Conjured Spaces in the Mind - Merging Realities
2019
This investigation of spaces only possible in the mind began with a device (Mark I) built in Term 1 that merged the reality of the Bartlett atrium of the ground floor with a memory I had of the spaces carved in Mount Pilatus near Luzern in Switzerland.
I use here the observer’s ability to suspend disbelief and the pleasure humans have of resolve images to invite the observer to move back in forth around the model, to understand its construction.
Reality Merging Device
I then modified the device into Mark II to incorporate motion and projection of another reality, to map a world existing between the worlds that extends beyond the frame of the screen.
The device is supported by steel structure below and within the clay elements acting as an armature. Although sturdy, the device featured many details enabling flexible adjustment of the positions of each element as well as their removal.
The Uncanny Rocks
The structure was produced within the metal workshop of the Bartlett while the clay elements were initially 3D modelled and animated on Cinema4D to test the parallax and merging of reality concept.
Once the design was successfully animated, the pieces were 3D printed over multiples sessions and formed the base to build the formwork for the final cast clay elements.
Mapping a New Reality through Motion
Once the Mark II device finalised, a bespoke dolly was built for my DSLR camera and the device to enable the video capture of the desired motion and merging of reality that that initially tested digitally.
The Mark II device added a greenscreen which enabled the addition of another world/layer to be merged. We start to speculate on a space that could physically exist between the Bartlett building, and the row of trees and St Paul’s Cathedral. We start to merge the exterior of Bartlett (visible at the bottom of the shot) with the urban environment of St Paul’s. There are also moments where we lose of spatial awareness when the observer realises that there are three different realities, as the movement around the model reveals the construction of the device and its distance to the walls of the Bartlett, but at the same is trying to make sense of the footage of the Bartlett moving in tandem with the footage of St Paul’s. The observer is deconstructing his mental image into the three individual realities (see video above).
