The Birds Path (after Herschel) - detail
Cardboard, pinholes, sunlight, rear-projection screen, blacked-out room. Dimensions variable. Edition 1/1
© Kirsten Bradley 2008
Gallery 3
Firstdraft Gallery, Sydney Australia
2-19 April 2008
Kirsten Bradley
Artist talk: Saturday 19 April 2008, 4.30pm
This exhibition, the second aspect of Bradley's About, above project is an installation which further explores aspects of natural history, astronomy, geocentricism and the plausibility of constructing a natural system out of cardboard. The installation is in the form of a blacked-out room, which is completely dark except for a sprawl of tiny points of light, which stretch across one wall of the gallery.
This sprawl of glowing points resolves into a pattern based upon a 17th century illustration of the Milky Way, as recorded by William Herschel.
Upon closer inspection each glowing pinpoint of light is, in fact, a tiny camera obscura of the street outside the gallery. As trucks, buses and people pass by, the entire room pulses and darkens with a thousand tiny upside-down images of vehicles, or people, passing through the pinpoints of light. As the sun sets behind the park across the street, the installation becomes a thousand points of direct sunlight, wreathed by tree branches, as the sun sets behind the large Morton Bay Fig trees in the park.
This double optical illusion, which causes the viewer, at first, to doubt their own vision, has been realized through the simplest of means. Large sheets of cardboard, placed against the inside of the gallery window, have been punched with many pinholes, in the arrangement of Herschel's depiction of the Milky Way.
Over this pinhole starmap has been placed a large rear-projection screen, so that it sits up against the cardboard, with the screen only an inch away from the pinholes. The screen becomes the surface on which light coming through the window, and then through the pinholes in the cardboard, creates the phenomenon which is known as camera obscura - an upside down picture of the world outside the pinhole.
The arrangement of many, many pinholes creates many, many camera obscuras on the screen, and creates the overall effect of being two things at once within the darkened gallery space: at once it is both a starmap for glowing points of light, and a mosaic image of the world outside, made up of thousands of tiny images. The resultant work fluxes and moves with the life on the street, glows with the setting of the sun, and, from dusk onwards, ceases to exist until sunrise the next day.
Exhibition room sheet
Exhibition photos
Back to About, above project overview
- process diary for About, above research and outcomes
- photos of About, above research and outcomes
This exhibition was the cumulation of Kirsten's time as artist in residence at Firstdraft Gallery, and was also made possible in part by a grant received from the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council and facilitated by Experimenta, in the form of the 2008 Media Art Mentorship.
The Birds Path (after Herschel) - photo of installation
Cardboard, pinholes, sunlight, rear-projection screen, blacked-out room. Dimensions variable. Edition 1/1
© Kirsten Bradley 2008
The Birds Path (after Herschel) - detail, rotated 180ยบ to show park and street outside
Cardboard, pinholes, sunlight, rear-projection screen, blacked-out room. Dimensions variable. Edition 1/1
© Kirsten Bradley 2008
The Birds Path (after Herschel) - photo of installation, showing viewers inside gallery
Cardboard, pinholes, sunlight, rear-projection screen, blacked-out room. Dimensions variable. Edition 1/1
© Kirsten Bradley 2008
The artist would like to thank the Directors of Firstdraft for being such a sterling crew, Fiona Hall for her encouragement and mentorship, Nick Ritar for being himself, Jack Barton for his truck, Michelle McKosker for her enthusiasim, and Sofie Loizou for her floor and her friendship. Thanks also to John Power for his ongoing discussion and to Experimenta for facilitating the Fiona Hall mentorship.
This project has been made possible by Firstdraft Gallery through their Emerging Artist-in-residence program, and by EXPERIMENTA through their Media Art Mentorship program. Firstdraft is supported by NSW Ministry for the Arts and the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
EXPERIMENTA 's Media Art Mentorship project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Young and Emerging Artists Initiative through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. EXPERIMENTA gratefully acknowledges the assistance of CraftSouth to the EXPERIMENTA Media Art Mentorship Program.
This project has been made possible by Firstdraft Gallery through their Emerging Artist-in-residence program, and by EXPERIMENTA through their Media Art Mentorship program. Firstdraft is supported by NSW Ministry for the Arts and the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
EXPERIMENTA 's Media Art Mentorship project has been assisted by the Australian Government’s Young and Emerging Artists Initiative through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. EXPERIMENTA gratefully acknowledges the assistance of CraftSouth to the EXPERIMENTA Media Art Mentorship Program.
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