Perception of Space

My photo-luminescence powders have just arrived!

Time to start experimenting.

The whole university journey has been fascinating, but more importantly, it has been very liberating by releasing me from the shackles of self-doubt and enabling me to be more constructive in the self-evaluation of what I do as an artist. With this new found ability the frustrations of the past in not allowing myself to experiment because of the fear of the inevitable failure that sometimes happens, are now gone. I am constantly experimenting and developing ideas, but with an ever critical eye and with that in mind my current proposed installation only has the working title of Perception of Space. The final title will be arrived at at the very end.

Throughout my time at University Campus Suffolk I have become more reflective about my art practice and in return this has maintained and strengthened my connection to working principally in the three-dimensional realm, but also encouraged me to incorporate painting for example, in my work. This self evaluation has proved to be crucial to the development as an artist. It has opened my mind to accept the fact that almost anything is possible allowing the freedom to explore and experiment with a multitude of materials and processes. It makes creating art much more exciting and interesting in a subject I already love and take great pleasure from. The constant self-reflection and maintaining a critical eye on creativity allows me to fine tune ideas. This has proven invaluable as the Perception of Space project concept has already been modified and streamlined around six times. However, as I write this, and with a few more weeks before the degree show build, I cannot rule out further modifications as the installation I’m proposing is still evolving.

Reflecting on my findings and research for the dissertation, the theories of psychologists Richard Gregory and James J Gibson as well as the Gestalt are still in the back of my mind. I realise I’m trying to create within my practice an exploration of their ideas with the aim of clarifying how we perceive our environment and the space around us.

I’ve just had an idea that might be worth following up. The idea is to ask visitors who experienced my installation to take part in a simple survey/questionnaire that can be done via my website. I’ll think about it some more before I myself to it.

Changing the original plan and now having all the resin droplets and large colourful indexical trace paintings in the darkness of the Black Room has opened up a bit of a conundrum. How do I now light the Black Room to achieve the result I’m after?

After an afternoon of research I’m now looking at motion sensor activated spot lighting rather than the LED route I’d planned originally. This way I should be able to provide enough light to illuminate specific elements within the installation, but still maintain the integrity of the whole piece. Also, this will add another dimension to the installation because the lighting will be triggered inadvertently by the viewer(s) as they walk through and around the art work.

If this works I’ll have managed to achieve another goal of mine … that of viewer interaction in my installations.