Studio Visit : Falls
falls, a phantasmagoria by michael bosworth Falls, a hydrodynamic phantasmagoria

Falls is a new piece that comes out of my Devil's Hole installation. The Devil's Hole installation fills the walls of a gallery with light projected from a central vortex of projectors. The projectors and their supports are black making them invisible in the darkened gallery. For the new installation I wanted to try something a little different.

Falls is a wall of concrete set with lenses that project images on the gallery wall opposite of it. I was interested in creating a piece that referenced man-made hydro-power projects. The form of Devil's Hole is a natural flow of water in a whirlpool. The images flowed together in an organic fashion. The form of the projectors in Falls and the images they project become a grid. The images of water are orderly and controlled in a grid that takes it form from the grid of concrete.

Hiking in the gorge below dams, I’m always struck by the warning signs. At any moment, day or night, a solid wall of water can come crashing down the valley wiping everything away. The signs are put up by the authorities controlling the dams and campers, hikers, and fishermen should beware because although the dam was constructed to control flooding and make the world a more orderly place, the control is not absolute.
artist Michael Bosworth Images of Water

Most of the images of water projected by the piece were photographed in Maine. I hiked into and photographed Moxie Falls, Cold Creek Falls, and others using my RB67 and Ilford HP5 film. The shutter speed was set high to capture the motion of the water. For the Blue Water series I used a very slow shutter speed(seconds long so really there was no shutter) to blur the water into a constant form. For the Falls installtion I needed to convey the action and violence of the water.
artist michael bosworth in his studio Floating Figures

Back in my studio, I photographed myself in a variety of states of dress and undress. Splattered across the more or less orderly grid of water images are 3D image of human figures being swept away. Through Photoshop the dirty studio was removed and the figures floated on a black background. I didn’t shoot with a pair of cameras, instead I took the single image and doubled it. There are a dozen figures projected by the piece. I shifted the scale of the figures and the offset of the red blue to create the illusion of figures floating at different depths.
artist michael bosworth in his studio Assembling the Forms

Originally, I intended to pour concrete cubes, 15 inches on each side leaving one side open. But when the wall was assembled, only the front of each cube would have been visible. I decided to shed the extra weight. I used the same forms, but only poured an inch of concrete into the bottom of each to create a square slab. In the center of each slab is a piece of PVC with the same interior dimensions as the lens.

In the second image the still liquid concrete is in the bottom of the form. Using 1x3 lumber, I built frames. Into one side of each frame I sunk screws leaving about a half inch of the screw out. The frame was set into the concrete and when it solidified the frame allowed the concrete facades to be assembled into a single wall.
artist michael bosworth in his studio The Wall

Below is a single concrete slab witha lens set in the center. To the left is the wall of concrete projectors. I had considered building the entire piece out of concrete, but decided that would be far to heavy to deal with. As a facade, the wall is composed of only about 336 pounds of concrete. The entire piece is probably under 500 pounds. I wanted to the piece to have the look and feel of a massive industrial structure and because of the modular design of the wall I can add to it for larger galleries. I would like to construct three more walls to build a large cube that would be set in the center of a gallery to project on all four walls.
Concrete magic lanter, part of the phantasmagoria falls.
artist michael bosworth in his studio In Situ

When on exhibit, the gallery would be dark. The wall itself would be dimly lit by the light reflecting off the opposite wall. The sides of the wall will be covered with black painted wood.
artist michael bosworth in his studio Behind the Scenes

Behind the concrete is a wooden framework holding up the wall and positioning the light boxes. Each box contains a strong compact flourescent light, reflector, and a two inch square ortholith transparency. Each box is set behind a lens. The wall acts as a bank of slide projectors. By shifting the left/right and up/down I can control the position of the projected image. Moving the boxes closer to or further from the lens brings the images into focus.

Also behind the wall is a sound system. I recorded Niagara Falls and edited the sounds so that the volumn moves back and forth from left speaker to right speaker. The speakers are placed behind the wall at opposite ends.