The text below has been adapted from a much larger article
due to be published in 2014 by the Brazilian Journal Porto Arte. The (currently
unpublished) article is a conversation between myself and Prof Paul Coldwell that
discusses the convergence of old and new technologies in art practice – aptly entitled
Printmaking New and Old Technologies - A Conversation.
Murmurs from Earth, Paul Laidler (2010)
Anyway I have more recently been revisiting (with a view to
restructuring) my interests in post digital artworks and the thinking that gets
assigned to such things. So following on from the article topic of old and new
technologies I thought it might be interesting to present some thoughts on a
digitally engraved work that I made in 2010 entitled Murmurs from Earth.
Before discussing the work I reckon it would be useful for
me to say a little bit about the production of the work - or more specifically how
the laser cutting process works and therefore what the viewer sees in the
photographic recording of the artefact Murmurs
from Earth.
As it’s name suggests the laser cutter is a burning process
that cuts through and into materials. The laser’s function can be controlled in
one of two ways; by either cutting straight through a material, or by engraving
into the surface. Murmurs from Earth
is a digital photographic image that has been laser engraved into the surface
of a black cotton based paper. The varying levels of engraved depth in the paper refer to
the tonal information that is present in the digital photographic image. The
tonal information in the digital file is read as numerical values of grey (255
levels of grey with black and white at either side of the scale). The laser
cutter then transcribes these numerical values as different power intensities,
creating a depth field for the engraving process. For example, where the image
is darker in tone the laser will cut deeper into the surface and where the
tonal information is lighter, the depth of the engrave will be shallower. As a
result the engraved vinyl image in Murmurs
from Earth is made visible because of the different tones of black paper
fibres that are present in and on the paper surface.
Diagrammatic I
The artwork Murmurs
from Earth is developed from the same sentiments that were employed by the
NASA space exploration programme that took place in the 1970’s. The mission
involved the deployment of a spacecraft that would carry a message from Earth
beyond our solar system with the intention to communicate our sights and sounds
to an extraterrestrial audience. The recording of these images and audio were
transcribed by engraving the information into a gold-plated copper disc to
produce a twelve-inch phonograph record known as the Voyager Golden Record. The latest celluloid film technology of the
time would not with stand the conditions that the journey would subject upon the
recording, so a more sustainable format from the past was revisited to resolve
the present and future technological issues of the mission, hence the use of
the phonograph record.
Without telling the whole story, the Voyager Mission[i]
prompts technological considerations that occur when we move from one
technology to another; such as transferability, readability and compatibility.
These transition periods, or the state of ‘in between’ bring together the
relationships with form and function, analogue and digital that are central to
this work.
During the conversation between Paul Coldwell, and myself
Paul mentioned how the development of photography moved toward a ‘greater and
greater fidelity to the real’. This progression has increased with the advent
of digital technology and its potential to simulate space and enhance material
qualities from photographic capture. It is this potential to digitally record
and render material properties that led me to combine the laser engraving
process with black paper. The combination produces a facsimile quality in that
the exposed black fibres of the engraved paper mimic the material appearance of
black vinyl. Here the possibilities of reproduction become more than photographic
in so much as the transfer of the analogue object retains a material form although
the function is lost.
The appearance of form without function in Murmurs from Earth refers to the
possibility that the Voyager disc will be unreadable in some distant world or
inevitably, the disc may never be heard - it is a one-way message. Here the Voyager Golden Record is best seen as a
time capsule or a symbolic statement, rather than a serious attempt to
communicate with extraterrestrial life. To some degree it is this sense of
failure that allows the laser engraved record in Murmurs from Earth to function.
The digital recording and rendering of an analogue format
initiates the combing of old and new technology that has been central to this
article. Murmurs from Earth has
developed from a historical event to communicate with another world yet we
might surmise that there are two communicative worlds within our own the
analogue and digital.
A brief video explanation about the work with Hong Kong Open Printshop at Impact 8 Printmaking Conference, 2013 and the engagement with digitally mediated print at CFPR Editions.
[i] Voyager The Interstellar Mission, Jet
Propulsion Laboratory California Institute of Technology [Internet]. Accessed
12 February 2010. Available from: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/goldenrec.html
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