BRAD DARKSON

Artist Statement

to tamper with light is to tamper with reality

2017

 

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With the progress of technology comes increased efficiency and an increased ability to surpass human bodily constraints, allowing for virtual worlds where we live out our spatial, political and social lives. Repetitive ‘gestures’ directed towards digital technology may fulfil the same drive for connection or transformation that is otherwise met by religious ritual. The natural world can therefore become circumvented, and through technology humans can transcend their natural surroundings. 

 

The durational quality of the work affords the viewer a chance to break from the rapidity of the everyday to experience a constructed reality in real time. A vertical line of light is projected onto the gallery wall behind the sculpture in a 24-hour video loop. Each day at sunrise the line appears on the far left side of the wall and begins slowly moving towards the sculpture. As the line starts to touch the sculpture the resonant frequency of the two hanging sheets of steel is amplified through each sheet, increasing in volume as the line approaches the central channel on top of the sculpture. As the volume increases the sheets of steel become increasingly animated through visible vibrations. At midday the line is completely within the channel and the volume is at a peak, with the hanging sheets taking on a more severe movement. Volume then begins to decrease as the line moves out of the channel and continues across the sculpture until it is no longer touching the sculpture at which point the sound ceases. At sunset the line will have reached the end of the wall and disappears. The projected line takes approximately 14 hours and 20 minutes to move from one side of the wall to the other, calibrated depending on the time of year, representing an average of the time between sunrise and sunset for the duration of the exhibition.