In The Presence Of
2003
Projected
DVD loop, 6 mins 43 secs, black and white, sound
In The Presence Of explores the ability of light to reveal and conceal. Sound and silence, light and darkness,
create an experience of primitive communication that occupies the edges of
language and vision.
In The Presence Of was recorded in the nave of Gloucester
Cathedral at night. A random sequence of torch signals made by the artist were
responded to by the cathedral community. The strange clicking sounds of their
torches decay into the acoustics of the nave, whilst their dazzling light
creates after images at the back of our eyes. The work questions the status of
the image – exploiting a kind of ‘reverse perspective,’ the lights are aimed at
a focal point somewhere out in the space of the viewer.
This was shown
alongside Knowing Without Touching
in the crypt of Gloucester Cathedral for the show Tabatha Andrews: Artist in Residence 2002-3.
‘The projection works I am currently making deal
with light as something that can reveal but also conceal or dazzle, like Dante
gazing at the ‘point of light’ and losing his power to describe his experience.
How can our experience of the image be more than a purely visual phenomenon?’ Tabatha Andrews 2004