are especially appealing to me, the “arcuated forms” and “sharp, faceted excrescences” of his fantastical Alpine Architektur – a response to Scheerbart’s proposals for a flexible, mobile architecture; the impermanent, dissolving structures in his stage-play Der Weltbaumeister.

During our first studio meeting Robert showed me some of his recent (unfired) porcelain sculptures – editions of elegant mountain ranges which catch the light in such a way that, although cast from identical moulds, appear as a variegated chalky landscape when seen side-by-side. Their undulating shapes reminded me of Taut’s drawings, also Wenzel Hablik’s fantasies of glass cities in the sky.

We looked at our first set of mirrored and sandblasted triangles (each 20x20x20cm, beautiful in their simplicity though it would be interesting to try non-equilateral shapes as well, to create a ‘landscape’ of regular and irregular pyramids) and discussed options for their hinging. Aluminium would reference more directly the Utopian materials of the aviary; but matte stainless steel might scratch less… We considered how the objects should unfold – into a horizontal row rather than a triangular block to give a more dynamic (and less violent – the corners are very sharp and look quite menacing when all pointing upwards!) unfurling shape. Also how the objects will behave under the glare of a video projection, how edges and hinges are likely to become features as they catch the light…

– MN

“The aviary looks almost weightless – like a bird. A giant net skin is wrapped around a skeleton of poles – paired diagonal legs at either end, each lined to a three-sided pyramid or tetrahedron – which is held in position only by cables.”

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I am excited to be embarking on an a-n supported New collaboration with sculptor Robert Worley. Over the next few months we will be working together to design, test and modify a collection of glass and mirrored film props, using our studio time to explore and discuss our shared interest in the material qualities and symbolic associations of glass/crystal. The project takes forward ideas laid down during my recent Reside Residency and develops my ongoing 1964 Series of photographs and prints. It draws on Robert’s interest in the alchemical nature of glass and his research into porcelain firing. As we begin our conversations I’ve found it helpful to revisit my Reside blog to remember how these ideas unfolded:

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01.02.13 I am interested in comparing architectures of the Locksley Estate where I live (in particular a hexagonal church at the end of my road, built 1964) with other structures built in London in the late 1950s-60s. To explore ideas of the detached/bird’s eye town plan and Paper Architectures; fictional or imagined landscapes; ideas of volume versus mass – the use of glass and other Utopian materials to create structures that have a sense of transparency or weightlessness, walls as membranes…

07.03.13 I returned to the zoo this week on a day of beautiful sunshine and shot two reels of Super 8 film in the aviary … I hope I’ve managed to capture something of the changing light on the aluminium, the fluidity of the birds’ movements against the rigid geometry of the frame…

14.03.13 [On David Hall’s Vertical and Jessica Warboys’ Pageant Roll] Vertical explores the role of the camera/lens in our perception of objects in space; Pageant Roll uses the camera to explore the poetical associations of specific objects in a specific space – Warboys’ edit a kind of dance of loops and repetitions that propels the viewer’s cognitive processing of these. My current work is, I think, concerned with all of this at once! – the framing of landscape by/within man-made geometries, relationships between camera (2D) and physical (3D) space; visual and poetical associations between Modernist architectures and their more ‘natural’ surroundings…

10.04.13 As I wait for my 8mm rushes to be transferred to video, I’ve been imagining a prop through which I could digitally project and re-shoot the film – a glass and mirrored tetrahedron, each side hinged so the pyramid can be folded in and out; a shape that echoes the geometry of the Snowdon Aviary, that reflects and refracts its structure into new configurations, and that further blurs the distinction between its interior and exterior spaces…

23.04.13 The relation/continuity between inside and outside – this seems to be becoming more central to the work and links back to my previous projects Echoes and Window Study, to the use of glass in modernist architecture, to Dan Graham’s Pavilions, to Alex Hartley’s photo-sculptures and lightboxes. Interestingly the Snowdon Aviary was one of the structures Hartley scaled as part of his 2003 project LA Climbs…

29.05.13 The few images I shot are perhaps more like documents of sculptural/installation pieces than video stills – the projections and surface textures are hard to capture on camera and it seems important to be able to move around the objects to view their different facets. (I think of Sinta Werner’s large format slide works Broken bits of pieces.) Or perhaps they are assemblages to be filmed, miniature sets to explore with a roving lens rather than a static camera. (I think of Charlotte Moth’s Study for a 16mm Film)…

01.07.13 [On Ellard and Johnstone’s Everything Made Bronze] Then, in an adjacent room, an acrylic and gold leaf maquette of the Museo presented in front of, and reflected in the squares of, a paneled sash window. The more abstract, architectonic shots in the film are now revealed to be close-ups of the model and a new dialogue is at once proposed between film and object…