Crystaline Vitrine
Crystalline Vitrine is a video and sculptural
installation that derives its inspiration from the objects
and community of the Swiss Church in London. It
makes reference to the transformative effects of digital
technologies; which through their simulation of real life
can lead to both distance and intimacy, spectatorship
and participation.
Primarily the installation draws a comparison between
the superficiality of human perception and 3D scanning
technologies. While visual perception is seemingly all
encompassing, it still only has the capacity to sense and
process the shapes and surfaces of things. In a similar
way, 3D scanners blindly capture the outer layer of the
world, without understanding what it is they record.
The installation imagines this layer to be meshed - a
conjoined outer peel of perceived meanings and beliefs
that wraps all animate and inanimate forms.
Through animations and 3D printed sculptures,
Crystalline Vitrine investigates whether the creation of
digital reproductions can rupture this peel of perception.
By 3D scanning a range of items from the Swiss Church
it creates a shadow world of replicas, which are similar
to, but distinct from their source objects. The scans are
dumb simulacrum, with no meaning or content attached
to them, inert objects rather than active 'things'.
The emphasis on surface is compounded by the process
of 3D scanning, which overlays physical forms with a
digital polygon mesh. These digital 'skins', as they are
referred to in computer modelling software, are hollow
copies of their source object. They are often snagged
by holes and imperfections - information that was not
picked up by the scanner.
Crystalline refers both to digital and analogue methods
of display; the Crystal Palace and LCD (Liquid Crystal
Display) screens simultaneously. Both examples, the
screen and the vitrine, are intimate and distancing. They
are contained spaces manifested for viewing, but are
surrounded by shiny facades. One is provided seemingly
unlimited access, but at the same time held afar.
Text by curator.
- Year2016
- CurationKirsty White
- Supported byMFA Curating, Goldsmiths, University of London and the Dragon Hall Trust