After thorough brainstorming of ideas, materials, and artists I immediately knew I wanted to include light in my machine in some form. As a kid I adored observatories, especially the rooms that were transformed through light and displayed plants, stars, constellations and space I wanted my work to reflect this. Through artist research I found major inspiration from Yayoi Kusama and Cornelia Parker. These two artists also had specific works that thoroughly impacted my ideas and thought processes these being Parker’s ‘Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View’ 1991 and Kusamas ‘Infinity Mirrored Room’ 2013. Both of these artworks impact the entire surrounding space, illuminating everything in its presence. Kusamas work gives an eery light feel throughout the piece while Parker’s plays with light and dark, manipulating light to create shadows and highlights. Through research of Parker’s piece and coming to the understand that it plays with the ‘light and dark’ concept sparked the idea of yin and yang with lead to the idea of a Chinese lantern.
To experiment I used cardboard that was laying around at home, I found this difficult to cut stars out that were crisp and clean. This meant a lovely Gordon Harris trip where I found cardboard that looked much more aesthetically pleasing. Once I started to cut out stars the process was much easier, and I had cleaner cut outs.
Once the stars were cut out I shaped the cardboard into a tube. Using the thickest wire I could find at Gordon Harris I was able to create a make shift mobile which allows the cardboard to spin I found the wire to still be too flimsy so this required a few tries, eventually with input from others in my group we were able to create a functional mobile.
When setting up all the elements together in preparation for open studio I realised there would be another obstacle to overcome, this being the studio lighting negatively impacting the lighting on my machine. We proceeded to make our own secluded space within the studio acting almost as a small room, this allowed us to control the lighting in our space more. This control over the lighting gives the stars more definition and we are provided a more saturated hue from the lamp. Enhancing the mood and energy in our space.