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page © 2006 Wenyon & Gamble and authors mail(AT)wengam.com Modified: 25 May 2006 |
| From the start, scientists and technical engineers looked at holography more than anything as a perfect three-dimensional illustration process. In the face of this widespread attitude, which persists even today, artists working during the 1970s increasingly began to discover in this new medium something which, to them, was an image-making process they could apply creatively. As artists became more familiar with the medium's particular properties and characteristics, they directed their attention more insistently to the pictorial independence of light, whose precise control gave them completely new opportunities of image creation. During the process they arrived at a fundamentally different attitude to holography than that held, for example, by the scientists and engineers. | ||||
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| Whereas the technical investigators
mainly wanted to make perfect pictures of objects, true to the original and in the
simplest way possible, for artists the medium threw up the singular challenge of
actively influencing the aim of the pictorial process. For artists, the possibilities
in holography are essentially determined by the manifold of methods they have available
to manipulate light, which may be effected in varying ways. For example, it is possible
to completely do without the re-production of real objects, and instead use light
itself as the subject matter. Then, transparent glass structures can be added, three-dimensional
or even two-dimensional patterns, as well as ordinary objects, which instead of supplying
the motif for a life-like image, are used instead to create an effect of alienation. In order to realise their pictorial ideas, artists generally make use of all the different types of hologram. In practice, however, most prefer 'white light reflection holograms' or 'rainbow holograms'. These latter types are particularly suited to abstract creation and provide the artist with special possibilities for light compositions in colour. The 'white light reflection hologram' also offers the artist a number of interesting creative opportunities. By manipulating the light-sensitive emulsion, precise shifts in colour can be produced with this type of hologram. The art 'duo' Wenyon & Gamble are amongst a few who have applied this technique to perfection in their works. Susan Gamble and Michael Wenyon have been working in a joint laboratory in London since 1983. Before that they both had independent experience with holography. Inspired by the special structure of laser light they developed a novel variation of holographic 'picture taking', enabling them to give their work a unique expression of colour. Because of their unusual choice of subject, their holograms may, superficially, seem trivial at first. Again and again these two are consciously searching for tangible references to the concrete manifestation of reality. Their preference for the familiarity of simple household objects -- whisks, sauce-pans or a blender -- is therefore no mistake. These objects of everyday life appear repeatedly in the artists' synthetic pictorial realities. Removed from their usual surroundings, the objects become separated from their original functions. The artificiality of laser light binds them into novel contexts of meaning. |
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| The two holograms Expander
and Propeller demonstrate this in a particularly graphic manner. Both are
works where two holograms are made into a single pictorial unit by joining them together.
And in both cases the concrete motif is a whisk. This object, normally regarded as
insignificant, appears here to receive a strange new life through the respective
light spaces it now inhabits. Enveloped in an atmosphere of pigment-like, speckled
colour, it is indeed able -- in the one case -- to waken the association with a strength-sapping
expander, and in the other that of a dynamic propeller. The change of meaning is
achieved solely through the reversed arrangement of the whisk and, above all, through
the different moods of colour expressed in the two works. At one moment we see it
surrounded by an 'ambiente' full of contrasts, in the next by a flickering colourful
one. If the artists were simply trying to depict the object in its natural appearance, their image would have to appear in the red light of the helium-neon laser by which it was exposed. By controlling the light-sensitive emulsion chemically, however, they can directly affect the colouration of the image. This they do by manipulative 'swelling' and 'shrinking' of the emulsion. Depending on the degree of this treatment, differing shades of colour appear. Some holograms are exposed several times, with the emulsion manipulated to varying degrees before each exposure. Wenyon & Gamble called one of their works Coal Seam. With the help of this technique they have created, from the artificial monochromatic laser light, the fiction of a reddish-purple sea of flames in which coal seems to float but paradoxically does not burn. As in painting, colour thus assumes a symbolic and almost mythical importance In relation to the subject, stimulating in turn new interpretations about the role of the objects. In order to enhance even further the symbolic character of colour in their holograms, Wenyon & Gamble have added a special peculiarity of laser light which holographers normally try to eliminate as a matter of course before they start. This is an optical side effect that occurs whenever laser light illuminates a surface and is reflected. This creates a phenomenon of interference, disliked by most holographers, which appears as a speckled light pattern, also called 'laser speckle'. Because laser speckles can cause a disturbing motion across the surface of a holographic image, most holographers try to prevent the effect. Wenyon & Gamble, however, exploit this peculiarity of laser light specifically to give structure to the otherwise immaterial synthetic colour of their holograms, creating an apparently pigment-like material. |
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| Extract p 164-167
from Holographie, Peter Zec, Dumont Buchverlag, Köln, 1987 (original
in German) all photographs © Wenyon & Gamble, 1984 |
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| Susan
Gamble Michael Wenyon © 2006 Wenyon & Gamble and authors email: mail(AT)wengam.com Modified: 25 May 2006 |