[-empyre-] Lady in Wight

[Neal Robinson]

As Kevin so eloquently stated in his previous post I also didn't  
exactly head to Colorado to unpack my pharmakon, but was thrilled to  
be invited to explore a topic previously unknown to me and to take  
part in Christine’s vision of a Pharmakon project.

My fascination with the perception of time and space drove me to  
create the Lady in Wight variants. These immense and perplexing  
subjects have been orbiting human thought for centuries and have been  
at the core of my work for some time now.

Instead of delving deeply into these enormous subjects, I was thinking  
we could take a side road and look at my visual and photographic  
strategy for these pieces. So where did the Lady in Wight variants  
begin? Ostensibly I could say it began with the books I have been  
reading over the past year and a half. These have included such works  
as The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene, A Briefer History Time by  
Stephen Hawking and the David Bodanis books E=mc2 and the Electric  
Universe.

Trying to wrap my head around the subjects that these authors  
introduce has proven to be quite a Sisyphean task.  However, as a  
starting point for me it has been an invaluable endeavor. As my  
organic process continues I begin to hunt and gather images. Currently  
I am using a dslr to capture slices of time, though the Wight variants  
were primarily made from digital video stills.

The next step in Wight’s road to reality began with bringing  
everything into a digital environment. Film footage was taken using  
Photoshop’s automated ability to grab frames at pre-specified  
intervals and thus bring into the work a randomness that is associated  
with quantum physics. Once captured, the frames were then connected  
and layered into a much larger image. Layering at that point became an  
essential part of the process. Using the programs layers tool I was  
able to code and collage meaning into the image as I introduced text  
and various other shapes.

Even though the Lady in Wight variants are finished and have been  
released out into the world to make there own way as independent  
objects they provided an excellent jumping off point into my current  
work. I am a huge proponent of looking at ones work in retrospect  
which then helps the author understand their own art and also aids in  
the conception of new pieces. If you would like to see where the  
variants have led me then please visit neal-robinson.com

Until next time,

Neal
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