The first peer review.
A JOURNEY INTO THE VIRTUAL WORLD #9
The research continued in the background, but it was time to move the project along. Here is the last entry if you missed it.
After lots of library time and researching other artists, it was time to refocus on the project at hand. My peer review was due within a week or so, and I had a lot of card cutting, negative sorting, and display preparation to do. I opted for a hands on method of display, keeping the artefacts within a pair of archive boxes and displaying them along with a modified light box and a magnifier to allow for closer inspection of the medium format negatives. I also created additional title cards for the two sets of images I had collated, along with an appropriate quote.
I then brought this collection into my university to set it up for the peer review, and it was during my presentation that I decided to further refine the way in which the viewer would interact with the work, spurred on by feedback from the other students and my tutor. For the presentation, I had the work available for the viewer to interact with in conjunction with the light box and a magnifying glass. In setting this up, I found that the room we were using had an overhead camera linked to the class screen. I utilised this to enhance the viewing experience, allowing others to view the work while somebody was at the table.
Whilst thinking about how best to exhibit the work in our upcoming exhibition, I decided to opt for framing. The method used for the peer review was suitable for the situation and location, but due to the delicacy of the work, and it eventually being left in a public place, I wanted to ensure that it would survive the experience. The gallery space we had booked was also rather small, so we were limited on space, and the set-up I had put together for our peer review was too large. The gallery space was also limited in terms of the control we’d have in lighting, which, if it was set up to work with my project, could be detrimental to the work of others. As I began drawing up plans for the exhibition, I was thinking of ways to retain the interaction that made the work compelling during the review. My idea was to make it so the work could be illuminated at the behest of the viewer. This idea would have made the viewer complicit in the activation of the work. However, it became apparent that this could cause a further problem. If the viewer did not illuminate the work it would fail as an engaging piece, as the negatives would be near impossible to view without a back light. To solve this, I decided to construct a frame that would be continuously illuminated instead of relying on a toggle switch, at least for the upcoming group exhibition - we shall look at this in the next post.
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