Previous AA2A Artist

Phoebe Stubbs

Year:
2019-20
Project summary:

2019-20 Project Summary - In my work I am interested to bring attention to the material of glass as a man-made membrane through which every photographic or video image is mediated—regardless of how technical or simple. I have recently started experimenting with making video by using glass objects I have blown in the hot shop as a set for the video camera to move through, to refract and reflect light onto diffusers, and as lenses to distort the image of the set itself. These moving images are juxtaposed with texts about the history of the lens and my own personal experience of glassmaking. The audio that accompanies them is the distorted noise of the hot shop in surround-sound. While small and handmade, these sets are cinematic in scale when projected, recalling images of the universe and the strangeness of seeing it.

I regularly work with glass as my main material, but think of it as a means to other processes, as well as a vital part of our design and optical history. I would love to broaden the students’ view of the material’s possibilities using digital media with glass, photographic techniques and thinking about the history of the material in the area as technical as well as decorative.

2017-18 Project Summary - Last year I began a project using handmade glass to create digitally produced cyanotype assemblages. The process involves many layers between digital and glass processes. To date I have been making wall-based assemblages of these multi-layered photographs. For AA2A opportunity, I would like to explore this process in three-dimensions and with a greater focus on glass, layering sheet glass and large format images to create spatial illusions as a potential installation. To begin, I will use faceted and bevelled glass to develop cyanotypes, drawing from historical research of cut glass from the local industrial history. I will then photograph those cyanotypes and blow the photos up, laying them out and rephotographing them. I completed an MFA in glass in the USA, and much of my work since has been concerned with understanding light and its effects. Having limited access to glass facilities has recently pushed my work towards digital imagery rather than ending as a finished work in glass. I believe that analogue, hand making processes in glass have a lot to teach us about the potentials of digital processes in image-making, but also vice versa—that glass is crucial in digital technologies and reflecting this back onto glass would be an interesting step for my work. I am keen to highlight the linked nature of craft and technology and provide examples of their influence on each other. Through working in an art school environment that is divided into departments, students will be able to see links and connections between different material processes. Glass has played a central role in the making of images throughout history, but with digital photography it is often a forgotten part of the process. I want to bring the magic of light and image-making via glass processes to the foreground.

2019-20 Project Summary - In my work I am interested to bring attention to the material of glass as a man-made membrane through which every photographic or video image is mediated—regardless of how technical or simple. I have recently started experimenting with making video by using glass objects I have blown in the hot shop as a set for the video camera to move through, to refract and reflect light onto diffusers, and as lenses to distort the image of the set itself. These moving images are juxtaposed with texts about the history of the lens and my own personal experience of glassmaking. The audio that accompanies them is the distorted noise of the hot shop in surround-sound. While small and handmade, these sets are cinematic in scale when projected, recalling images of the universe and the strangeness of seeing it.

I regularly work with glass as my main material, but think of it as a means to other processes, as well as a vital part of our design and optical history. I would love to broaden the students’ view of the material’s possibilities using digital media with glass, photographic techniques and thinking about the history of the material in the area as technical as well as decorative.

2017-18 Project Summary - Last year I began a project using handmade glass to create digitally produced cyanotype assemblages. The process involves many layers between digital and glass processes. To date I have been making wall-based assemblages of these multi-layered photographs. For AA2A opportunity, I would like to explore this process in three-dimensions and with a greater focus on glass, layering sheet glass and large format images to create spatial illusions as a potential installation. To begin, I will use faceted and bevelled glass to develop cyanotypes, drawing from historical research of cut glass from the local industrial history. I will then photograph those cyanotypes and blow the photos up, laying them out and rephotographing them. I completed an MFA in glass in the USA, and much of my work since has been concerned with understanding light and its effects. Having limited access to glass facilities has recently pushed my work towards digital imagery rather than ending as a finished work in glass. I believe that analogue, hand making processes in glass have a lot to teach us about the potentials of digital processes in image-making, but also vice versa—that glass is crucial in digital technologies and reflecting this back onto glass would be an interesting step for my work. I am keen to highlight the linked nature of craft and technology and provide examples of their influence on each other. Through working in an art school environment that is divided into departments, students will be able to see links and connections between different material processes. Glass has played a central role in the making of images throughout history, but with digital photography it is often a forgotten part of the process. I want to bring the magic of light and image-making via glass processes to the foreground.

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