Stephanie Rajalingam will be presenting the video installation “The Magic Wallpaper Project” as part of the Electric Encounters exhibition at the Plump Gallery – 240 Enmore Road – from September 10th until 20th. We chat with Stephanie about the work.

1. What brought you into this field?

I started exploring Video and Animation as a medium of art several years ago much largely due to my undertaking of Design studies in Sydney and France. I then started to explore non-traditional screen surfaces that could be subverted into artistic installation after visiting the Alfred Nobel Peace Museum in Oslo in 2007. I came across “the Alfred Nobel Chamber” in the museum. It was a room that housed an interactive display book that told the story of Alfred Nobel’s life.

When a viewer turned the page of the book, it would initially look blank but the act of turning the page would trigger the appearance of information, and the book would start to animate with the story of Alfred Nobel. I noticed the reaction of an elderly woman next to me, who must have surely thought it was some kind of sorcery.
It was a fancy piece of hardcore technology that made the use of a blank book,  vertical projector, sound effects, motion tracking, and a sophisticated RFID tagging system that worked together to give the effect of a “Magic Book.”

I basically found this extremely fascinating and it inspired me to create my own animated “Magic Book.” After successfully recreating that, I then looked for further inspiration in the microscopic world to create the “Magic Wallpaper Collection.”

How did the concept for this piece come about?

A combination of precursors informed my artwork. I was shown an animation called “Drift” by Carl Burton. This was a beautiful animation about a tiny being drifting in an abstracted cellular, visceral landscape. I wrote to Carl and asked him if he had obtained real images of cells and he replied saying his piece was entirely simulated by use of different computer softwares. I was amazed, as his rendering of cells and cellular textures was highly ‘real’ looking.

As I also have a love for textiles, patterns and serigraphy, I wanted to incorporate fascianting scientific imagery of microscopic cells and cellular textures into an animated, interactive or ‘Magic’ wallpaper. I came across a British artist named Heather Barnett, who had created an entire collection of wallpaper out of using images of her own cheek, cervix and skin cells and named it “Interior Narcissus.”

I reviewed wallpaper as an appropriate medium for communicating visual art. I then developed my own Scientific-Artistic animated wallpaper through collecting live specimens of human, plant and animal cells, and filming them through a microscope.

What do you hope people will take away from your work?

An image of the (beautiful) dichotomy between the tiny world of micro-specimens that go unnoticed and its strange giant amplification in a wallpaper context.

Who do you look to for creative inspiration – either specifically for this piece or in general?

For this piece: Heather Barnett, Carl Burton, Typography, and a drug-induced hallucinogenic wallpaper scene from the film “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”

In general: Pretty much everything and everybody. Firstly, I am inspired by the conversations I have with people that often belong to different social groups than myself, i.e scientists / programmers / musicians / artisans from Guatemalan communities / Japanese IT technicians, etc.

However I also look to other artists and designers for inspiration all the time. I love artwork that is small or intricate and detailed, such as the micro-sculptures of  Willard Wigan, or  the intricate designs of Dan Funderburgh and Tsang Kinwah. I also like the works made by whimsical French artists and designers: Christian Lacroix, Marie-Christophe, Antoine et Manuel and Les Lalannes.

What can we look forward to from you in the future?

More subversion of non-traditional screen surfaces and animation of ubiquitous objects. More art!

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