THE SKY ABOVE THE ROOF
part I - part II - part III - part IV
JAN DUNNING
The final element in this process was the creation of the artwork by photographer Jan Dunning who brought her own improvisational instincts to bear when building a visual world for this other-worldly music to inhabit
"I work with pinhole photography which has a very unusual, striking aesthetic. The camera has no lens; only a tiny aperture – meaning that exposures are long, and depth of field is infinite. The images have a soft, painterly, magical feel. Colours are often saturated and ghostly effects can be achieved.
"The rooms I photograph are all sets, which I build in my studio. They don't exist as real places – they are invented; inspired by memory, myths, stories, anecdotes. My working process is very intuitive. With no viewfinder, there is a gap between what is in front of me and the image I will eventually achieve, which I have to bridge imaginatively in the studio. I've always been interested in the space between the real and the imaginary and my images are like documents of a dream world where the viewer creates the narrative.
"Solus 3 commissioned me to make a room set and Ian sent over some of the early tracks which had an otherworldly, eclectic, timeless quality. We talked about an ambiguous space, located outside of any obvious period or time, but definitely connected to music and perhaps space exploration in some way. But essentially they gave me a lot of freedom to respond to the music; let my imagination create and inhabit a place where their record could be the soundtrack.
"I started to construct an industrial, slightly futuristic hangar with an unearthly feel – the roof is left open to heighten awareness of the sky beyond. Inside and outside are confused, nature intrudes. I looked at Magritte; in particular his paintings of rooms containing jarring, outsized objects; this gave me the idea of bringing the band's instruments in to enhance the surreal atmosphere. When I searched for miniature replicas of the harp, bass and drums, I couldn't find anything at the right scale, or level of detail – so ended up making them by hand. The vines may seem incongruous at first but they actually make perfect sense – they reflect the multi layered, organic approach of the music and the connection between the players but they also lead the eye around the image and their scale plays exciting tricks on the viewer. The mirror reflections add another level of intriguing confusion. The photograph moves paradoxically between balance and chaos, sublime beauty and sinister malevolence in an attempt to convey visually the sound and world of Solus 3."