The ‘Installations that never were…’ (http://clairemanning.co.uk/z_installations_that_ne…) project has ground to a halt, perhaps because all attempts to shift it from virtual image to physical, real, scaffolded installation have failed, denuding it of charge for me. Alternatively, perhaps it represents an evolutionary dead end for my practice, either just now or perhaps permanently?
Forum Arts National Sculpture Symposium (http://forumarts.org.uk/talks/national_sculpture_s… ) is an interesting opportunity that might test this problem, necessitating making something that responds to site, allowing me to the experience to work with real scaffolding for the first time. It’d enable me to verify if what results is a sculptural object in its own right, is merely collage support mechanism, or is an alternative form of collage I haven’t tried before.
My strategy is to re-photograph my first maquette – a very angular, abrupt structure — with no collage on it. I’ve also made a second maquette to test a more regimented structure. Originally envisaged as a regular cube, it evolved into the collapsing cube pictured above as I allowed the materials and structure to speak to me in the now of making. For test purposes, I’ve photographed it both with and without collaged elements on it.
All photographs have been ‘green-screened’, leaving the object floating in an empty background ready to be dropped into any environment I choose. I’ll visit site this week to photograph suitable vistas to ‘install’ the maquettes in, which may well lead to more maquettes.
My final proposal for the symposium will be inspired by nature, either working with or against it as a harsh adjunct. What I suggest may involve bisecting a view to break it up to interrupt and frame the sections I desire — a view that shifts as the viewer alters position. My concerns may well remain with collage but perhaps through a subtle route; a virtual image hidden behind a QR code, only visible to those with the technology, time, and desire to activate the code? This would allow me to blend virtual and real; the real of the sculpture with the virtual fantasy of a QR image that never truly existed.
