My Doubtful Mind

18 April - 25 May 2008

Natasha JOHNS-MESSENGER & Leslie EASTMAN
Dark Light
2008
stainless steel, perspex, mirrored film, optical lenses, mdf

Dark space does not spread out before me, but touches me directly, envelopes me, embraces me, even penetrates me completely, passes through me, so that one could almost say that whilst the ego is permeable by darkness it is not permeable by light. The ego does not affirm itself in relation to darkness, but becomes confused with it, becomes one with it.
Roger Caillois, 'Mimicry and Legendary Psychasthenia'

Dark Light employs a circulating mirrored axis that refracts, unfolding, multiple perspectives alongside the quiet dynamic light exchange of a camera obscura, embedded within the architecture of the galleries at Linden. Both elements envelop the viewer of the work in the space of representation, encouraging a complex vision of observing and knowing one is observing and of seeing others and knowing one is seen by them.

In this work the relentless movement of the mirrored axis deconstructs the virtual and actual views of both architecture and viewer in an endless cycle.

The intense darkness of the camera obscura - literally the darkened room- confounds and then over time illuminates the experience of the work as something not solely contingent upon the visible.

 

Installation Photos:
Natasha-Johns Messenger & Leslie Eastman
stainless steel, perspex, mirrored film, optical lenses, mdf