My Finished Work (As featured on Cube Project's Website)
Portal to London
The Cube project is a worldwide collaboration of artists, coming together to make 3D Cubes.
My work- 'Portal to London', symbolises the combustion of relations between the United Kingdom and Europe, the UK burning walls to build new ones. The pictures from the outside of the cube are a corresponding set taken in Austria, and on the front the window is formed of a picture of a British Telephone Box, looking through to a scene in Piccadilly Circus. The red of the telephone box and the interior scene complements the red of the fire, holding obvious connotations with blood, and looking back through the British history of colonialism- Slavery.
The Process
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Planning
Publisher- Planning and ideas
I started with two ideas.
The first was inspired by a Rubrics cube. Using a set of four cubes I had planned to divide images between the each sides, and upon rotation of individual cubes other images would be revealed.
The second idea was to create a single cube, and cut a frame out of one of the sides, creating a view to the inside, and separate set of images within.
In the end I chose the second idea, mainly because of simplicity; we had a limited timescale and the reality of printing and assembling four nets might have been too time consuming.
Photography
Schonbrunn Palace
Hundertwasser Haus
Karlskriche
I used the above three photos for the exterior of the cube. All were taken in Vienna, Austria at Twilight, in July 2019. I performed basic edits on Adobe Lightroom. These included raising the lows and lowering the highs, as well as playing around with contrast and saturation to create a striking set of images which complement each other.
British telephone box, outside Hundertwasser Haus, Vienna
For the 'Window' of the cube, I used this picture taken through the side of a British Telephone box, which was for some unknown reason situated in Vienna.
Using Photoshop I removed the background, fixed the distortion and lowered the sharpness to create an un-obtrusive frame.
Photoshop- Template for window
I then chose a picture I took at twilight in London at Piccadilly Circus, and previewed this behind the frame.
Piccadilly Circus
Frame with preview of background
Cube Design
I started with a laser-cut cube net. Measuring this to create a scaled template on photoshop, I cropped my photos into cubes, and added them to the template. For the lid and bottom I used a textured blue background which was auto generated from the sky of the central image.
I printed using a laser printer onto A3 plain paper. As the printer leaves a small margin around the edge of the page, it rescaled the project by a few mm to fit. To counter this I had to rescale my template, but with a little trial and error it worked.
Photoshop- Template for cube
Assembly
After printing the A3 sheet containing the images for the cube, I used a craft knife to cut it to the size of the box net, and then attached it with spray mount.
Again using a craft knife I cut out the frame, creating a view of the inside.
I then printed my picture for the inside, and attached it to two interior corners with double sided sticky-tape, creating a 'Pop out' look.
Assembled Work
Fire and Final Edit
Inspiration
This picture, taken by a friend of a friend -Charlie Bristow, was circling social media at the start of lock down. The title is 'Don't be a slave to the media', and it reflects the media's control over a nation in Lock-down.
The work itself consists of a woman sitting, reading a blazing paper. We feel for this person, entrapped and about to be engulfed in flames.
The plan from the beginning wasn't to burn the box, but as I reached the end of the project I felt a need to do it, to return the finished piece to a state of nothingness...
...and fire is cool.
We did the shoot at dusk, and lighted the scene from the front using a warm led panel. My mother Anna took a trip back to her art grad days, and kindly held the box. I used a 50mm prime lens, and an aperture of f/3.5- Enough to keep the entire of the subject in focus, whilst creating bokeh in the background.
To edit I used the Enhancement brush to go round the edge of the image to create a black void, and I increased the contrast, lowered the highlights and increased the shadows to create a warm glow. The clarity and texture were also increased, somewhat aging the hands and adding weight to the burning box. I chose a 1x1 ratio to finish with, keeping the cube format.
Evaluation
The aim was to create a cube. That aim could be taken anywhere, interpreted anyhow. Therefore I believe I met that original brief, even if I did subsequently destroy the final work..
I am pleased with what I produced. I feel that the said theme and symbolism has been achieved, and was lucky enough to get featured on the Cube Project's website.
If I were to ever attempt a project such as this again, I would concentrate more on the interior. The interior of this work was simplistic at best, and a little rough around the edges. If I were to attempt a project such as this in the future, I would like to have a changeable perspective on the inside, that reveals different elements upon inspection from other angles.
Gallery
- Before
- After
Finished Work
Destruction
Dying hope
Remains of what was
