Title: Vertical Overlap - Drawn Transfer
Date: 2013
Materials: Reflection holograms on glass, wood, plastic.
Size: 26.3 x 25.4 x 20.3 cm, (10.3 x 10 x 8 inches)
During 1999 Pepper began reducing the size of the holographic elements within his works. Partly as a way of exploring the relative impact the holograms had on the overall work or installation, and partly because of an interest in the 'reduced mark' and a way of working which might be more subtle than the more traditional "poke you in the eye" phenomenon which holography has certainly embraced.
Here, in Vertical Overlap - Drawn Transfer, two vertical reflection holograms on glass face each other as they protrude from a low-fi composite wooden base.
Each contains the pseudoscopic image of the shadow of water - dark marks which undulate and shift as an observer moves past them. These motifs have been used by Pepper in earlier works and are particularly evident in Vertical Liquid Supported (shown in Seoul and New York) and Light Liquid which was included in the Miniments exhibition during 2011.
In both of these earlier works Pepper became increasingly interested in the 'peripheral' view - the moment when the 'content' of the hologram becomes visible or 'winks' out of existence. There are times when the holographic element of the installations is not visible at all - requiring a change of location by the observer until they are at a different viewing angle and the image from the hologram becomes visible.
In this piece that act of 'not seeing' is taken to an extreme. Illuminated by two lights, the images from each hologram are reconstructed in a 'traditional' way and in keeping with the optics of the recorded holograms except their images (dark marks) are reconstructed within the space opposite which is occupied by the other hologram. It is not actually possible to 'see' the holographic images (a slight flash of a mark or light can be seen). The piece is entirely promissory and based specifically on the reconstruction geometry of the holographic process and how that is used for display.
