Chimera - showing as part of Land[e]scape at Hatton Gallery, Newcastle

More information about the event here

Chimera

Chimera 2008, Iroko hardwood, MDF, Perspex, brass fastenings, 24" LCD monitor, computer equipment and HD video (22 min, 40 sec), 103 x 65 x 52 cm

Specimen case by Mark Burns and Tony Wiles

Transhumation - Dulverton Town Hall

Transhumation 2008, Powder coated aluminium, digital image printed on acrylic opal, LED's, 200 x 200 cm

These images show the installation of the work at Dulverton Village Hall on Exmoor National Park for the Triparks preview event, Thursday 15th - Sunday 18th October. During the installation and preview period the work attracted a lot of attention from local residents, and I hear was even discussed at the writing group who meet weekly in the space. Due to this interest in the work it has been able to remain there until the main body of the Triparks tour begins next spring on Dartmoor.

The work initiated many interesting conversations, a lot of which revolved around individual spiritual readings and similarities in construction of the image to that of a rose window, a feature of church architecture. Someone commented that the work resembled Hindu or Buddhist mandala's and had similar meditative qualities, I found this very interesting. We talked about how the work was difficult to understand as a whole without understanding it's individual components, and how the eye was constantly pulled back and forth across its surface.

Chimera - Hybrid Specimen 1

The 5 body-landscape hybrids shown here as separate cycles and clips are combined to form the video component of Chimera (22 min. 40 secs.). The cycles follow the order indicated here on a continuous loop within the specimen case shown below. For the purposes of the blog they have been separated.

Time-lapse footage of cellular mitosis used with the kind permission of Susana Abreu Ribeiro at The Earnshaw Group, The Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology, Edinburgh

Chimera - Hybrid Specimen 2

Time-lapse footage of cellular mitosis used with the kind permission of Alexey Khodjakov, Wadsworth Center, Albany, New York

Chimera - Hybrid Specimen 3 (clip)

Time-lapse footage of cellular mitosis - interphase used with the knid permission of Dr. Yuko Mimori-Kiyosue on behalf of Shoichiro Tsukita

Chimera - Hybrid Specimen 4

Time-lapse footage of cellular mitosis used with the kind permission of John Daum & Gary J Gorbsky

Chimera - Hybrid Specimen 5

Time-lapse footage of cellular apoptosis used with the kind permission of Susana Abreu Ribeiro at the Earnshaw Group, The Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology, Edinburgh

Chimera - Specimen Case

Chimera specimen case constructed by Mark Burns (Burnie) and Tony Wiles, dimensions - 900 x 600 x 400 cm, constructed using Iroko hardwood, Perspex, brass fastenings, 24" LCD monitor and computer equipment.

This design had to be slightly modified by shortening the legs for the final piece.

Chimera - Production Stills

Transhumation - detail

Up the Hill Backwards

Northumberland National Park is home to some of the most remote, uninterrupted, and unpopulated areas of land in the UK. It is a threshold space, a geographical and psychological borderland with a completely unique identity; it is a place of unquestionable beauty. My time in the park was largely spent alone, a sort of solitary release. The vast expanse of the landscape offers a rare opportunity, a time for silent introspection, a feeling of weight and weightlessness, perhaps a glimpse of your own mortality. It is something to do with space, the distant horizon and the big skies; you cannot help but ponder scale, your own existence and the connection you have to what is around you right now. The land seems to whisper to you…

The work I produced during my time in, on and with Northumberland National Park grew from a temporary symbiosis, from a relationship that began more like an infection - my own body as the foreign agent. Negotiating a relationship with the landscape takes time, and as certain systems and processes start to become clear, latent internal conflict becomes visible. It seems there are endless contradictions, a push and pull of opposites: timelessness and dynamism, natural order and the order imposed by man, to name a few. However, these opposites are held in perfect equilibrium, a balance between wilderness and control, an understanding that has developed through years of co-existence. Preservation of this delicate balance is explored in the works Chimera and Transhumation.

There is a profound relationship between the landscape and the body that transcends a singular definition. A hybrid of mythological, philosophical, scientific and spiritual connections must be considered. As my time in the park passed some of these connections were consolidated into a visual language of shared sets - bone and rock, layers that settle, cycles that blend together through time becoming part of a unified and balanced system. I explored the parks archaeological history as a way to communicate these connections, using traces of the body as source material. Though intact examples of human remains are rarely found in the park due to acidic soils I was able to work with archaeologists to examine human bones excavated from similar burial sites in the UK. Bones often ravaged by disease causing premature death or physical deformity, bones respectfully returned to the Earth which once provided life, completing a cycle. Working with scientists at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology and the Centre for Life, further traces of the body were collected. I was able to study time-lapse footage of human and animal cell cycles, in essence, existence expressed in its most universal terms. A highly ordered symmetry of process shared by all living organisms within the park, an order that represents everything we endlessly struggle to control and are helplessly at the mercy of.

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank: Dr William Earnshaw and the Earnshaw Research Group at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell Biology (Edinburgh) and Professor Charlotte Roberts (Durham University) for their contribution. I would also like to thank The Centre for Life (Newcastle upon Tyne), The Institute of Design Innovation (Middlesbrough), and the Northumberland National Park Authority for their support. Individual footage credits for Chimera: John Daum and Gary Gorbsky, Alexey Khodjakov, Susana Abreu Ribeiro, Shoichiro Tsukita and Yuko Mimori-Kiyosue.

Transhumation

Transhumation 2008, Powder coated aluminium, digital image printed on acrylic opal, LED's, 200 x 200 cm

Transhumation - composition detail

Interference

A quick update on the progression of ideas for the Triparks residency, more information on the blog.

I have been exploring the similarities between the body and the landscape, looking at thresholds and boundaries in particular. I am interested in the idea of the landscape as a
timeless wilderness and the body's transience within this landscape. Viewing the body as a viral agent, attempting to infect, affect, manipulate or assert control over the landscape. I have also been thinking about ideas of isolation and (personal) space, with areas of the national park being amongst the most remote in England.

With the video work I want to locate some of the most remote areas of the park and shoot some footage there. I want to capture some really slow 360 degree panoramic landscape shots, so you can hardly notice the landscape moving or changing. I might film in HD as the landscape itself is so finely detailed. Alongside this I want to capture or sample scientific footage of the body, both internal and external, perhaps looking at bruising, fingerprints, sperm, viruses. What I plan to do is introduce these bodily elements into the landscape in various ways as if they are faults in the film - lens flares, distortions or interruptions, quite pronounced but
abstract.