snow home contact

 

 

 

 

The Digital Hub Warehouse - Nov /Dec 2003

With 'snow' Murnaghan considers pareidolia, our need to make sense of the abstract, by utilising ageing technology, or via our third parent, television. This work focuses an animist eye on material drawn from the ether through the erratic convulsions of a dysfunctional TV set.

Black and White TV static and coat hanger aerials are disposable objects and images of our suburban late twentieth century childhood. At the end of a darkened walk, there is an entrance through a wall constructed from wire hangers which act as antenna. This wall is connected to a broken TV which tries, but never succeeds in locking on to a constant signal, finding no stability in its existence.

The resulting sound and monochrome imagery is affected by the proximity or closeness of the observer whose presence acts to boost the antenna helping to pull the signal to earth. Analogue signals, residue from the big bang and other visual contaminents are filtered through the viewer.

A circuit was constructed to allow the computer to see static which digital technology normally forces it to disregard as waste, this is then slowed down and back projected onto the walls of an immersive construct of fabric and tensioned steel wire. The space itself appears cognisant of human presence through a constantly evolving aesthetic, imbued with random flashes of imagery and sound that have been filtered through human presence.

To view TV3 footage click here