Transporting Skies

2002

A networked dual gallery solo exhibition which was shown simultaneously at Site Gallery, Sheffield and Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance.

Transporting skies, people, and landscape between Penzance and Sheffield, the work drew from both landscape and trompe l’oeil traditions in painting to create works which unfolded in real time, concertinaing space, time and location through a sequence of networked installations.

Transporting Skiesabove: The Ceiling at Newlyn Art Gallery. photo courtesy Steve Tanner

In addition to the skies of the title, the work used cameras and projections to draw visitors into the work, transmitting them via the internet in real time to the remote gallery space. Visitors to Site Gallery, Sheffield found themselves beamed to Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance, and vice versa. The work made it possible for visitors to both galleries to become active participants in the realisation of the work, embodied as live performers within it, effectively existing in two places at once.


above: The Ceiling at Newlyn Art Gallery. photo courtesy Steve Tanner

A second work exchanged an urban Sheffield landscape with a Penzance seascape, at the rate of a pixel per second, with each pixel recording a different moment in time throughout the duration of the show. This work was the precursor for a series of ‘pixel landscape’ works including Fenlandia and Glenlandia.


above: The Penzance seascape-in-progress, as viewed at Site Gallery, Sheffield. photo courtesy John Hartley

Curated by Emily Ash and developed from ideas prompted by the pioneering telegraph communications station at Porthcurno near Newlyn in Cornwall, which was the first place to be “on-line’ in the contemporary sense, Transporting Skies was presented at Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance and Site Gallery, Sheffield simultaneously.

The exhibition was initiated by Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance and made possible through funding from the National Touring Programme of the Arts Council of England

There was a leaflet published to coincide with the exhibition with accompanying text by Peter Ride and an introduction by Emily Ash

additional credits