The work is produced using 3D modelling software. All such applications rely on single viewpoint Renaissance perspective.
As has often been noted however, perspective does not actually represent how we see and visually interact with the world.
Earlier work occasionally used alternative conventions, i.e. axonometric or isometric projections, which although used in the 3 dimensional design and architectural contexts, in many ways come closer to Indian, Japanese and Chinese depictions of space, in which the observer is everywhere and nowhere.
The work depicts hypothetical spatial scenarios or cultural event spaces, suggesting evidence of an uncertain or unspecified labour. The imagined events may occur within the city or be located in peripheral and transitional spaces.
Incorporated elements suggest both the ‘found’ and the ‘made’; both evidence of nature and culture.
The ‘found’ referring to recognisable and generally familiar things or entities, which exist in the world in various forms; for example, tree, boulder, ladder, book, (including specific texts), maps, drawings. The ‘made’ referring to objects that have not previously existed; they are invented sculptural forms, often hovering between a possible fact and a sculptural fiction. They exist only in the virtual realm, and hence it is questionable whether they can be referred to as ‘things’ or ‘entities’ in the philosophical sense, although they may be considered to be objects of thought or ‘intentional objects’. The textures applied to individually modelled and constructed objects/elements in the image result from photographs of surfaces that I have taken on my travels. Some of these surfaces originate in particular cultures, whilst others are more generic. Rusty steel is pretty much the same wherever you find it.
In a number of works the spaces depicted may be entered and traversed. The eye/camera could at any time pan into another part of that world, which is less or more habitable. Certain human actions or work events may have taken place or are about to take place. In being uninhabited, unoccupied, each location may be seen to be awaiting the return of its inhabitants.
GORDON CAIN - JAN, 2012
