Spotlights and Glass Plates
Lucy Ellmann
Europe's first holography workshop presents its first show.
'Spotlights and Glass Plates' demonstrates some of the advantages of working with lasers to produce photographs that appear to be three-dimensional. With the aid of overhead lights shapes miraculously emerge from what looks like a small rectangle of brown glass on the wall. Paper darts float in suspended animation a foot in front of one hologram. And with some trouble on the artist's part, objects can be made to move––one picture shows scissors that open and close more or less convincingly. If such results seem a little out of proportion to the fearsomely elaborate and even dangerous technology needed for their execution, they at least show there is no reason for holography to be merely gimmicky. Simplicity of intention seems at the moment to be the wisest policy––the best hologram here is of venetian blinds by Michael Wenyon, a lecturer at the school. The slats can be viewed from all angles, and nicely signal a window in laser beam light (until Nov 6 [1981]). (Lucy Ellmann)
'Spotlights and Glass Plates' demonstrates some of the advantages of working with lasers to produce photographs that appear to be three-dimensional. With the aid of overhead lights shapes miraculously emerge from what looks like a small rectangle of brown glass on the wall. Paper darts float in suspended animation a foot in front of one hologram. And with some trouble on the artist's part, objects can be made to move––one picture shows scissors that open and close more or less convincingly. If such results seem a little out of proportion to the fearsomely elaborate and even dangerous technology needed for their execution, they at least show there is no reason for holography to be merely gimmicky. Simplicity of intention seems at the moment to be the wisest policy––the best hologram here is of venetian blinds by Michael Wenyon, a lecturer at the school. The slats can be viewed from all angles, and nicely signal a window in laser beam light (until Nov 6 [1981]). (Lucy Ellmann)
The review was published without illustration. This photograph was taken at the time.
