As Far As The Eye Can See
Series of five framed cut out OS Maps 2008
Installation Shot, HIVE Gallery, 2009
A series of five wall-based pieces made with a surveyor from Ordnance Survey, made at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park during The Space for 10 Residency. They plot the furthest horizon line I could see at a 360 Degree turn, the smallest one being the size of my thumbprint and the largest being over a metre in length. All five maps are framed to the same size and positioned to correspond to their coordinates on the original map; the emptiness in one frame refers to what is in view in another. You can read more about the development of this work in the YSP process/blog.
As Far As The Eye Can See, brings together a scientific reading of the topography of the land and my experience within it. Essentially a form of subjective mapping these Sensory Islands touch on the psychology of perception and questions the notion of human scale and how a person’s sensory limitations affect their understanding of the world they inhabit. They explore the contradictions that arise when describing our three-dimensional world on flat paper and when trying to marry an objective measured reading with a subjective experience.
Curator Will Rose said of them:
‘For me they are amazing things, from a philosophical point of view they seem to represent the idea “how can you know something to exist if it’s not within your sensory data” I think of them as sensory islands and I find them quite bleak’.
Installation Shot, HIVE Gallery, 2009
Special thanks to James Abbott for his support in making this piece.