Deirdre Feeney
Artist Statement // Hallway is an optical image system artwork exploring the merging of two perceptual phenomena – illusionary depth of field and motion. The system consists of an optical device, a projected moving image and a viewer. The device generates its image though a sequence of rotating material components, a light source and series of lenses. Although these components have been purposefully formed to facilitate the illusion, it is the perception of the viewer, and not the material apparatus, which activates the depth and movement in the image. It is the viewer who pictures the receding hallway with its stairwell, and the sphere transiting the foreground of the space. Hallway therefore brings light to how it is we see what we see, when we engage with technologically produced images.
Deirdre Feeney is a cross-disciplinary artist and lecturer of Contemporary Art at The University of South Australia. Her research-based practice explores and develops optical image systems as perceptual tools for generating wonder and awareness of technologically mediated experience. Deirdre engages in cross-disciplinary collaboration with physicists and micro-machinist and electronic engineers to develop the bespoke optical components for her work, which also engages with the history of optics, (re)materiality of image making, optical time, and media archaeology. Her creative works are hybrid systems incorporating old and new technologies and technological ideas, from Renaissance natural magic to nineteenth century optical mechanics and are made using digital fabrication, electronics and traditional making skills. With a background in glass making and the projected moving image, Deirdre uses materials such as glass and mirror to develop image systems that physically and emotionally engage the viewer. Deirdre’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
deirdrefeeney.com
Meg Riley writes about Deirdre Feeney in Neoterica 2024.
Deirdre Feeney, Hallway, 2024, glass, brass, mirror, 3D printed resin, aluminium,geared DC motor, LED and driver, 3D printed PLA, heat sink,dimensions variable.
