Lock

'Lock' at Galerie Lelong was my first New York solo show. It involved research and production on an ambitious scale marking a methodological departure from previous work. In 2005 I was invited by the British Council to undertake a funded research residency in China. The work exhibited forms part of a larger body of work that is the outcome of this residency. Galleries Alison Jacques and Lelong produced the exhibition and BC and Film & Video Umbrella contributed to production costs.

The show comprised moving image, sound and stills. 'Lock' is a diptych-film with two audio channels projected onto two opposite walls. In each projection the camera is positioned on a boat passing through the lock at Three Gorges dam – in one it ‘looks’ ahead, in the other it ‘looks’ back. Additionally, photographs of boats and infrastructure, taken along the Yangtze River, form a series of seven lightboxes. The work is concerned with scale, with grand engineering projects that can be read as a manifestation of utopian dreams and continues my exploration of the relations between film, architecture, movement and dreams.

The architectural scale projection required that the 16mm film be converted to HD with HD edit and grading. Considerable technical research was necessary to achieve full synchronization between the two projections ultimately resolved through Mpeg rather than DVD replay. The lightbox images continue my exploration of combining two photographs taken of the same subject a few moments apart, one processed as a negative the other as positive but here I employed digital processing. This was researched extensively to achieve the same signature aesthetic previously obtained through conventional photographic means.

• http://www.galerielelong.com
• http://www.artnet.com/galleries/Exhibiti...