Trails

Master of Letters Graduate Degree Show, The Glasgow School of Art, Sept 2015

This work progressed from my vegetation growth experiment, whereby a large box was created for ferns and moss to grow in the MLitt sculpture studio for the past 6 months. The enclosure gradually evolved into a mini-ecosystem over time, in which plants, habitat organisms and nature interacted with each other. The images were created from traces of slugs crawling over the moist surface of the enclosed box, and eventually the documentation became the printed work for this installation.

Tracks

An installation responds to audience interaction - it comes alive with different sounds when touched. Sounds used in this work are recorded locally: Slugs crawling, bird sounds, running water, leaves rustling.

The installation is set up in a way similar to a museum information stand. The structure is built using plywood glued together to form a table height stand. For the glass panel, electric paint is used to paint the slug drawn pattern which traces 4 touch points. Circuit board and leads are used to connect the lines to the computer to enable sound to be emitted when touched. Only the leads connecting to the glass panel are visible, all other components are hidden from view inside the installation. A piece of printed transparency is attached to the glass as this provides a greater sensation of depth when the viewer looks through to the bottom print that depicts an image of the slug drawing.

4 different sound tracks are used in this work. One of which is a magnified recording of the slug that lived in the Boxed Landscape at the McLellan Gallery MLitt studio. The other three sound tracks are running water, birds and leaves rustling noises, all recorded from the local Gartnethill Park.

This work is the result of my ongoing exploration of the connection and loss between humans and the natural environment.

A collaboration with Roy Shearer

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