Final Year Studio - Research - Jim Campbell - Primal Graphics

Image courtesy of www.jimcampbell.tv, originally uploaded by Jimbo (Alan James Wellock).

Renowned new-media artist; Jim Campbell in 2002 created this peice of artwork, entitled 'Primal Graphics.' This, his first public sculpture was shown in New York City. Consisting of a 13 ft x 10 ft screen and 192 light bulbs, a digital movie was shot and shown, compressed just enough so that the shape of man walking was still legible. To help wth legibility Campbell used a technique that was also used at SPOTS. The aspect of putting a frosted screen over the top of the bulbs to blur the gaps, thus eradicating unwanted black areas between the bulbs.

The installtion's effect is that of evoking memory loss and directly targets the audiences understanding of how information is broadcasted and transmitted to us. In a sense it is scaling up a screen, hundred fold, and because of this Campbell shows us the beauty of the individual pixels that make up a variety of screens we see every day and take for granted. It changes our preconception of how movies can be portrayed and also due to its almost analog appearence and chunkyness becomes part of the environment it inhabits.

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