I’ve spent the last two tuesdays in the darkroom at the Brindley Arts centre in Runcorn, using their facilities to make some more work in the ‘Would you tell me..’ series.
I’ve been using the cut out arrow silhouettes placed onto photosensitive paper, then exposing the paper to the enlarger light numerous times – moving the arrows each time the light is turned off. It’s a process akin to stop motion animation, but the effect is a series of stills, or something similar to those long exposure photographs of car headlights at night.
It’s an interesting process to work with, as I work out how best to make the arrows move around within a space – something that is going to be really important as I make the floor projection that I plan. I am finding though that I’m doing the same thing over and over again – the composition of these works is the same as the pen drawings and my pinned collages, so the next thing on my to do list is to play with the meanings behind the arrows (as highlighted in the list of words in my last post). I think I might go back to pen, paper, and outlines – drawing around the cut out photographs, using certain arrows multiple times and trying to make the arrows communicate my interpretation of Shanghai’s rhythm more strongly.
One thing that I’d note that this process has brought to light, is that not all of the arrows that I have got in my collection are suitable for creating the work I want to make, so careful selection of the arrows will be important as I proceed.
