Still from 2013, was this work, a commission for the foyer of the Science Building at Macquarie University in Sydney. That building is currently being renovated and the work is in storage.

Details – ‘Blood on Silk: Surgery’ 2013, ribbon, canvas, paint and wood, 525 x 360 x 20cm (d)

This work started from my examination of the role of code and the distortion/ mutation of those codes both within physics and also within medical communications both in a hospital setting and pre hospital. One of the earliest codes or signs I looked at was one that indicated the location of a surgeon or practicer of leech craft. This code is the still recognisable barber’s pole. Formerly bloodied bandages were wrapped around a white painted pole to indicate the surgeon was open for business. In this work the red and white stripes of the pole are distorted and dislocated and start to reference or overlap with phase masks, photonic gratings and codified photographs of the physical behaviour of blood. One panel in the middle of the work is a codified form of the pattern formed by eight drops of blood after they had fallen from a metre in height found as one of the teaching materials in a forensics class.

The work, made of reflective satin ribbon, works as a photonic device where the nature of the transmission of light depends on the relative position of the viewer and their relationship to the work relative to the source and nature of the incoming light.

One of the aspects of the site I was keen to work with was the ability to have a slow reveal of the work. Coming in from the exterior main doorway and moving into the body of the foyer only slivers of the work are revealed. If you go up the stairs to the first landing it results in an almost theatrical unveiling of the work. The landing almost becomes a viewing platform just for the work. You then turn your back on the work to go up the second flight of stairs and turning left or right the work is seen from the corner of the eye.