Wood for the Trees

Confronting the notion of Bathe In Ignorance, I have begun by responding to the words in an English dictionary I am unfamiliar with. I considered a literal interpretation of the phrase initially, using words (where the meaning was not known to me) cut from a dictionary and filling a bath with them. I rejected this possibility and left it for a long while because it was too fixed even without working any further on it, so I went on working on other pieces. More recently I have come back to it with fresh eyes (also having seen the solar eclipse and projected it onto a white barked tree through a pin hole) and now working with a word at a time, through individual paintings, screen printing and a video of light projected through card with pinprick writing on it, this last idea has led to this installation development.
I feel that now is the time to test the boundaries of my practice by putting my idea into a more present and tangible form, yet still true to the core of my practice; i.e. text and misunderstanding. To develop the suggestions of this piece I am going to bathe visitors in the light of my ignorance, which I find incredibly exciting as I don’t know the impact the resulting piece will have on myself and the visitors who encounter it.
I see the installation consisting of a 3m radius walk-in dome. There will be words transmitted in light into and out of the dome, this will be achieved by sunlight during the daytime and by a light from inside once dark, as a result the words will be visible but reversed from the outside. This installation needs to function both in the day and at night, the viewing place changing from within to outside the dome.
I am encountering problems about which materials to use, therefore I am researching the possibilities of working with metal, plastic, fibre optic and fibreglass. There are practical considerations such as how to prevent the light dispersing as it enters the dome during the day and so considering methods to reduce dispersion of the light, a double layer of material?
The dome structure needs to be large enough to stand inside and I have been making small scale models – so far my completed model is the diameter of a dinner plate and I am now making one in my garden about a metre in diameter. I have spent this afternoon (with a helper) cutting wood to size, drawing a circle in the grass, wiring the poles together and cutting pieces of black plastic (kindly given to me by Annette) to fit the sides of the tippee / dome structure. To test how well the words can be seen in this set up I have indicated circular area’s to limit the pin-hole words to and that is my next job – pricking holes in the black plastic sections to form the words. My initial projecting of words onto the wall was so simple compared with this! I have a feeling the holes won’t be big enough and wont project at all!! I have just got to do it and see!