S P E C T R A at Meantime

Spectra is an installation consisting of sculpture and video components, to be viewed separately. The sculptural component takes the form of an observation or surveillance hut, consisting of four viewing portals looking back out onto the gallery space. In addition, video projection is installed in a separate space. The two components are both characterised by an specific analogue audiovisual ‘effect’, that dynamically distorts any viewed scene whilst simultaneously generating a sonic transcription of that distortion – a throbbing drone which corresponds exactly to the distortion of light. Each viewing portal acts to mediate the view of the gallery in detailed and complex ways. In addition, each viewing portal produces its own separate sound. With four participants, the overall auditory effect in the gallery will be of complex ominous drones emanating from the viewing hut.

Spectra generates its audio by transcribing light into sound using a method similar to certain early 20th Century graphical sound devices. This interrelationship is a key concept in the work. The words ‘Spectra’ and ‘Specter’ share their roots in the Atomist theory of vision, which contended that images are atom-thin ‘skins’ (simulacra), which fly lightning-fast from the surfaces of objects and enter the eye, or the mind when asleep, generating vision and dreams. It was believed that ghosts were errant simulacra, cut loose from their original object source. This wave-front theory of light sits neatly between what we now understand to be the way that light and sound work; light given an acoustic quality. The Atomist ‘vision of vision’ implies that reality is quantized, or even cinematic, and ‘Spectra’ is in part a way of pursuing or embodying this notion.

More Photographs of S P E C T R A as installed at Meantime Arts in Cheltenham.