Dislocated Shadows: Installed at Chelsea MA Summer Show 2011

showtime.arts.ac.uk/annabillington 

Final film for projection

The final installation sees the re-filmed and looped dissolving shadows projected onto two walls of the exhibition space, behind the suspended wax cardigans which appear to cast them.  The film is purposely slowed with the edges of the projection faded - in order that the movement is initially subtle and visitors may be taken by surprise when they realise they are slowly disappearing.  The domestic light bulbs within the space simultaneously cast real time shadows which sit amongst the projections.

Final film for projection

Dissolving fabric experiments

Going back to the notion of disappearance, I have discovered a material used for strengthening fabric during embroidery, which dissolves in water.  To see how this works and whether it could be useful in my work I made a mitten shape out of the material and filmed the suspended form dissolving.

The experiment was successful so I tried it again on a larger scale - making a form of similar size and shape to that of the cardigans I have been working with.  The cotton used to sew the pieces together prevents the dissolvable fabric from falling off in one big lump, it also means remnants of the form are left behind once the main body has dissolved.

As the experiments progressed, I began to focus upon the filming of the shadow rather than the object its self - the demise of the garments became more 'affective' when viewed in this representational form, hinting at happenings which are out of view and employing the power of the imaginary space.

  Film stills: The dissolving garment

Experiments in the exhibition space

The height of the suspended objects and light source and their distances from the wall surfaces all affect the clarity and size of the cast shadows.  I took the wax objects and equipment into the space in which my work will be exhibited, blocked out external light with black out fabric, and experimented with altering these variables.

Preserve/Destroy/Unravel

Before immersing the cardigan in wax, I snipped a few threads and gradually unravelled some of the weave.  The cardigan was then treated in the same way as the others - the holes grew bigger as the weight of the wax pulled the fabric down.  The resulting piece has the appearance of being 'preserved' mid-destruction.

 

In the same way that recording sound allows it to exist outside of its original time and context, visual film creates the same possibility.  I projected the film recording taken earlier of the moving shadow and suspended the now destroyed, still object in front of it.  The spatial relationship between the two elements suggests that there is a connection between this object and its apparent shadow, but the shadow is of course behaving independently and is now dislocated from the object which originally produced it.

Filming a moving shadow

Developing the theme of an independently moving shadow, I decided to film the movement of a knitted cardigan before undergoing the wax immersion process in order that the recording could then be juxtaposed with the object after treatment.

 The set up: 100 watt domestic light bulb, untreated cardigan and fan

 Film still: Shadow in motion

Initial Installations

Inspired by the independent movement of shadows and hanging ropes at Ridley Road, I recereated elements within the studio space and experimented with moving the light source to animate the shadows.  
 

Ridley Road Filmic Exploration: Final Edit

The final edit of my exploration of Ridley Road aims to further enhance the existing tension between stillness and movement and presence and absence at the site.  The first shot appears to be static, but gradually the camera begins to move forward and continues on a pathway through the space.  The sounds of unseen stallholders recorded during the day accompany the moving camera shot, contrasting the visual stillness of the market its self.

The visual slowly transitions to a static viewpoint, with the accompanying sound simultaneously fading into a night time recording.  The series of static viewpoints which follow reveal a subtle animation of the space by loose structural materials, litter and shadows. During editing, I chose sections of audio which sometimes corresponded with the visual element and sometimes did not - exploring the poignancy of acousmatic sound.  

Revealed by emptiness, the aesthetics of the makeshift structures also divulge the poverty which envelopes this location, and evoke an apprehension of the consequent social issues which generally become masked during the day.
 

Taking objects to site

I returned to the site at night with the wax cardigans from my earlier work, aiming to record their movement through film and long exposure photography.

The objects reanimate the space using hints of its daytime use. I'm not sure the cardigans work well within the context of the site, but I did manage to capture some interesting images which have provoked my thoughts as to how the cardigans might be displayed in future installations.

Return to Ridley Road

Inspired by Mike Nelson's The Coral Reef I returned to Ridley Road with the eeriness of desertion in mind, to try some photography techniques in hope of capturing/analysing the ambience.

Mike Nelson: The Coral Reef

"The Coral Reef", currently on display at the Tate Britain, is a maze of disconcerting spaces created to represent a variety of beliefs and cultural systems. They all appear to be a 'front' or reception space hinting at the existence of some kind of hidden underlying activity.  As is common in Nelson's installations, the rooms in The Coral Reef give the feeling of being recently vacated - evidence of a former human presence is everywhere: a hat hooked on the back of a door, a half empty coffee mug, lights and monitors left on.  It leads the viewer to wonder why the spaces have been deserted, and crucially whether anyone, or anything, will unexpectedly return. The air of anticipation and uncertainty is fuelled by encounters with sound emitting or moving elements which contrast the stillness of the installation as a whole.  These also become more effective when encountered suddenly or when the sound is acousmatic, ie. you can hear them but not see them at first. 

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