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Artist Journal - Lloyd Godman -Late 20006, I had been approached in by Tony Trembath to be a part of Structure Space and Place - Installations in Nillumbik which was due to be installed in May 2007. Ten artists were to respond to the structure and space of either Montsalvat at Eltham or the tower at Kangaroo Ground. This was a follow up event from the ephemeral sculpture event I took part in with the work "Source" - 2005 - however this event was larger with 10 invited artists. I was immediately drawn to the greenhouse at Montsalvat. Since the 1970s, I had been fascinated glassed enclosures where plants grow, and had continued to photographed many greenhouses in a wide range of locations from New Zealand, the USA and Australia. Perhaps one day I will compile them into an exhibition. About the same time I had attended the opening of Eyes Lies and Illusions at ACMI in Melbourne and returned several times to view the fascinating exhibition. Eyes Lies and Illusions was arranged in seven magical chapters, Eyes, Lies & Illusions explores the art and science of visual perception from the Renaissance to the present day. Developed from the groundbreaking exhibition held at the Hayward Gallery, London, the exhibition includes over 500 objects and images from the astonishing collection of German filmmaker Werner Nekes. I was especially drawn to two works from the show:
Line describing a cone - by Anthony McCall. Perhaps the most original performance art film ever created, Anthony McCall's ground-breaking 1973 "Line Describing a Cone" can be summed up pretty basically. McCall uses a projector to create a light beam that runs through a space filled with smoke. His 30 minute film begins with solid black; soon a single point appears, causing a shaft of light to be emitted across the room. Finally, the dot builds, becoming a line, than an arc, then semi-circle, before finally being completed as a circle projected on a black. This process takes about 30 minutes. When finished, the light beam emitted from the projector, through the black film with circle drawn upon it, shown across a smokey room, appears to be in the shape of a cone with tip at projector's lens and base at the wall on which the light beam is projected. (Once the work was completed, I contacted Anthony to inform him of the reference to his work)
The other work, was an anonymous piece from 1720 "Interior at China - back-lit transparency on tissue paper from a copperplate etching with perforations. While light illuminated the transparent material, it also penetrated to small openings cut into the material and projected outwards into the exhibition space. The obvious approach appeared to be filling the greenhouse with plants, but I decided to darken the entire space and let sunlight penetrate through a series of pinholes that drew a landscape image of trees. I had earlier worked with a darkened space, plants and light in the work enlighten.
Searching for the right material to darken the space, I chanced upon 1000 sheets of carbon paper at a recycle shop for $2. Not only would this reference the carbon (charcoal) from the Equivalence series, and carry a reference to carbon in the atmosphere, but it was a an opaque material. The carbon paper was first glued onto a stronger material, builders insulation paper.
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