What is Unseen..?
Unseen
adjective
not seen or noticed : it seemed she might escape unseen.
not foreseen or predicted : unseen problems.
chiefly Brit. (of a passage for translation in a test or examination) not previously read or prepared.
Thesaurus
an unseen sniper hidden, concealed, obscured, camouflaged, out of sight, invisible, imperceptible, undetectable, unnoticeable, unnoticed, unobserved; mysterious.
Unseen was my "Major Project One" for the University. It's a video installation of a light sculpture, shot in Fäboda, near Jakobstad, mid-west Finland. in the late fall of 2007. The cube is a 60 x 60 x 60 cm frame made of thin wood with a semi translucent fabric pulled over it, much like a lamp-shade. The light is coming from a Maglite in a stand in the middle of the cube. Unseen, originally called Night - Light, is about the darkness, what you can't see is actually more important then what you can see. The photos are shot in a way that the light eminating from the cube is making an island of light, whatever is outside the island is up to the viewer.
The photographing lasted for three night, one of those night I had to break up because of animals, probably elks, that were attracted to the light. On another night I saw an elk walking by just 20 - 30 meters from where I stood. There was a lot of standing around in the forest and the experience have to be one of the most intense I ever had doing art, I tried very hard to get a little of this in to the final product.
Right: Concept art
I made two versions of it, both are meant to be looped as a projection. On the first I used many of the photos and a recording of the waves as background ambience. on the second, which I ended up using, I only used the six best shots and synthesised the ambience. I put links to both versions here.
Click here to see the first version with location sounds, and morphing footage.
Click here to see the final version with synthesized sound, less but cleaner images.
