Griffiths, D.A., 2012.

Deep Field [The Photographic Universe]

"History [...] is a progressive transcoding of images into concepts, a progressive elucidation of ideas, a progressive disenchantment (taking the magic out of things), a progressive process of comprehension." Vilém Flusser, Towards a Philosophy of Photography

Deep Field [The Photographic Universe] connects the present-day city with the early universe, via the invention of microdots in Victorian Manchester. With advice from the Astrophysics Research Institute and in response to the dimensions of Castlefield Gallery's double-height wall, this pseudo-planetarium samples a 40 degree POV in the southerly sky, presented as an information surface for navigation and observation. Around 450 deep-field galaxies were and images collected from online databases such as Sloan Digital Sky Survey, Simbad and Galaxy Zoo. Using catalogues compiled by early modern astronomers Herschel and Dreyer, and hundreds of international observers dating from antiquity to modernity, it explores the disenchantment, and communal commemoration, of material reality brought about by photography. Wall drawing, telescope, microdot light boxes

Deep Field [The Photographic Universe], 2012, installation view

Deep Field [The Photographic Universe], 2012, installation view