Constable
Two installations help visitors interpret John Constable's work at Tate Britain, through active participation and observation. Created at AllofUs.
Exhibition Information
Tate Britain | 1 June – 28 August 2006
Exhibition / Interactives
Constable: The Great Landscapes will offer the first opportunity to view John Constable’s seminal six-foot exhibition canvases together. The ‘six-footers’ are among the best-known images in British art and comprise his famous series of views on the river Stour, which includes ‘The Hay Wain’ (1820-1), as well as more expressive later works such as ‘Hadleigh Castle’ (1829) and ‘Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows’ (1831). These paintings lie at the very heart of Constable’s achievement and not even during the artist’s lifetime were they ever brought together.
X-Ray
This installation offers visitors an insight into the artist’s thinking behind the painting ‘A view on the Stour near Deadham’ in a fun and engaging process. By walking in front of the projected painting, the visitor casts a virtual shadow over the image, revealing an x-ray of the painting underneath. By comparing the finished painting and the x-ray, the visitor can see alterations in the work that Constable had made during its development. The project uses video camera tracking to create the x-ray shadow, slowly fading between the images allowing the visitor to notice subtle differences between the two.
Grid
The second installation, Grid, illustrates Constable’s process of ‘squaring up’ an image in the journey from early sketches to finished work. A replica sketch of ‘Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows’ is mounted inside an display case, with thread marking out a grid over image (in a similar technique to Constable). The visitor simply touches the glass above the grid to scale up the corresponding section in the full projected painting. The installation reinforces the traditional techniques used by Constable and emphasizes the meticulous accuracy of scale in both his sketch and the final work.
My role
Programming and development of software for each exhibit (including camera tracking and touch surface calibration), robustness testing and install.
Created at AllofUs.
Jun 2006
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