Output details

Band Apart

Band Apart is a multimedia installation, which consists of two interconnected pieces: Landscape with Unified Forms, (230mm x 230mm) and Landscape with Fragmented Forms (3810 x 1120mm). The installation is a direct response to the ‘art of the found’, as demonstrated in the work of Kurt Schwitters and Haim Steinbach, and investigates the ways in which found objects are transformed through creative practice. Specifically, the research explores the relationship between photographic images and found objects, making explicit connections between images and objects within a three-dimensional installation. Such

dialogue and interplay between the photographic and the sculptural is unusual, and affords scope for both conceptual and creative innovation.

The installation utilises rubber bands discarded by postal workers during their delivery rounds. The bands were photographed in situ, with each photograph documenting the space around a band, framed by different surfaces and juxtaposed objects. These 1,000 fragmented forms were then randomly allocated by computer to a contained space within a 3810mm x 1120mm frame. The research examines how the creative reappropriation of these humble found objects is able to transcend the prosaic and mundane nature of the materials. This is demonstrated by the ways in which form and colour coalesce as viewing distance from the work increases. Thus, despite the random allocation of the images in Landscape with Fragmented Forms, the multiplicity of forms frequently defragment, demonstrating a range of unintended aesthetic qualities created by our perceptual apparatus. Landscape with Unified Forms is a three-dimensional installation, consisting of the same 1,000 bands formed into a ball and suspended within a resin case. In contrast to the randomised placement seen in its photographic counterpart, the sculpture is a deliberately shaped, intended form. In this way creative dialogue is employed to make explicit connections between sculptural and photographic forms.