Whilst walking along a beach one night in 2004 on the North West
Coast of Tasmania, I saw something out of
the corner of my eye, a small glowing entity, flickering and flitting
in and out of my peripheral vision.
The starting point for this work was an illusion created by light on a
reflective surface.
I looked closer to discover that the illusion was made up of the moon
reflecting on the rippling water. I recorded
the image moving the video camera so the flickering image moved around
within the frame. I then took multiple shots
of this, layered them digitally and made a cluster of angels entering
and exiting an environment. The first incarnation
of the work was shown at the ‘Peripheral Visions’ festival
at the Cultural Exchange Station in Tabor, Czech Republic in 2004,
where it was projected inside a darkened barn, the angels darting
around, bouncing off beams and surfaces within the space.
It was then shown in the shown configuration in Frankston, a month
long, night only exhibition, publicly viewed from the street,
rear projected behind three glass surfaces. It was later included in
the group exhibition ‘Room’ as a single channel projection
into the corner of space, first at CAST gallery in North Hobart, later
touring to Burnie Regional Gallery on the the North West Coast.
It should be said that the most successful configuration was in
Frankston. The illusion of the ‘angels’ entering
this glass
case, interacting with each other and departing was enhanced by the
glass, the scale and the position of the audience.