Aberrations, 2009

Household wall paint on white wall, approx. 200 cm x 50 cm

London Eye is based on a found polaroid photograph that was scanned into the computer. The London Eye is barely visible in the background of the photograph with its centre appearing like a large monument in the sky or the scene of a rocket launch. This area was colour-selected and broken down into 4 separate colours (black, white and two greys) and transferred onto a wall taking care that the angle of the figure was the same as it was on the photograph.

The piece was installed on November 8th, 2004 originally with the polaroid photograph stuck to the floor just below the painting. Overnight, however, the photograph was removed by the cleaners making it end up yet again in the circulation of London rubbish. Through the amazing help of the cleaners the piece can now be considered to be completed.

London Eye is very related to Negative Light from spring 2004 where I also used image information as the basis for a wall piece. While Negative Light was committed to the pixelated source material (in that case the source material was from the capture of a web-cam), with London Eye I focused on the computers capability for the creation of amorphous shapes through colour-selection, which in a way is closer to the spirit of photography than the rectangular grid of pixels. London Eye thus picks up the motive of the figure that Coffee Stain and Catwalk had developed since Negative Light and emphasises figure over grid, although the grid now appears to have retreated into the bands of different colour.

Like all my recent pieces London Eye combines the power of the source material with a suitable transformation of the material into the digital realm and back again into real-life objects.