Sat, 16 Sep 2006 12:00am

MA | The Artwork

OK, enough of the theory for now (although there will be lots more coming up). What might the artwork look like?

Well, this is my current thinking. I want to create three pieces of work. The first will be based around 'life' (taking in to account the theory stuff I'm in to). The next will be about 'consciousness', and I'm not 100% sure about the last piece (although I have some ideas). It is the life piece I will create as part of the MA.

Each of the three pieces will be in turn made of three smaller pieces. In the gallery context this will take the form of three portrait-oriented high-definition video screens arranged as a Triptych.

On each screen there will be a rich, multi-layered, video sequence (similar in style to my previous live work (such as the SofaLofa visuals), but in HD quality. Each will be mixed/generated in real-time (using Max/MSP/Jitter) from video footage I will collect over the coming year.

Each screen/piece will have a speaker for playing a part of the soundtrack and video camera. The pieces will 'listen' to each others' soundtracks and respond by changing their own sound and video in ways I have yet to finalise. Each screen will also be 'aware' of the presence of the viewer via its video camera (as with A Choreographer's Cartography) and, again, respond in some way.

The three screens, plus the viewer will form a system in which I can explore emergence and autopoisis through the generation of sound and the mixing of images. I want the work to both be about my theoretical interests (in terms of the imagery used) but also to to exhibit these actual properties.

The next two pieces of work would then expand the interactive space so that each group of three screens would interact both with themselves and with the other sets of three screens. It will become a system of systems with the viewer or viewers being an integral part of the whole.

It's important that the work have a gentle and almost 'sublime' quality to it, a bit like Flow (that's so long as I have the ability to achieve this!). Hence the use of HD video and perhaps lighting effects around the exhibition space. I would like to evoke the feeling you get when viewing a beautiful stained-glass window.

I will also look to present the work as a live cinema performance on three video projectors with live music. Finally, I will explore the possibility of presenting it as outside projections on a public building. These are forms I have used in my work previously.

And that is the starting point for my project.

Author: Sean Clark