text michelle hobby

Intersection - Giclee & digital c- prints

2008 

Three Descriptions of Space.  Pilgrim Street Fire Station, Newcastle, UK. (Decommissioned 2005).

1) Photographs of the proposed architects front elevation.  These are photographs of the architect's drawings.  The second photograph shows the architect's revisions and its current state at the time of my project, with photograph inserts (a photomontage). 

2) Photographs of group interior surfaces. During the process of documenting the building I began to reduce the description of place to surfaces.  The building was erected in 1933 and at that point was uniform throughout.  However, during its seventy-five years in service the institutional place has gone through transformations in expansion of use, style and design.  This layout of surfaces provides a final ordered document at the end of  service. 

3) Photographs of Camera Sensor Data.  During a shoot my camera malfunctioned and accidentally recorded abstract digital colour and brightness readings of space.  A further digital reduction of space.  

Book - Intersection catalogue, out of print.

Early Work 1999-2008 - Photographs & video

During this period I experimented with both video and photography.  In photography I created photomontages and digital manipulations.  The turning point came when I literally began deconstructing polaroids of stained glass church windows.  I started to construct ideas, focus on my interests and experiences.  Two series of works came out of this; Ghost Towns, the other The Edits.  The Edits is a series of juxtaposed photographs.  Ghost towns have always held a fascination. Searching for traces of life and times in places, abandoned ruins and buildings.  It's akin to digging for lost time and telling stories.

In video I've explored; time manipulation, motifs, sound, spatial design and edits.  This experimental period was interesting, as I found photography has influenced elements of video and vice versa.  The Edits title and visual style is an example of this.  Conversely, the video installation The Chief's Office pt. 5 (2010) with a static shot.  I continue to draw on both mediums, mostly photography with a narrative construction of sorts, using pieces to create a whole.