Seascape, Folkestone, 25th October 2008 at 11:41am. Picture © Sue Collins
Exhibition: Susan Collins – Seascape, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, until June 15 2009
There has been a long painterly tradition of sea scenes. Artists would vie to best represent the complexities of light and water in constant motion, where shifting sun and passing cloud can alter the mood in an instant.
How best to capture a scene that never stops changing, a shimmering panorama that is ruled by the passing of time more than any gust of wind or tug of the moon? Digital artist Susan Collins has found her answer, combining the traditions of the past and the technology of the future in a constantly evolving multi-platform experience.
She has shackled the present under the unblinking gaze of five webcams located along the south coast of England, relayed on individual screens at the De La Warr Pavillion.
Seascape, Bexhill-on-Sea, 30th October 2008 at 12:26pm. Picture © Sue Collins
Interesting enough, but here's the trick – the screens are slowly updated pixel by pixel, from top left to bottom right. When the image is complete the cycle repeats itself.
The result is not a snapshot of a single moment, but a composite of many. Like the sea itself, these digital displays never stop and never exit the unstoppable flow of time.
Of course, it is hard to resist a temptation to archive and document, and Collins has acknowledged her place in the great tradition of landscape painting by selecting particular images, printing them out to be framed and hung on the gallery walls. Appearing at first glance like impressionistic paintings, a closer look reveals the gradual process by which they were assembled.
These beautiful images seem slightly unreal, the horizontal bands of pixels displaying layering effects more often produced by the tip of a painter's brush. Like seminal Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky, Collins is sculpting in time – the English coast her marble and the passage of minutes her chisel.
Seascape, Stokes Bay, 19th October 2008 at 12:55pm. Picture © Sue Collins
The cameras are stationed at five locations: Margate, Folkestone, Bexhill, Pagham and Stokes Bay. They have been there for anything up to a year, updating at various speeds. An extensive archive of their images can be found on a dedicated website together with the five live feeds, and a book will also be on offer as a physical archive of this digital process.
Susan Collins will be talking about the development of her Seascape project at Lighthouse in Brighton on April 30 at 6pm, with a live installation.
For more information on the artist visit www.susan-collins.net
