digital surface

CASE STUDY

Context

Brief outline of the artist’s practice

My work and research explores conditions, which lead to the fusion of physical surface and digital imagery/display resulting in an overlap of realities – evoking the confusion and interference of the real and the virtual. In this process, my investigation focuses on visual ambiguities and illusions resulting from the interaction between digital image, material and light influencing visual perception and sense of space.

Working process

Within my current work, overlapping realities and hybrid environments are achieved by applying projection technology in combination with varying surfaces. Projections are images composed by light. Although a physical fact, they are of an ephemeral and elusive existence – an aspect supporting my aim of creating ambiguous visual experiences.
The projection surfaces are modified through screen printing applying inks of varying visual quality. This modification causes the light to interact differently with the material and the ink pigment, resulting in intriguing illusory effects and an elusive depth through the varying visibility of the projection and surface.
The projected image and the printed image/surface merge in such a way that it becomes difficult to distinguish between the print and the projection, between the real and the virtual.

Digital technology

I have been drawn to working with digital media since the technology had become available to me. I am interred in the digital image as a tool that gives me the opportunity of creating some kind of different reality and dimension, rather surreal, what would not be achievable with other processes or technologies. Using ‘raw’ material such as photographs, drawings or geometric shapes, the digital part of my work evolves through layering and overlapping, multiplying, and animating of motifs, patterns and shapes resulting in often complex graphics.

Importance of surface

Based on my background as a trained textile designer, I am naturally interested in different surfaces and materiality, in sensory and tangible experiences. That’s what I miss most of all within the digital and it has been my aim since to combine and fuse both worlds – making the digital image more tactile and the physical surface more flexible and visually expandable.

New piece of work

Size of work

The work presented, titled Blurred Boundaries, emerged as an outcome of my projection and printing experiments. It comprises a spatial installation that includes a multilayered composition of differing surfaces and multiple projections. Sequences of digitally animated patterns are superimposed onto these layered surfaces, which are partly modified through printing.
The size of the installation is determined by the intention to immerse the viewer in a visual and bodily experience, to invite him/her to move around and observe the play of light and colour on the surface, unveiling a series of visual surprises created by the interaction and synthesis between projection and material. The movement of the viewer alters the spatial perception, enhancing the illusionary, and reveals the visual complexity of the work.

Role of surface

The composition of layered surfaces make up one part of the installation – crucial to generate an ambiguous, mutable and hybrid environment, where the digital image is transformed into a tangible and tactile experience and where physical and illusionary space can be experienced as an entity.

Factors determining the choice or creation of surfaces

The composition of layered surfaces was selected and put together according to the interplay with light and the visual/optical qualities of the material, such as transparency, reflection, colour change as well as its tactile features such as texture. Some of the layers are printed with either reflective, matt, iridescent or coloured inks, contrasting the material printed on.

Working digitally

As mentioned before, I have been working digitally for long time. This project differs from previous work mostly in the use of animated imagery and the application of printed projection surfaces. Consequently, one of the most profound findings from this exploration is the impact of this combination on the appearance of the surface as well as on the digital image, the modification of one through the influence of the other.

Information on piece of work

Title:   Blurred Boundaries
Size:   The complete installation occupies an area measuring approx. 9 metres in length and 2.5 metres in width. The height is approx. 3 metres.
Process:   screen printing on differing material; digital projection of sequences of animated patterns and shapes
Material:   projection; textiles and foils, partly printed