Trace and Transform
August 2018
Trace & Transform is an interactive reimagining of a series of photograms I created in 2010, which reframes the analogue prints in a Processing sketch.
A hardware interface allows viewers to manipulate and transform digital images, scans of the original photograms in this case. Photograms use the most basic properties of photography to create an image; light, exposing photo-sensitive paper with an object in between. Obsessed with meta-pictures at the time, I captured a series of vintage flash bulbs to lean on those references to light, photography and technology.
The hardware itself offers a number of different methods of interaction - simple push buttons and potentiometers allow for physical touch and precise movement, while sensors measuring distance, light, colour and motion are slightly more unpredictable.
The original prints were shortlisted for the Jersey Arts Centre Student Art Award and exhibited in 2010, so I was humbled to be invited back in 2018 to join a retrospective exhibition featuring artists from each year of the award's 20+ year lifespan.
