Mirror Range
As evidenced through dreamscapes and other imagined worlds, the mind is adept at taking elements of reality and intensifying them to create uncanny environments. The installation Mirror Range is an exploration of this process. Drawing from the shapes of Hobart’s natural environment, this work gives physical qualities to an imagined mountainscape.
Using layers of reflective prism sheeting and hand-sewn paper forms, the organic shapes originate from the hills and fog which encircle the city. These references are abstracted and reconstructed within a controlled environment to give a mingled sense of familiarity and strangeness. Despite their organic shapes, the elements of the installation are clearly human-made. Each piece of plastic was recovered from a discarded LCD screen and moulded to create miniature ridges, peaks and valleys.
Suspension and layering are key aspects of this piece, drawing from my desire to map a dreamscape. Lacking the physical laws of reality, familiar places often bleed into one another in dreams. To give a sense of this experience, pieces of landscape are stacked on top of one another and spin slowly. The layout of the installation is intended to create a slow, stilted movement through the space, acting as both an obstruction and a pathway as distinct clusters create channels in the room.
Mirror Range approaches the task of mimicking the uncanny landscapes of the mind by maintaining these otherworldly qualities in a physical format. This translation between the inner world and the shared physical environment challenges the distinction between reality and fiction by validating these internal creations.