Gabriel Lester pt. 2

Habitat Sequences, 2000, Various props, furniture

'Habitat Sequences is a series of fully decorated and conceivable living rooms. The extraordinary effect of the black walls and the uninterrupted loop of lights successively turning on and off, creates a sequence of moods and isolated volumes inside the space. Following basic cinematic lighting principles to create ambiance and atmosphere, and due to the fact that one's eyes need time to adjust to each light condition, the scene inside appears in fragments, rather than as a complete and accessible room. In effect, one constructs a complex mental image of the room, at once memory and moment. These installations propose a certain spatial tension span, where both the absence and presence of identity is at play.'

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- Like Night of the in the previous post, I like that these are fully set domestic scenes - this time it is the lighting that is revealing certain parts of the scene at a time. It reminds me in a way of a haunted house, with the lights turning on and off of their own accord, or perhaps some kind of strange sporadic power surge, either way, it uses light and I like it. 
And the lights are warm, which feels homey, in contrast to my initial impressions.

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ALTAR, 2001

'Shortly after exhibiting Habitat Sequence, a first spatial edit, I found a newspaper image showing how a local pub in the Czech Republic had been transformed into a voting locale for upcoming elections. The image showed a bar split into sections by thin walls. It occurred to me that this produced a similar effect as the changing of lights had done in the living room of Habitat Sequence. For the Unlimited #4 at the Appel, I reproduced a community center / local pub and cut it up with walls, as if dividing it into frames and camera angles. Before doing so, the back wall was covered with wallpaper and props, and became a backdrop to a series of photo’s reappearing in other photos and hung on the wall, like a disclosed semi private narrative. Altar is the first installation where architectural elements are used to create something like a montage of space and elements hung or placed in it.

This one isn't one of my favourites of his work, however I like these walls structurally, and they interest me because of my plan to attempt to create walls for my final piece for the semester