PANOPTICON

Artist: Johan Thom
Date: 2008
Medium: Installation: Video projection on mounds of salt, glass
Sizes: 125 x 120 x 45 cm approx

For this project I thought specifically about the notion of distance, of looking outward into space as a means of establishing a provisional locus. The exteriority of this locus is questioned and rendered ambivalent through the disappearing body: the gaping wound that makes of Saint Thomas a believer in a transcendent body.

Final display:
The final work will be projected vertically, with the projector wall-mounted facing downwards and the projected image falling onto two small mounds of salt (laying on two separate half-round glass shelves also wall mounted with brackets).

The work will be exhibited in 21-23 January 2009 at the Slade Research Center, Woburn Square, London as part of ‘The view from here’ – a collaborative project between UCL’s Slade School of Fine Art, the Bartlett School of Architecture and the BBC. The project is part of the annual ‘Research Spaces’ collaboration between the PhD students from each school. For the 2008/9 edition the project explores notions of cultural translation and trans-positioning by artists working in different media drawing from the three key project terms – transmit, translate, transmute.

Visit project site: http://researchspaces-tvfh.com/

…

The work was made with technical assistance by Justus De Jager, Director of Photography, http://justusdejager.com/Home.html