Rock Tracking (cont.)

The following images are a continuation of my rock tracking (the previous images can be seen here):

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I have also begun to experiment with different ways of displaying this work. As I hadn’t made any plans going into the work of exactly how I might show it, this has proved rather difficult. I firstly chose to simply print and display the works in my studio as so:

However, this method of display – with the three lines of images, particularly with some ‘missing data’ – proved hard to read, not quite as intuitive as I had hoped. As aforementioned, I did consider some kind of digital method of display, such as a video (which I may still use as one outcome), but it would be good to also have a physical display of the works.

I therefore also attempted a book of the pictures, thinking perhaps if the work was in a more compact, broken down, format that this might help sift through the oft-overwhelming amount of data I was trying to present. I made a concertina book, though, to retain the element that it could be unfolded and viewed in its entirety if the viewer still desired. I also chose to present the piece in quite with quite a scientific tone of voice, hoping this might resonate well with both the absurdity of the rock tracking, but also the scientific element hidden within this. My research notes and resulting text were as follows:

With the final book looking like this:

The book brings a more contained feel to the piece, which in some ways is helpful in containing the sheer volume of images I have to present, but then equally loses the way these images tell the story of the rock, almost like stills from a film. I then went back to the wall display, this time re-arranging it so that hopefully it becomes more legible:

I feel the problem with the first display was how the three lines of images were read; because I had displayed them slightly unaligned it was unclear whether they were related, or to be read one after another, and by aligning them vertically I hope this goes someway as to remedying this. I have also now settled down into a more coherent pattern of documentation so there is no more ‘missing data’ where I haven’t taken a photograph from the right viewpoint. In hindsight it would have been good to establish this going into the project, but for now the ‘missing data’ points will have to make up for this. In this way the text that I wrote for the book might compliment this wall display well – it could potentially even be displayed at the start/end of the series in much the same way as it was in the book.

I also have various iterations of the map/line the rock has drawn on its journey: