VAST/O (2019)01 This installation stemmed from doctoral research about a lived experience of the duality of spatial phobias, in particular Claustrophobia and Agoraphobia in the context of spatially distributed graphic novel reading – graphic novels addressing mental health issues. The doctoral study required a proof-of-concept installation work, and so the author of the study: Carolina Martins invited Natalie to join forces to explore the expression of this, drawing on her experience of working with expanded animation/drawing together with her interest intangible embodiment in visual arts practices.
The installation was documented for publication as part of the Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels book series (PSCGN) Chapter title :VAST/O Exhibition (De)Construction: Exploring the Potentials of Augmented Abstract Comics and Animation Installations as a Method to Communicate Health Experiences. Co-authors: Alexandra P. Alberda, João Carola, Carolina Martins, and Natalie Woolf This chapter critically reflects on the methodological potentials of augmented abstract comics and animation installations to positively impact public awareness of the lived experience of mental health through emotive responses to the installation VAST/O. |
03 Behind the entrance space lurks the animation Anxious Hands the short animation is expanded into the space through veils that catch the image and transmit it onto multiple walls, the nervous movement of hands repeatedly rehearse the compulsive movements of an spatial phobia surer as they try to face the possibility of passing through the domestic space and exit into the wider world.
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02 The first part of the installation entrance presents a space of containment, an arrival: at once comforting and domestic, and yet without exit or departure (the agoraphobic condition) it also becomes restricting and stifling. Within this suggestion of domestic space the symbolic entertainment system TV/network was replaced with a surveillance camera and monitor, creating a work titled “Mise-en-abyme Altered Lens” that conjures the acrophobic self- perpetuating loop of fear that also leads to claustrophobia. It forces a reflection on the self as a public and private entity and plays with notions of vanity, performance, and presence. |
04 We link the meaning of the word with the physicality of saying it. A word that fills the space but leaves you breathless...
The soundtrack for the animation “Breathe” reverberates around the room, unconsciously affecting the viewer until the arrhythmic pattern becomes unbearable, (and in some cases, incites a shortness of breath). Heard drifting through the rooms above it is more comforting, or intriguing, and draws the viewer through the space until they discover the lower-level gallery, where they discover “Arrival”. Below ground the sound is a bully, pressuring the viewer, and eventually evicting them. Although some try to stay - and if know, use a strategy to combat anxiety - follow the counting along the walls as an anchor to stability, viewing this work becomes performative.
This empty landscape enacts the contradictory conflict the dwells within spatial phobia. The scale is flipped, “Breathe” a paint on glass and found footage animation is projected at an overwhelming size but shows the human body as an interior landscape, while the drawn horizon that wraps the space in a continuous line holds the body (in space) but is also thin and distant. Only in close proximity the horizonal line and gestural numbering provides a comforting trace of human presence and the distraction of a numbering designed to regulate the breathing.
"Counting the ways: 123 stay, leave, breath, I cannot" (2019) Paper, emulsion, charcoal, graphite, variable dimensions