Rough Cut Nation
I was very pleased to be involved in Rough Cut Nation, a brilliant show that took place at the Nation Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.
In a nutshell, the project was a bunch of Scottish artists who took over the Portrait Gallery, which was about to close for renovation at the end of the summer. They covered the walls with their work, which looked absolutely brilliant. I got involved by making an interactive temporary paint installation.
Here’s a video I made, featuring music by the one and only Handface.
Together with Kristina Johansen, we also made a glove using conductive thread and embedded LEDs to make the interaction a bit more natural:
I originally got in touch with Richie Cumming, the organizer of the show, to help him set up a sensor system for switching on some UV lights. The idea was that they would light up every so often to reveal hidden textures on the walls that were painted with UV-responsive paint. Long story short, we ended up not going with that plan, and instead I built something that was a lot more interactive and loads of fun to play with. I got some UV LED’s from Patrick Hickey at Nipht Technologies and turned put them into jars and boxes with little buttons. When brought near the walls they made the phosphorus paint glow in lovely magical way.
The jars and boxes felt a lot like futuristic spraypaint cans…I started thinking that maybe the different types of containers I put them in each represented what spraypaint cans will become in various divergent futures.