Title: Point Addition - Mix
Date: 1986
Edition: Installation
Materials: Reflection hologram on glass, wood plinth, electronic dimmers, spot lights.
Size: Installation - Galler wall and floor - Hologram H 25.4 x W 20.32cm (10 x 8 inches)
Notes: An installation produced for Space Open Studios, Hackney.
During the late 1980's Andrew Pepper occupied a Space Studio in the London borough of Hackney. The group of artists who worked in this old industrial building organised a series of "Open Studios" to showcase.
Point Addition - Mix used a previously produced hologram (Point Addition) which was hung upside down on the studio wall. Holograms are normally hung so that the light needed to illuminate them can be shone onto them from the ceiling. Here, it was possible to illuminate the piece from below.
Directly in front of the piece stands a wood plinth containing three narrow beam spotlights which shine up onto the hologram and allow its recorded image to be reconstructed. On the plinth, where visitors would normally expect to find an object (using a traditional museum/gallery display vocabulary and expectation), were there rotary control knobs. Each allowed a corresponding spotlight to be dimmed or turned of completely.
As holograms normally require a single source of light to reconstruct their recorded image, any extra light can cause disruption to the display - often resulting in multiple images or blurring. Here this possible disruption is given to the observer who can add and subtract extra light to the display. The result is a multiplication of the luminous 'dots' help in the holographic recording. In effect the gallery visitor is given control and an opportunity to 'mix' points in space and therefore 'construct' their own 'structure' in real time and in three-dimensions.