Light boxes

Been finishing off my light boxes and preparing my space for assessment this week. I'll be showing 5 boxes (3 of which light up) and a projection work. Will photograph my space when I do all the finishing touches... but here are some pictures of my light boxes as they are right now. There will be 5 in total, I just have to get one more picture printed and mounted into its box, and get wire ties to tidy all the wiring up, then I'll be done. The three boxes that light up have laser engraved text into the images. All texts were taken from my summer project, where I documented every visit to my Gran in hospital and her empty house.

"Some other people joined me when I was in the visitors' room. They were telling me how their Mother was dying and had been there for 4 months. They told me to pray to god and then Granny will get better. I did not find their advice terribly helpful. Granny will never be getting home, she will almost certainly not be getting better, and telling me a load of shite about religion will not save her from that.";

"There was a scab on her lip and her mouth was just hanging open, her head tilted back. We each held her hand and she sort of responded. Her hand was so soft and warm; it seemed so strange.";

"She was just babbling nonsense again, and then went into her handbag to look for things, but then I thought she was falling asleep. Her eyes rolled back, her mouth hung open, and she shook. Mum says she was probably having a small fit.";

Sorry about the poor quality images, they're very hard to photograph!

Third Year, Semester Two, Week 9

A little bit of what I've been upto over the past few days; looking at layering text over text, or text over image. Been using the laser cutter to engrave into different materials, which has been fun!

Laser cutting into glass, which is only visible when the light catches it.

5x4 Ilford HP5+ contact print behind laser cut glass

Also been looking at my light boxes and wether or not they would work best in my slide projector piece, or as a separate work all together. I want the images to appear to be a very regular sight, just pictures of people 'family snaps', but its not until the viewer gets closer that they realise things are missing from the images (books from the book shelves, coats in the cloak room, etc). How they are presented below mimics how the family photographs are presented up the stairs in my Grans house. I'm also going to make some shelves and look at presenting them like that but right now I'm very undecided about the presentation.

Layering laser engraved paper over the light boxes. I really like the nice glow you get from the text, and think it makes people focus on the light, which is what I'm aiming for!

All texts are excerpts from my diary I kept of every visit to my Gran in hospital, her death, funeral, and beginning to clear her home. The house will be sold at lunch time tomorrow, so I made a final visit over the week end to take my final pictures in the series of her home.

Third year, semester 2, week three

Some scans of what I've been upto over the past few days. Photographed some colour 5x4 transparencies over the light boxes on 120 film, as I wasnt enjoying the whole instillation route the light boxes were going down. One of the quotes is from Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes where he speaks of his mothers death, and the other is from a book by Max Kondola, containing photographs of, and short texts about his fathers death.




Starting to get my dissertation research underway, so I may not be updating this as much as I would like over the next few months. I'm hoping to have the first draft written by the end of summer/ beginning of fourth year. I'm basing it on the parallels between photography and death, which I hope will form a 'personal philosophy' towards photography which I will base my fourth year practice on. Lots of things floating around in my head right now.