In one way or another, projection has been a consistent concern in my practice for over twenty-five years, most obviously starting with the 1994 installation Projective Techniques. A ‘concern’- yes, but it’s a more than that. I also love it, I never stop finding it a little thrilling. Projection is bound up in pleasures and pain of light, architecture, place and immersion that are also bound into specific modes of spectatorship premised on collective viewing experiences.
For a brief period in the 2000s the projected image formed a genre of sorts, from Round Table discussions in October Magazine to curatorial work of Chrissie Illes and Documenta 11. Good times.
The works from the Study for Projection series are not projections, but photographic prints. They are, however, about projection, featuring some of my ad-hoc collection of lamps for various film and slide projectors. As objects I find them both beautiful, industrial and completely prosaic, like what photography used to be, with packaging designs is colourful and bold.
I photographed the lamps and packaging on 6x7cm colour negatives in the studio in an approximation of a ‘product photography’ style against chroma green and blue backgrounds, which are designed for chroma-key compositing. The hands belong to Roberta Meckauskaite whose nails are also painted chroma blue. After scanning the negatives the images are subjected to digital processes of montage, layering and inversion.