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Rainbow holograms

Rainbow holography is the medium I have chosen to specialize in. Holography itself uses light as a sculptural element. In regards to my work, rainbow holography stresses the field of experimentation with the light spectrum until a certain point that I define as travelling the superhighway from reality to virtual worlds. My work appears then as the documentation, in the form of rainbow holograms, of this travel. It depicts narrative imagery while capturing the moments I existed in this virtual world set behind the rainbow. This project aims to present through still, 3D and filmic imagery the co ??? existence of the physical body and its psychological realm. The psychological reality is articulated as a fictional landscape and the rainbow is used as a metaphor for travel between real and virtual worlds. More importantly, I see holography or rainbow holography as a means of crystallising the vision of the unreachable world behind the rainbow. I see my practice as a new way of using this medium by using this rainbow world as subject matter within the rainbow hologram. By experimenting with combined image processing techniques within rainbow holography, such as analogue white light transmission holograms, full colour digital stereograms, and dot matrix holograms, it becomes possible to generate a synthetic new world. Here each pixel can have the potential to be every color of the rainbow spectrum simultaneously, depending on the angle of the eye of the perceiver. It is here that my investigation through holographic representation has led me to explore and create other worldly landscapes and to extend reality. Our longing to travel over the rainbow into our imagination is with us from a very young age. For me this desire has lasted well into adulthood and has somehow found itself at the centre of my creations over the last few years. The childlike and na??ve appearance of my imagery has the ability to evoke the feeling in the viewers of the nostalgia they may have felt as a child, when confronted with the intense experience and wonder of the imaginings of the rainbow. My work trades on a misunderstanding that the medium of holography is taken as a direct representation of an existing reality. My first hologram I???m a rainbow depicts an alter-egotistical projection of myself as a rainbow princess living in a far away fairytale rainbow galaxy, and communicating with earth beings via the technology of the message contained within the hologram. The hologram has often been associated in science fiction with a message to save the planet. This body of work invites viewers to delve into the depths of their imagination, to save this place where I have travelled by believing in it. As in the story of peter pan where the children are asked to clap their hands if they believe in fairies, by others believing in my imagination they are able to save it. The world within the imagination holds no fixed place; it is a shifting and dynamic space. This quality is shared with the rainbow, which is similarly ephemeral, vanishing and appearing within the eye of the beholder according to weather patterns. The rainbow hologram is a fixed rainbow. When replayed through the eyes of the viewer, the interaction with the real rainbow is recalled, and the viewer enters into the imagination to perceive the work. Throughout this paper I have referred to concepts and techniques in other fields such as physics, anthropology, art history and theory. My research is by no means intended as primarily a technical examination of the medium of rainbow holography. The holographic environments I have made rearrange elements from the real world with fictitious realities. They make people feel as if they are viewing a world that is real, but which imitates unreal ideas. These holographic environments enable viewers to experience ideas as a real place. As Rainbow holography is a relatively new medium, and as my own work uses the rainbow as a multi-layered tool I feel it necessary to investigate the appearance of the rainbow in nature and the reaction of humans to the rainbow as a mythical component in ancient cultures. I am interested in investigating how the rainbow has been used a metaphor for travelling from a material world to ???other worlds??? through its presence in various imaging processes through specific art works. The different ways the rainbow has been used have enabled me to more accurately understand my own work as being a nexus between depicting and generating rainbows. Furthermore, in the discussion of the application of rainbow holography I can show that my own work is necessarily different because of the way I am depicting a rainbow to explore undiscovered territory in which I am the author. Finally I look at how holography is perceived by the public, which helps me to explain the way in which my own work is perceived. Deliberately using the idea of an image in its surrounding context has helped to achieve my desired outcome: to make people believe that the world behind the rainbow really does exist and that I have travelled there, and that they too can do so via viewing my work.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/282581
Date January 2007
CreatorsRush, Amy, Art, College of Fine Arts, UNSW
PublisherAwarded by:University of New South Wales. School of Art
Source SetsAustraliasian Digital Theses Program
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
RightsCopyright Amy Rush, http://unsworks.unsw.edu.au/copyright

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