As i looked at the work of Felicity Hammond i decided to create a den and then project my images onto it. Below you can see the structure of the den with no images projected onto it. I decided to build the den out of white material as i wanted the projections to be as clear as possible. I built the den to have loads of layers of material as i wanted the projections to be projected onto an abstract surface. I wanted my projections to look more abstract by having the material in wacky fold and curves. I used a variety of different types of white material as i wanted to see how the different opacities of the material looked with the different projections on them. The majority of the material i used was some sort of lace. I though that symbolically this could be quite interesting to consider the contrast between the old fashioned material and the dens made in childhood. My images of dens are essentially looking back in to the past and i used a material to construct my den which was traditionally used in the past. Lace has an extensive history, beginning to be made in 1500 AD. In my mind it is mainly associated with the Victorian ages and grandmothers houses. I simply though that as my whole project is about looking back in time, the material itself in this den should be a reflection of times past.
Overall the idea worked better then i thought. I wasn’t sure how clear the projections were going to look when they were projected onto the material but they actually showed up really well. I was also able to make quite an interesting den structure as i made it inside and therefore had more walls ect to be able to attach the material to so that it lay right. This den more than any of the others really explores how material can be layered and folded over each other to construct a structure.
The below image shows the setup i used. I simply used a normal projector in which i moved the distance towards and away from the den to project the dens onto the structure. The only thing was that the projector created quite an yellowish light which was not as effective as the white light i had been using to photograph my night time dens.
Above and below are the umbrella den projections. Some of the projections worked a lot better then others and this was one of the most effective ones. I quite like how there is the slight hints of colour from the projection but without it being a solid form or colour. I think this works better as the den and the projection therefore blend together better. The only annoying thing is the definite line where the projection ends as the light from the projector ends. This is frustrating just because i would have liked to have been able to take some pictures of the den as a whole with the projection on them but it doesn’t look very effective as you can see from the below image. This is defiantly an instillation however which needs to be seen in person as it looks a lot more effective when you can see the projections in reality.
The above image shows a close up of the projection on the den.
The beach den at St Brelades also worked really well. The way the material falls within the photograph in the foreground works really effectively. I think this image works so well as the colour of the sky has been washed out to become white and therefore it blends really nicely into the material.
These images were the best as i started to project the material a bit more abstractly. I projected the above photograph on the corner of the den which was where the material fell in an abstract way. As i wasn’t projecting the material straight onto the structure and it wasn’t a flat part of the structure it created a more dynamic image. I quite like in this one how the projection ends and the rest of the frame is in darkness. It doesn’t work for other images but for this one it is really effective in emphasizing the abstract way in which the material falls. I think it also works because the angle of the purple material it at the same angle as the material coming down from the top of the frame. This creates the impression that the projection and den is more of the same.
The above and below images are close ups of where the material is curved and folded over itself and the projection appears in a more abstract manner because of this overall, i quite like the effect.
The above and below dens were the ones which didn’t work very well. I think it was probably the photographs i choose to project from which just weren’t as effective.
