Antarctic Heart 2000
Macrocarpa treated with fluorescent and luminescent paints
Invisible to the naked eye,
Antarctic diatoms dance!
.
…Virginia King invites viewers into a virtual world through the awakening of the senses: we see, hear and almost touch Antarctica. Her installation Antarctic Heart is a fluid and subtle reflection on life under sea ice sheets. King’s macrocarpa and totara sculptural forms pivot from strings, allowing the reflective and luminous painted surfaces to glide in a darkened gallery space. These skeletal and fossilised structures belong to an underwater world where micro organisms survive in icy conditions. King magnifies these minuscule diatoms or algae, allowing each form to move freely. As they swivel and turn, the process of regeneration is suggested. In the frozen saline lakes of the Dry Valleys, life is teeming with fantastical creatures. Shifting to the soundtrack of Weddell seals, King’s sculptures capture a fleeting moment, a secret world and a quiet place in the Antarctic Heart.
Gina Iris, Southbound:Artists to Antarctica
Art New Zealand NUMBER 117 / SUMMER 2005-2006
Dear Lisa
While doing some research on the form of a research video, I came across this small (clunky) piece on magnetizing flurocarbon ferrofluids. I was struck by the similarity of the forms in your work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5OhZ9wT568&mode=related&search=
Re. the research video. The form is similar to the Abstract – 5 minutes long:
What research domain is this?
What is the problem/question?
Why is it important?
How am I going about answering the question (solving the problem)?
What have I learnt?
Software like Camtasia
http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp
gives you the ability to take screen shots etc
The animated forms arising from the ferro-hydrodynamics experiment with magnetic fields are very appealing. They make me want to know more about what I’m seeing.
The examples provided by the on-line software shop appeal less. They mesmerize like any Powerpoint presentation, only doubly so. You have a computer screen inside another computer screen! That makes it ugly, too.
And complexity lurks beneath its sleek surface, requiring plug-ins for the author and the viewer.
You can take static screen shots any time simply by pressing the “PrtSc” key, and bring these into a Powerpoint presentation, with video, if that’s what you want.
You’d need to read comments from users before considering.
Hmm
What I’ve seen is something a little more flexible than that. Print Screen is not much good for moving images. The output is simply a moving image file no plug oin required. I’ll play around with it – there’s a 30 day free trail.
That was pretty cool. My first reaction was, “This looks faked!” Mike, who shares the same office with me, told me about how the blobby bits in the centre undergo that sudden change in the final sequences, which is apparently to do with ‘self-assembling’ molecules that have different properties in the centre of a clump compared to the edges.
I’m not really sure how to explain everything since it’s not something I’ve studied a lot. But in summation, it could be described as a fluid that is very susceptible to magnetism being affected by the presence of a strong magnetic field.