WHAT IT IS THAT HAPPENS WHEN ICE AS NATURAL LENS
REPLACES THE MECHANICAL CAMERA ?
Inspired by 杉本博司 Hiroshi Sugimoto’s «Lightning Fluids»1, as a season of intense snow commenced during preparations for the Sub zero exhibition on the notion of ice at the end of the autumn of 2023, questions arose about what would happen if an unexposed 35mm-film would be frozen and subsequently exposed manually through the surrounding layers of ice.
In the course of further experiments, salt, batteries, woollen fibres, electrostatic charge, vinegar-based rust fluid, reflective foil and ashes were all added while the ice was manipulated mechanically, all while the film was kept in total darkness.
Through a grid of positioned perforations the frozen compound was exposed using a manual flash unit and developed immediately after thawing and rising to room temperature. The intention was for the light to travel through the layers of ice and diverse materials to finally manifest a seamless texture on the undeveloped film.
For the London Brockley Open Studios 2024, a selection of manually enlarged samples was being displayed in a specially crafted frame.
Throughout the experiments, parallel vessels were set up under identical circumstances to gain insight into the process and the document relationships between ice, light and added materials under the hood. These results were rendered into Cyanotypes for the «Sub Zero» exhibition, which took place in Potsdam in December 2023.
- 杉本博司 Hiroshi Sugimoto «Lightning Fluids»: photographic phenomena captured on electrically charged film in sole water ↩︎