William Lamson
Set in landscapes as varied as New York's East River and Chile's Atacama Desert, his projects reveal the invisible systems and forces at play within these sites.
To do so there is a water bottle hanging down the side of the cliff being lifted up and down by the swells in waves, this, in turn, interacts with a pulley system of sorts connected to a graphite pencil.
Close-ups of the apparatus in action show that the pencil's movements appear oddly purposeful, as if a consciousness were driving the mark-making; but in shots from afar, the mechanical process is clear.
The 82 sq ft experimental structure is a functional greenhouse constructed of a steel frame and panels of caramelized sugar.
[5] To create the panels in an "amazing spectrum" of hues, Lamson concocted recipes he made himself, simply boiling refined white sugar until it turned specific shades.
[5] The resulting shades vary from clear to opaque black, with saffron, flame orange, primrose, and deep burgundy in between.
[5] Lamson believes that when you approach Solarium up Storm King's grassy hill, you experience the Andrew Wyeth sensibility of "the sanctuary in the landscape.
[2] The structure is centered on a miniature lemon and orange trees symbolizing his interest in sugar as a fundamental requirement for life.
Lamson was interested in how the red-yellow light coming through the caramelized panels would affect the plants themselves and wanted to see if they would one day bear fruit.
Walden, published in 1854, is a book that details his deliberate escape into the woods to live a life simplified to "only the essential facts" in the now-iconic, self-built, one-room cabin on the shores of the pond.
[2] To create the video, Lamson built a small-scale model of Thoreau's cabin re-imagined as an artist studio and entirely in white.
[2] The resulting video captures the projected image of the inverted lake landscape as it moves slowly over the interior of the model cabin, illuminating the walls, furniture, and tools within this constructed space.
[2] Lamson's sensitivity to the environmental conditions is critical to how his performative action unfolds and how his video work eventually comes together.
Instead of the viewers seeing the floating cabin on Walden's pond from the shoreline, the camera obscura documentation creates a compression of time, space, and multiple perspectives of the landscape all within the eighteen-minute duration of the piece.
