DAVID FYANS

MA, BA (hons, First Class)

Nostalghia

PGDip Assessment 04

 

PGDip Assessment 13

‘The Japanese therefore see a particular charm in the evidence of old age. They are attracted to the darkened tone of an old tree, the ruggedness of a stone, or even the scruffy look of a picture whose edges have been handled by a great many people. To all these signs of age they give the name, saba, which literally means “rust”. Saba, then, is a natural rustiness, the charm of olden days, the stamp of time. Saba, as an element of beauty, embodies the link between art and nature.' (Tarkovsky, 1989, p. 59)

 

Recently, for matters unimportant, I found myself sitting in a car park in Dundee, waiting. As per my usual mode of operation, I found myself visually exploring the previously unencountered environment where I came across, nestling in a muddy puddle, a 35mm slide.

How long this slide had been exposed to the elements, it would be impossible to say. The surface of the image has been treated by this exposure and has become a new landscape, a physical embodiment of decay and the processes exacted on it by nature.

This object contained power on many levels to me, obviously at some point in time, elsewhere, the image had been captured, an edited frame of time and space, and then seen important enough to be transferred into a slide for further viewing. The journey of the object also plays an important and mystifying role. How did it end up in a puddle, in a car park, now?

The slide was scanned at 4800dpi and then printed out into acetate, cut into 36 even division and each section was then inserted into 35mm slide blanks to be viewed as an expanded investigation into the texture, process, memory and mythology of the original object and the effects time and location have had upon it.

echo 010514 02

Update: This piece was presented as part of ((echo)) at DCA, Dundee in response to Navid Nuur's 'Renderender' in May 2014, you can view images and read the presentation notes here (opens in new window).

 

back