Commissioned by Paul Hazelton of Limbo Arts LTD
Photography: Paul Hazelton, Dominic Berning
Acknowledgments: One thousand thank youÕs to Paul Hazelton for making it happen.

Original Proposal.

The temporary installation at the Substation Project Space in Margate addresses a number of concerns important to my practice. The building is a very material two-storey brick-built industrial space with a long skylight straddling its slate roof. It has a small courtyard and is connected to the high street by a very narrow road.

The commissioners wished to draw attention to the building from the high street to help create some sense of its presence within the fabric of the town.

One of the aspects of this commission that was of interest to me was the potential of using the language of seaside entertainment to create an engaging but serious installation.

We have used the cheap intoxicating glamour of mirror-balls to produce a moving veil of light patterns that float over the buildingsÕ surface dematerialising the substantiality of the building. As the light drifts or races around the courtyard our attention is pulled into the space, which has undergone a transformation with light splashes unifying disparate surfaces both vertical and horizontal.

As the viewer is drawn into the courtyard, the building has a red glow emanating from all the windows and skylights. This is perhaps indicative of the dangers inherent in its former use, but certainly revealing a hot glowing interior life which is then rudely disrupted by the revelation of the blistering bright white light scorchingly showing off the interior space for momentary frenetic flashes, also recalling the buildings former use as a distributor of potent forces of energy.

The bright revelation of interior and the veiling of the exterior help create a radical transformative perception of the space. The eye is pulled into the space, which wants to jump towards the viewer, whilst the walls seem to almost dissolve into fleeting ephemeral planes and surfaces.