Transformations

Finding seven identical items was the first part of the brief. That wasn't actually that easy. The items also needed to be easily transportable and transformable. There's always an odd sock somewhere but not on this occasion. Seven tea lights would have worked but didn't appeal. I checked the toy box, maybe I could use the toy soldiers. It worked for Toy Story! Some of them must have gone AWOL so that idea was abandoned too. 

 

 

I finally settled on some small, spiral metal cages that I've used to hold crystals. Here are the individual transformations.

                                                                                              Symmetrical

 Addition

Subtraction

Asymmetrical

Fragmentation

Distortion 

Abstraction

I really like this one. I think it could be a piece of jewellery in its own right. I stretched the metal as far as I could and let go, finally allowing the metal to twist back on itself and joined the ends. 

After several attempts at a natural background for the collection of transformations, and being photobombed by the dog, I settled on using this rock.

An important consideration was the transportation of the finished work so for practical reasons I needed to add my own requirements to the brief. 

I planned the transformations by handling the object and manipulating the metal. My aim was to keep it simple with the minimum of actions on each item to achieve the required transformation.  

The juxtaposition of the textures and the tactile response was important to how I wanted the objects to be viewed.  

The lighting was a challenge. I initially used artificial lighting on a dark background but I didn't like the reflection of the light so I tried photographing them outside. I first placed the items on soft sand in bright sunlight but the glare was excessive and photographing them at ground level was difficult. The rock proved a better platform as it was much higher and the shadow from the cliff stopped the glare from the sun.