Rob Smith - Sixty Second Rollercoaster

About

Sixty Second Rollercoaster is a series of new photographic, sculptural and animation works that explore the relationship between the still and moving image, continuing from his recent works WINDscale (2007-2008) and KiteSound (2006/2008). Rollercoaster (2009) takes the form of a generic theme park rollercoaster; a carriage with a front mounted camera is moved steadily around the track taking an image with each short movement forward. These images are sequenced to produce a stop frame animation in which the viewer is taken speedily for a ride around the loops and dips of the rollercoaster. The work captures snapshots of Siobhan Davies Studios and the activity of its occupants as the slow capture process of the camera reconfigures the comings and goings of the day through a time-lapse sequence displayed on an adjacent monitor. Rob Smith extends the potential of the still image further in the poster work 3D Coaster (2009), an anaglyph rendering of the rollercoaster that springs into three-dimensions when viewed through red/blue 3d glasses. Untitled Polaroids (2008) is a sequence of ten images captured on an island of land between the M11 and North Circular in East London taken using a hybrid pinhole/Polaroid camera. On the 20th February Rob Smith will install the work 1440frames (2008) during a rehearsal of Siobhan Davies' new work The Collection, condensing a panoramic view of a six-hour rehearsal into a one-minute animation. Later that evening in an open public talk this animation will be shown and discussed in conversation with artist David Cotterrell and choreographer Siobhan Davies. Exhibition curated by Charles Danby