Working with LEDs
- an experiment with resistances and accommodations that offered affordances.
What I found around me that became a starting impulse…
Should I use them? Was this a responsible artistic act? (Memory of Khule’s question about conservation came to mind!)
My accommodative act - one of human agency - was to trust in the process and allowing these materials to lead the way.
What I had gathered in a messy pile…
- A laminated block with dry rot (240mm x 240mm x 90mm)
- Non-woven roving soaked in copper chloride - that had soaked up a spill
Should I use them? Was this a responsible artistic act? (Memory of Khule’s question about conservation came to mind!)
My accommodative act - one of human agency - was to trust in the process and allowing these materials to lead the way.
What I had gathered in a messy pile…
- 20 Xmas lights from last year
- Copper clouts for the slate roof
- String
- Acid
- Bitumen
- Wood glue
Intuitively I dug out the dry rot from the wood and coated the remainder with bitumen to hold it together. Rotating the block, the striations evoked landscapes and crevasses so I then glued on the roving and pushed and hammered in the clouts to assist these associations. The digging and hammering were physically painful but manageable in short sessions with rests to look at and experience the block. These reflective moments were valuable as they allowed me to register what had happened.
This was new for me as my practice has previously been characterized by fast and impulsive/intuitive movements. Slowing down and reflecting seems to be valuable for me. The meditation that followed this excavation allowed me to imagine myself within the cavities - held and safely contained . Afterwards I felt rested and the pain in my hands had disappeared.
This was new for me as my practice has previously been characterized by fast and impulsive/intuitive movements. Slowing down and reflecting seems to be valuable for me. The meditation that followed this excavation allowed me to imagine myself within the cavities - held and safely contained . Afterwards I felt rested and the pain in my hands had disappeared.
Bitumen was soaked into the string and fastened to the block.
Then my human agency ‘helped’ them by checking the strength of the bonds. Copper clouts were formed into staples by beating and cutting, and copper wire was woven around the lights to ensure that nothing fell off. More digging into the side of the block was needed to hold the battery case and a piece of copper was fastened across this to hold it in. All practical human issues! |
The close up views became rather mysterious and evocative.
The lights were then wrapped with string in groups that suggested nodes of energy. This was in keeping with Pickering's view that "objects/ things can be viewed as nodes that coalesce in a dynamic force-field of activities that exist around them." (Pickering, A. 2017 ‘Poiesis in Action: Doing without Knowledge’ ) 
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Leftover copper shapes seemed to offer some pre-determined structure and a suggestion of construction and so were stapled on.
Acid washes echoed the copper chloride colours but with variations that were properties of the materials themselves.
The colours of the LEDs could be altered by sanding and rubbing the plastic with the copper chloride. |
