21st June 2023 – in colour at the Summer Solstice
The northern side of the interior of the Twin Dome
The final configuring of the interior part of ‘in colour’ relied on bringing together three distinct elements at one moment in the middle of Summer 2023. Firstly, the ongoing collaboration between myself and Anne-Marie and the particular point it was at, secondly the newly created interior space of the old observatory that we call the Twin Dome and thirdly the effect of sunlight through the new window over the course of one day. That chosen day was the Summer Solstice.
In our collaboration – the first part – my process of making new art inspired by physical properties of light has increasingly developed into freer interpretation of the code of light. I sometimes think of it as like an evolved form of spectroscopy. That more abstracted arrangement of light as a code formed the focal point of the installation and filled the north aspect of the interior space of the Twin Dome – the second part. As for the third part, the flow of coloured, suspended squares (echoing the squares on the exterior of the south wall) was laid out so as to act and react with the incoming light of the mid-summer sun as it passed along the length of the wall from about 8.00 am until noon.
What this all meant was that for the first official opening of ‘in colour’ needed to be at the precise time of when the rays of the morning sun were in the east and striking four carefully suspended pieces of dichroic glass on the western aspect of the interior – about 8:15 in the morning. In that sense it was a slightly unusual public opening in that, rather than offering our visitors the usual wine and nibbles as they arrived, we went for a fresh coffee and danish pastries angle – very refreshing as it turned out. And all that on an amazing morning of the 21st of June with a totally cloudless sky across all of East Fife.