T h e M o n u m e n t f o r S w a r o v s k i (O B J E C T)
During the summer of 2012 I developed a project commissioned by Swarovski for their exhibition Digital Crystal: Swarovski at the Design Museum (5 September 2012 – 13 January 2013).
I worked with moving images to accompany and tell a story about the object, thus created a mythological place and setting in which the object would exist. The exhibition brief was ‘Memory in a Digital Age’ and as a response I used my favourite pastime – travelling with Google Earth - as a tool to develop a fictive memory about a place. When digitally travelling to Wattens, the home and headquarters of Swarovski, I started to imagine the people of the small Austrian town and their lives in the Tyrollean mountains. Based on these fantasies, an abstract narrative was conceived and interpreted into a short film.
The co-starring object was created with the assistance of 3D imaging programs, transferring the topography of Wattens from Google Earth to a digital milling machine that milled the landscape in casted Jesmonite (see Sedimentation) and Swarovski crystal. Out of this I created a monument dedicated to my fictional friends in the Tyrollean mountains, as an ode to craft in a digital world. The project took form as an installation, with a film, a monument and sound creating a multifaceted experience, a glimpse into a fictional world.
The project consists of a film, a monument and a sound joined together in a intimate environment.
At the Design Museum / Image Courtesy David Levene
Installing
Cutting the crystal
During the summer of 2012 I developed a project commissioned by Swarovski for their exhibition Digital Crystal: Swarovski at the Design Museum (5 September 2012 – 13 January 2013).
I worked with moving images to accompany and tell a story about the object, thus created a mythological place and setting in which the object would exist. The exhibition brief was ‘Memory in a Digital Age’ and as a response I used my favourite pastime – travelling with Google Earth - as a tool to develop a fictive memory about a place. When digitally travelling to Wattens, the home and headquarters of Swarovski, I started to imagine the people of the small Austrian town and their lives in the Tyrollean mountains. Based on these fantasies, an abstract narrative was conceived and interpreted into a short film.
The co-starring object was created with the assistance of 3D imaging programs, transferring the topography of Wattens from Google Earth to a digital milling machine that milled the landscape in casted Jesmonite (see Sedimentation) and Swarovski crystal. Out of this I created a monument dedicated to my fictional friends in the Tyrollean mountains, as an ode to craft in a digital world. The project took form as an installation, with a film, a monument and sound creating a multifaceted experience, a glimpse into a fictional world.
The project consists of a film, a monument and a sound joined together in a intimate environment.
At the Design Museum / Image Courtesy David Levene
Installing
Cutting the crystal