MIRAGE PROJECT [Nullabor]
Stereoscopic Photography Installation
2006
The MIRAGE PROJECT began in May 2006 when I was invited by French artist Laurent Mulot, with the aid of the LUX de Valence, contemporary art center, to participate in his Middle of Nowhere project by undertaking a residency in the French ghost town of Rochefourchat. Laurents provocation was for me to create a work that linked both physically and conceptually the isolated church in Rochefourchat, and Cook, a ghost town on the Nullarbor Plain in Australia.
My response was to use a 1:1 trace of the churchs footprint to determine various points of view from which I could take stereoscopic photos of the abandoned shack on the Nullabor. The configuration of viewing points therefore identically matched the dimensions of the church. The same configuration was then used to exhibit the resulting 3D slides.
The installation transposes the flat and barren landscape of the Nullarbor Plain into the church. The illusion of a spatial overlay is created. The natural phenomenon of mirage, native to the desert is thus transposed to the mountainous region of Rochefourchat. Two places, two antipodean territories find themselves linked and placed in tension.
