BE STILL, I'M THINKING 2013

Electroluminescence, polycarbonate, copper wire, sound. 
250 x 50 x 10 cm
Exhibited at db Projects, 2013 and in the John Fries Art Award 2014

The inclusion of electroluminescent panels is symptomatic of my current exploration of entirely C.20th technologies and their histories. Viewers of the works have described the 1mm thin, flexible material in thiswork as something entirely new, yet electroluminescence was invented and patented by General Electric in 1938. The form of illumination generated by this material differs to generic modes of illumination such as incandescence or fluorescence and is cause by vibrations rupturing varieties of metals at a certain frequency. There is a pure sign wave (an audible tone) emanating from the works and when installed on the ground, give the impression that holes have been dug to install them. The oblique, voided planes and, gridded vanishing points in the images below reference the recent image pools emerging online concerning the 19A0s and German historian Heribert Illig's Phantom time hypothesis. The 19A0s refers to a decade which supposedly occurred between the end of the 1970s yet before the 1980s and is often referenced with 16mm sparse geometric planes in space. This reveals itself as a yearning for the early computer world not dissimilar to the yearning for early modernity represented in works by Bourgeois and Tingley - a yearning for a lexicon existing at the time of each artist's birth, that only became recognisable decades after its demise.