Hold: Vessel 1 & 2
Hold: Vessel 1 and 2 (2001 & 2007) brings together two immersive installation works that explore the intimacy and immensity of the natural world and our relationship to it.
The audience is invited to carry a glass bowl into a darkened space and 'catch' projected images of microscopic marine life and telescopic astronomical imagery in a lens–shaped 'screen'. Hold uses moving image and technology to reveal the hidden intricacies of human immersion in the wide, complex world.
Hold: Vessel 1 features breathtaking imagery of microscopic marine life and telescopic astronomical imagery in a lens–shaped 'screen'. Hold: Vessel 2 updates this earlier version of the work with the addition of two newly commissioned video projections, to present five separate video pieces.
In creating these new projections, entitled Colonies and Light, Wallworth collaborated with specialist cinematographers, utilising current visioning technologies to produce intricate details of underwater marine life, recording how these environments have altered in the last six years.
The new projections for Hold: Vessel 2, also feature rare imagery of the 2004 Transit of Venus, an astronomical event which, in 1769, was used to compute the relative distance from the Earth to the sun, allowing calculation of the scale of the solar system. This event marked a pivotal moment in history when, for the first time, warring nations chose to cooperate in order to answer one of the leading scientific questions of the day. Wallworth makes reference to this global scientific co–operation and connects it to the effect of climate change on environments and marine species' highly developed means of surviving in diverse communities.
Lynette Wallworth – Hold: Vessel 1 & 2
Hold: Vessel 1, 2001 courtesy of and commissioned by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, AU
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Hold: Vessel 2, 2007 commissioned by the British Film Institute, London
Produced by Forma
Photo: (L) Colin Davison, courtesy of the National Glass Centre, Sunderland, UK (R) Courtesy of Festival d'Art Lyrique, Aix-en-Provence
