Translation and Transportation, 2010
American School for the Deaf
West Hartford, Connecticut
UV-coated Duratrans encapsulated in clear Lexan and illuminated by LED panels
Proscenium arch: 17 panels, 3' 4" x 3'
Ceiling beneath the mezzanine: 11 panels, 3' x 3'
The proposed artwork for the American School for the Deaf library, Translation and Transportation, is initially to be created in collaboration with students at ASD. Based on the idea of signing as a conduit for the translation of experience as well as providing a basis for the "transportation" of ideas through social interaction, I will be working with interested students to explore through photography the signing of words relevant to the mission of the school.
Language and gesture will be experimented with both through the corporeality of the hand in motion as well as the displacement or trace left from that movement. Students will be photographed signing in fog-like environments, in the dark with LED lights attached to their hands, or recorded with stop action film. Images will be taken with analogue film, scanned, and, through Photoshop, overlaid, digitally painted, and played with until the imaged word, made physical by the act of signing, is as evocative aesthetically as it is conceptually.
In response to the sense of rich history and tradition manifested by the American School for the Deaf, images will be produced in warm monochromatic tones reminiscent of the salt prints, kallitypes, and palladium prints of the early photography of the 1800s.
