Urban night

The digital work, Urban night (2008) developed from a collection of objects, which I inherited from my late father-in-law, Dr Leonhard Miller. I was intrigued by the laboratory glass, some of which were hand blown by Dr Miller whilst he was working in laboratories in Germany (Max Planck Institute, Göttingen) and in South Africa (CSIR, Pretoria). Not being a scientist in chemistry, I had no idea what the function of the objects were, but determined to engage with the collection, I started my own meaning making by handling and rearranging the objects. This process created an open interpretation of the visual language that the objects contain and they became mediators for narratives I read in them.

One of these potential stories deals with the concept of an enclosed world as reflected in Urban night. I reflected on the intervention of science as looming and ambiguous. Laboratory burettes and pipettes are about to rain down like luminous droplets, enshrined through light and dense configuration. The sense of promise and anticipation, which one associate with rain, is here reflected as a metaphor for hope that science can possibly bring about.   The play between the illusion of glowing glass as rain drop (at the top of the work) and the same glass burette applied in enlarged format to present the grime of the urban landscape (in the bottom part of the work), suggest a reflection of opposites. It also proposes that the same matter is contained within each of these spheres.

LINKS

https://issuu.com/gwenmiller0/docs/transcode_catalogue_gwenneth_miller_2015_small