BREATH
A Series of works based on architecture, image, collectivity and breathing. Developed on residency at Passen-gers in March 2021
Residency #3 from Passengers on Vimeo.
Passengers is a site-specific exhibition series that explores the historical, social and material contexts of sites and architecture. For its inaugural series artists presented work sequentially to explore the real and imaginative associations of the Brunswick Centre – a Modernist, mixed residential and commercial development in Bloomsbury, London.I made a series of images that blend analogue and digital imaging techniques to re-present the architecture of The Brunswick Centre as unfixed and responding to the needs of those that occupy it.
During the residency I worked with analogue cyanotype process (used for architectural blueprinting) and contemporary 3d imaging techniques to prodice a body of work that repositioned the architecture as a moving, breathing constellation of parts. The work manifest as a magazine with text by composer Bushra El-Turk, a film made with artist Nemo Nonnenmacher and a digital sculpture that was exhibited at AORA space.
In addition I collaborated with students from the Meng course at the Bartlett School of Architecture to make a series of structures for the camera.
Breath [zine] (2021) Riso print, recycled paper. Text by Bushra El-Turk.
Breath [video] (2021) Made in collaboration with Nemo Nonnenmacher. full duration 6minutes.
Breath Fly-Through 1m from Benjamin McDonnell on Vimeo.
As installed at Passengers, The Brunswick Centre, London 2021
Performing Structure For the Camera Workshop with Meng students from Bartlett School of Architecture. Provided with basic materialsa nd a point and shoot film camera, students were asked to usethe Brunswick Centre as a context, a supporting structure, think about the camera as a device that slows or freezes time, creating work that can only exist within the frame of the image.
Images made in workshops installed during exhibition
Breath [Sculpture] (2021) As installed in Aora Space.
A LiDAR scan of the expanding and contracting ligament of the Brunswick Centre was used to build a virtual sculpture. The work is comprised of over 10,000 individual points, constuant parts in the work that coagulate to make the form exhibited. The work can only exist in virtual space and as such I was pleased to be offered to exhibit as part of Aora IV.
Gallery_show4_FlyThrough_ben from Benjamin McDonnell on Vimeo.