PROJECT DETAILS WRITTEN BELOW.
DRAWINGS:
Art and science create systems of discourse for nature, situations and chance. This project explores drawing and the creation of unique imagery by extracting the individual from the direct process; bypassing intuition or imagination to achieve a different sensorial collaborative drawing. The Hygrothermograph, a data driven instrument used within laboratories, museums and institutional settings, is removed from its original purpose. The Oakton company who manufactures a form of the device used describes them as, “Precision instruments useful for monitoring temperature and relative humidity conditions over time. They create a permanent chart recording of these measurements for your records. Their quartz-controlled drive maintains an even drum speed even when batteries are weak (or when the spring winding runs down).” The instrument works in collaboration with the artist, creating unique spatial representation drawings of elemental forces, temperature and humidity. Extracting the system from the institutional setting this project works in two parts. One where the instrument is specifically sited in an architectural space for 24 hours and then moved daily throughout the site for a week. The instrument is marking the temperature and humidity levels. The collaborative drawings are visual representations of sensorial aspects to our environment which the body regulates, but are invisible. The second part is a set of drawings where the instrument is sited and remains in the same location for the duration of the week with paper changed daily.
The human interaction with the instrument to make the invisible visible is the determining factor changing the object from instrument purely designed for scientific data processing. When the individual becomes engaged in the process, creates a system and changes the purpose of the device to engage critical thought the object then carries a different objective. These monitors within conservation relate to everything from architecture and sense of interior / exterior space to contexts of movement and time.
Red Line - Temperature
Blue Line - Humidity
Example photograph of instrument used is also included below.
PHOTOGRAPHS:
Hygrothermographs and other temperature and humidity controls throughout various museums and heritage sites are seen isolated. Time and the elements continue their roles in the evolution of our society and our surroundings. Items of antiquity, scrolls, literature and many forms of art that exist depicting historical narratives throughout civilization are being assisted by technology and human invention in an effort of preservation from elemental forces of temperature and humidity. Museums of all kinds work diligently to preserve our past, present and future property in an effort to continue our recollections of historical perspectives, and to allow their use and reference throughout our future. This project takes me to many different locations, not focusing the shutter on the internal architecture or the people within, but the unnoticed details that facilitate the care of these cherished and precious works. Currently being developed as a photography book without text to continue the isolation of the image for the viewer.
Images were taken at various museums and institutions around the world.
