As Mike and Lance well know, inspiration can strike at the most unexpected moments. Something captured or referenced earlier will find life in a later creative project, its original context repurposed or split into different creative directions.
A workshop held in the Higgins Gallery in Bedford, as part of their ‘Colour and Light’ exhibition, featured a rotating turntable with three prisms set at angles to one another. A single light source was projected onto the turntable to illustrate how the beam was refracted amongst the continually rotating prisms. Not only was it fascinating to get an insight into the nature of light, but also it was visually captivating. Lance took a short video of the exhibit to document it and use it as a reference for possible future works.
That short piece of footage became the sole visual basis for Lance’s video work ‘Prismatic’. Inspired by the multiplicities of light beams emanating through the prisms, Lance took this notion forward to create a new piece. Using the Final Cut video editing program, the footage was slowed, repeated, overlayed, mirrored and then looped over itself. The result is a dance of refracted light, continually changing and interacting with itself. To complete the piece, Lance composed an ambient score based on a three-note motif, reflecting the three sides of the triangular prism.
Lance: “I wanted to create something that is mesmeric, almost hypnotic to watch, while exploring a fascination with light and the resulting colours that are created when that light is split into multiples of frequencies. I believe as humans we are continually fascinated by light sources such as aurora and rainbows, natural phenomenon that have always been present for us to perceive. I think also that there was a subconscious drive to celebrate diversity, how we as a species are as diverse and subtly different to one another, all the different types crossing paths, intermingling, creating new identities and thought patterns continuously. This feels particularly relevant in the current social and political climate we are going through.”
As a coincidental aside, while writing this blog Lance was listening to Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ – an album with iconic cover art; a refracting prism!