James Turrell - Goldstein Skyspace/Roden Crater Project from Rindermulch on Vimeo.

"Turrell's sky spaces are beautiful and baffling. The eye loses its bearing, trying to balance the light as it changes inside and out."

"Roden crater has been crafted with the precision of an optical instrument. When it's eventually finished, at a cost of around 40 Million dollars, and much blood sweat and tears, it will consist of a network of tunnels, connecting 9 chambers and sky spaces, all of them precisely orientated so that they can receive and channel light from the sun, the moon and the stars. But Roden Crater is much more than just a naked eye observatory, it's a temple dedicated to light, and to our perception of light, and James Turrell presides over it like a high priest."

"Some artists are like narrow beams of light, precise and focused. James Turrell is like the sun, expansive and all embrasive. In the hour or so it took us to get to Roden Crater we touched on aeronautics, biology, native american history, geology, meteorology, volcanology, astronomy, the price of real estate, the nature of perception and how many acres you need to raise one black angus steer. Turrell has had to master all of these disciplines, up to and including running a 50,000 acre cattle ranch in his life long persuit of light, which all began as a child, when he pierced the curtains in his bedroom to recreate the star patterns that he'd seen in the night sky..
..and this all began when you were a child, this interest, this passion for light?"
"oh yes, every child has that, some grow out of it, some of us just stay in the same place forever more.. I was fascinated with light."

I started putting the installation up Monday morning for the 5 day projects.. It was tricky deciding what materials I needed when all I could do is imagine how they would come together but Homebase was very useful. I found the perfect netting there, which was square grid and black. It was also 4m wide so my idea of hanging it in strips was made much simpler.

It was £2.19 pm so I got a 10m strip for about £30.

The tunnel had been a source of worry for me because I had no idea what I was going to use to build it.
One of my latest ideas had been to use willow or bamboo sticks but Homebase didn't have anything appropriate, so I tried Wickes which had 2m cable trunking

which I propped between two long pieces to create a tunnel that was square to the door yet the right angle to open in the centre of the space.
We put nails in the top of the boards around the room to hook the netting on. Next we stapled up all of the blackout, before starting work on the netting. I had planned to have a sphere of LEDs on leaving the tunnel, and began by making a circle of nylon threads that were the same length in the right space just outside where the net would hang above the tunnel. I later dropped the idea. The maths and planning involved for hanging a perfect sphere was too complicated for me, although I may try it another time. Here are some pictures of it getting put together

and here is the final result!

I didn't have a name when I started but I decided to call it 'Dozens and Dozens' as a tribute to Carl Sagan, and a bit of a joke if anyone got the reference.

I will soon have a video here of the full experience, tunnel and all, but for now I have no editing software and refuse to put anything online unedited.

However my piece was featured in this video which covers all the events that were going on for the 5 Day Projects, so there is a little clip here.

5 day Projects - CCW from Max Dovey on Vimeo.

I got some fantastic feedback which I documented, here is my list of what people said to me:

Felt like deep under the sea - like the lights were glowing fishy things.
Stayed in the tunnel, as there is more of an illusion there.
Thought there was a projector, was confused about how the blue circles worked.
Squeezed the lights not working to turn them on.
"I felt like i was in another world."
Brian cox!
'Its like a universe'
Set the LEDs off so that they were spinning.
Susan Hiller (I had this said to me many times!)
Shame about the ceiling not being blacked out.
'It did not feel dignified at first.'
It's like going into a buddhist temple, having to take shoes off.
'The best piece of art I've seen recently, and I've been to galleries.' 'It's like you've created a little utopia for yourself where you can sit and meditate.'
'I had no sense of depth, the lights create the illusion of deeper space.'
Meditative
Thought about own work and what to do with it.
It felt like there was a dome of LEDs at the end of the tunnel.(so I needn't have bothered!)
'I was seeing things like figures in the darkness.'
Definitely immersive
Like a womb.
Like closing your eyes and seeing the blue sparkly patterns
'It's not often that you get an installation at college that takes you somewhere else.'

It went down really well, pretty much everyone seemed to love it. I think it achieved what I wanted it to, it was immersive, and felt like something out of this world. It looked like space, but it was welcoming, giving the viewer the opportunity to contemplate our place in the universe. I wanted them to think about how everything that's out there is 99.999999% of reality, and we are just an incidental speck able to marvel at it all around us. I used the planesphere on the poster because it was one of the first things that inspired this project back in the summer, and the mathematical accuracy with the aesthetic beauty sums up what I love about cosmology.
I liked the comments about the tunnel not being dignified and one of my friends even refused to go in, but the tunnel became integral to the piece because it was what transported people from reality to this little world. The crawling on hands and knees was important because it brought everyone to the same level, where there was no pretentiousness, almost in a childlike way I wanted people to react to the work without any self consciousness or preconceptions of the white gallery space, and I wanted it to be FUN! Another of my favourite reactions that isn't on the list was the squealing and gleeful giggling that I heard as I shut the door from a few people crawling in!
The comment about it being like closing your eyes really excited me because of course it links to James Turrell who is practically my hero at the moment. I had a great chat with the woman and told her about his Bindu Shards chamber at the Gagosian, and the Purkinje effect. The idea that I had made something that links to optical effects was brilliant, although subconsciously I must be making things which all relate to my interests. I have often had the blue sparkly effect when I close my eyes, and perhaps that has affected my decisions in this piece.

What I also found interesting although it is a little off topic was how long people spent in there. Some people were very awkward about the fact that I was sitting outside waiting for them, and I'm sure that affected how long they spent inside, despite the fact that I specifically told each person 'take your time'. Interestingly it did not come down to people who knew me best, rather people who were the most comfortable with truly interacting with it and allowing themselves to forget that I was outside, I believe, had the best experience.

Another interesting part for me was that I chose to have an unofficial private view. As structurally it was not suited to large groups of people I wrote on the risk assessment that there would never be more than one at a time, so instead of a proper private view I arranged for people to come in, listen to music and have a beer on the evening just before I took it down. This for me was the best way of experiencing the work. It was largely like a group visit to a gallery installation, such as the sun in the tate or the relaxation room in the original millenium dome, but it was made all the better for having our own choice of music and drinks. It may sound shallow but it felt very special, and I feel that I have been true to myself in this piece because it appealed to what I look for in art installations.
Here are some pictures of us enjoying the installation!

I have learned that to put together an installation of this size or larger, reliable help is needed. I would probably want to hire people to help me next time, so that I knew what hours they would be there. The installation took 3 days to put up but it could have been done in 1. Next time I will have the DIY knowledge and payed or prearranged 100% reliable help. I do not exaggerate when I say that I must have some sort of DIY dyslexia, although the situation is somewhat improved as a result of this piece. I have to thank the people who helped me this time as I could not have done it without them, mainly Emma who basically took the brunt of every up and down for the week, who probably did more physical making than I did, has undoubtedly now seen me at my worst and probably doesn't want to be my friend any more as a result. (its okay.) Thankyou also to Max and Rob for helping me with the wires and LEDs, and enjoying it with me when it was finished - which goes for everyone else who came along too.
Theodora Sutton

New structure idea..

Question is do I make it out of chicken wire or just hang the lights in a sphere (tricky..)?

New Scientist - Brain Flip Illusion...

The dots are actually only going left to right at the correct speeds!

My latest design for the installation is this:

as there is a hook in the ceiling it might be possible to hang the sphere from it.. The only problem is that it would make it wobbly and people might get confused when they get out of the tunnel so I would have to leave instructions on the door.

Any feedback on this would be reeeally good!

As the weather is getting better I'm thinking about doing some outdoors things on a bigger scale, using the LEDs. I could use the overhead projector to draw a circle and then put them in place, and film it getting darker and speed it up. bigger scale would be relevant I think.

I want to do stuff with just circles but I'm worried I can't justify it well enough. Feeling restricted by critical theory. Grrr.

Dissertation thoughts: involving, experience art as a more 'valid' art form than art which seperates itself from the viewer - not just obvious examples like installation but 'involving' paintings or films too..

I've been doing lots of reading about Erwin Redl, Anthony McCall and David Spriggs, with a list of artists still to come.

I'm learning lots, but I don't want to just paste it all out here. I think a lot of what their work about can only be realised once it is put together - McCall talks about how the 'drama' of his projection is the most interesting part, and you can't possibly plan something like that.

I am visiting Anthony McCalls new exhibition at Ambika P3 this week, and I went to Susan Hiller's exhibition at Tate Britain on Thursday.

I enjoyed parts of her exhibition, the really outstanding part for me was her installation inspired by UFOs, which was a room filled with hanging speakers, each playing a recording of someone talking about a UFO experience. I think it really struck a chord with me because a lot of my installation ideas involve hanging objects that you can move through. It was easy to become immersed in it, the scattering of sound was just right, and it was beautiful too.

The only thing that disappointed me was that the recordings were obviously people reading out rather than just talking. It made it seem a bit staged.

The other pieces that stuck in my mind were the one with the projected circles, really lovely - I think people thought I was weird because I was mostly interested in the projectors than the projection - although I didn't see the point in the sound aspect at all.

The punch and judy piece was amazing, horrible but impressive, you really feel like you're being taunted as you turn your head from side to side to catch the footage being played, and you are totally surrounded by the film.

I also liked the dream diaries, the pregnancy photos and the hero placards.

If my summary seems a little shallow, I'm sorry, but I'm trying to stay true to my own interests as I'm still unsure what they actually are.. Not a lot of the stuff that I saw really excited me, and I'm feeling a little frustrated with the art world at the moment as sometimes I honestly feel like I could just buy some pot plants, some glasses of water and a bicycle wheel and do just as well as all the rest of these artists. With the right waffle behind it of course.

I have booked a room for the 5 Day Projects at college and have ordered 500 LEDs and batteries that will be arriving in Morden over the next few days!

I've realised that I should probably link the project that along with Erwin Redl first got me thinking about using LEDs, which was set up by people at college..

bright night bike ride from Max Dovey on Vimeo.

Next on my shopping list is chicken wire, and I need to book the blackout material, work out how to make a tunnel, and do *lots* of measuring.

Aside from this I have been playing with some 2D work, more commercial little pieces that can go in square frames. (Did I just say commercial? Heaven forbid)

I need to come up with what I will be writing about for my essay (no, I haven't started yet) but I do know that all the research I'm doing will definitely help..

Also, this:

And I have applied for an internship at MRC, *here*. they said that applying as an art student I have "exposed a flaw in our application process," and that they "will talk to the MRC about including applications from other subject areas in future." So I'm sending them my CV in case they have anything else for me :)