Rub-A-Dub/Wave-Wall III – a large-scale audio-visual exhibition, with public discussion, featuring sculptures that link art and science through meteorological research. Brighton University Gallery, 13-30 May 2004
The starting point for this exhibition was the architecture of the exhibition space. Given my interest in meteorology, I wanted to use the huge glass ‘shopfront’ of the gallery to, metaphorically, bring the outdoors inside. To do this, I constructed the diagrams that relate to ‘Wave-Wall’ in translucent film, fixed to the windows to project what would normally be wall drawings onto the wall using sunlight – drawings that would move along the floor and up the wall during each day. This idea of change through natural process was key to the whole exhibition.
Although the exhibition contained a number of discreet works, I wanted the sounds produced by each to ‘bleed’ into the next – to give a continuity to the whole show as the viewer passed through it. I generated a series of artworks based upon my meteorological research at The Department of Meteorology, The University of Reading. It featured sculptures, prints and audioworks derived from data linked to current scientific thinking concerning chaotic systems, unpredictability and natural phenomena.
I wanted aspects from the show to be discussed by scientists so, linked to Wave-Wall III/Rub-A-Dub was a panel discussion – ‘Cloud Dynamics:Perspectives from Art and Science', which I chaired. This involved a number of speakers, all of whom are experts in particular fields of cloud activity, including; the scientific collection of data concerning weather patterns; the history of cloud paintings; research into ‘diffusion’ - the clouds of gas that connect brain nerve cells.
The exhibition was very successful in terms of viewer numbers and responses. It had a significant impact on the development of The Spring Group and set out the foundation for my current research, linking the universities of Bergen, Brighton and Reading.