The over all dimensions are 28.5” wide by 34.5” high by 7.75” deep. My primary image consists of a 16" by 20" Ortho / Litho contact print of a Ortho / Litho negative captured in a pinhole camera. The secondary image is a digital image converted to Ortho / Litho, adhered to a sheet of acetate and suspended behind a layer of vellum. This allows the secondary image to be hidden until you approach the frame. Once an object of significant size approaches the frame an array of 198 three color light emitting diodes are activated illuminating the art work from behind. There is some more tech to this, which I will cover a little further on.
The movie you see above is a montage of still frame photos used to document the work.
The overall concept behind this work is exploration and understanding, here is my creative rational for this pastiche. I recently spent two years teaching in the United Arab Emirates at Zayed University. It was, on the whole, a good experience and I wanted to sum up the perceptual transmutation I experienced during that time.
I was intent on using one of the dozen or so pinhole images I had captured while in Abu Dhabi. This one is of the main quad on the ZU campus. Architecturally the campus is modern, using advanced materials and technological elements. However they are fashioned into forms that bow deeply to the Bedouin roots of the local population. When I finally viewed this contact print in positive I was struck by the seemingly retrograded view of the location. A view that belies the current and rapidly modernizing society that lives there. At the same time it captured the spirit of the ancient technologies and structures of that culture. The feeling carried with it the memories I had of the middle east before I traveled to Abu Dhabi. Ideas and preconceived notions from a midwesterner who knew only what he had seen in movies and researched on the internet. Ideas of an older culture with opaque philosophies and no interest in our ways. At that point my primary factor was my desire to present the experience of perceiving Abu Dhabi as a desert island and then having my initial notions changed once I moved there. This is why I chose to create a pastiche that could relay an experience location and time period.
The primary image is described above but other elements are important to me.
The background image is of a gas refining tower somewhere outside Dubai. At first glance I thought it was another minaret. When I first viewed this one I was intrigued by the similarity (to a minaret) and the contrast. The contrast to me at the time involved the religious devotion and the immense wealth generated by processing what our western culture covets. Naive to be sure, but that reaction dissipated as I came closer. I was left with an ephemeral list of commonalities between cultures when each encounters great wealth and then incorporates (intentionally, or not) their religious beliefs into a new world. Though I chose not to incorporate specific references I was able to document the moment so the viewer might visit that reaction.
The bold dense black and white frame is not intended just to house the electronics. It also gives the work a dense dark presence that counters the brightly illuminated colors waiting to be experienced. It also resembles the clothing of the area which is often intentionally concealing and homogenizing. Though like people everywhere, once you get past the different outer presence, you learn a unique story with elements you can relate to.
The lights mirror the activity of the lights in a city which seems much more active at night. A large quantity of the downtown lights in Abu Dhabi are storefront sign-age rendered in flickering neon and painted fluorescent enclosures. They blink and change with an innumerable variation. That animation and variation is mimicked in the programing and timing of the lights. The lights are interactive so that the viewer cannot see them unless they get close enough to get the entire message, or if someone activates the work allowing them to see it at a distance. At that point secondary viewer may become interested and take a closer look for
them self.
The initial concept for this work could possibly be summed up with the expression of pointing at the box and saying "You must go and see it for yourself." This, unfortunately, would be as terse and inarticulate as the preconceptions one might have before they travel to an unknown, but may prep
the viewer for the message.
Now for the tech : As mentioned before there are 198 three color LEDs backing the translucent images. The LEDs are water clear and the colors are the traditional red, green, and blue. Each color must be individually powered, and each LED (594 of them) could be individually controlled. The light array was constructed of 9 prototyping electronics boards. The kind you can purchase at your local electronic parts outlet. Each board has 6 hef4794b shift register control chips totaling 54. Each chip is currently controlling 5 to 6 pnp transistors (or 297 all together). Each transistor then controls the flow electricity
to 2 LEDs.
The hef4794b chips are set in series so that the signal can cascade up the boards. The 9 boards are arranged in 3 columns of 3. All the finished boards were constructed by me from component parts. Each column of boards receives its signal from a Arduino Duemilanova totaling three Arduino for this task. The scripting on those Arduino receive instructions from a fourth Arduino which accepts input from a Ping ultrasonic range finder. When someone enters the pre-determined range the lead Arduino takes the time measurement from the range finder and uses that number as a variable in the animation. This variable adjusts the signal sent to the other 3 Arduino which in turn changes the signal they send on to the chips. The end result helps to make the lighting and coloring pattern seem random to the viewer, as well as turning the lights on an off it a sequence related to their distance from the
art work.
I would like to thank the following people for their influence and / or understanding:
Justin Henry Miller - for a lot of help with the wood and glass in the frame. Also Michelle Diller,
hang woman.
Justin Johnson - for being very patient.
Jon Russell - for Abu Dhabi.
Buthena Ahmed - for inspiration of the light box and use of ephemeral materials.
Ryan Hottois - for suggesting that I re-check my ground connection.
Jenny Venn - for reading my rambilings.
Michael Hottois - Mi Papa.
Emma Staley - for human scale reference in the above movie.
Eric Toy - was originally the stand in for scale in
the stills below, but was left on the cutting room
floor, sorry.
Thank You,
Sean Hottois
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