SHELAGH CLUETT                                      

Digital Surface Project Description

The focus of the research is an investigation into the relationship between surface and time, through the media of sculpture, digital imagery and video. The works search for equivalence between a mental and physical space, holding a sense of journey.

Over the past twenty years I have traveled extensively throughout Asia documenting structures that are themselves the focal point of a journey and a space where the physical and spiritual co-exist. The stone of which these structures are built holds an implicit sense of time, the surface is carved; time further erodes.

Within the sculpture, the temple plan exists as a pure ideal locked within the landscape of the stone. After documenting the original surface, it is sandblasted away, leaving only the digitally manipulated plan to position the viewer in relation to the structure. There is a layering of time within the object, the speed of image of the plan against the stillness of the stone.

The digital images are a composite of the ground plans with temple figures or rock surfaces. The images are taken at the end of a journey from within the structure that is the realisation of the plan. They pinpoint a moment in time, and attempt to appropriate the space. Both plan and image have validity but are of a very different order. The sense of place is locked into the expanded landscape of stone or runs over the bodies, sitting on the flesh as tattoos.
Video is used as an investigatory tool, searching for connections like a detective or archaeologist.

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