Colour Holographic Strawberry Jug

Last month I told Mike Medora of Colour Holographic that I had a new exhibition in the pipeline, ("HOLOGRAMS 2", opening at the Buckinghamshire County Museum in Aylesbury, UK, on July 24th), and asked him if he would like to contribute a piece to the show.

He and some colleagues came over to my house and borrowed a few objects to record and yesterday Mike returned with a superb 30x40cm hologram made from a pretty piece of English pottery I have had for a few years.

The team at CH:Mike, Nigel Robiette, Gideon Raeburn, Manuel Ulibarenna and Inaki Beguiristain, have been working on Colour Denisyuk reflection holograms for a while now, but this is the brightest and deepest image I have seen to date. We compared the plate (CH's own emulsion) with examples from other well-known colour hologram specialists and it was considerably brighter. A superb achievement and one that is guaranteed to knock a few people's socks off as the exhibition tours the UK.

I should point out that the whites in the hologram are better than in my photograph of it.

http://www.colourholographic.com/

Spare Catalogues Wanted

If anyone has spare catalogues from blockbuster hologram exhibitions that they would be prepared to sell me, please send a message through by email jross@gallery286.com
Thanks, Jonathan

The Death Ray in Your Pocket

To mark the 50th anniversary of the laser, BBC Radio 4 are broadcasting a programme with this (ironic) title.

It will be on BBC Radio 4 at 9pm on Wednesday 2 June. That time is British Summer Time (GMT+1hr)

For those outside the UK, you can hear it live through the BBC website www.bbc.co.uk  -- either follow the links from the front page (look for "Radio 4") or more directly to http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/ and click on the "Listen Live" button near the top.

If you miss it live, it will remain on the BBC site for 7 days. Go to the programme listings for 't' (it will be listed under 't' for 'The' rather than 'd' for 'Death') at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/programmes/a-z/by/t   and click on the title in that list. That will take you to the programme page where there is a link to the iPlayer.

I was interviewed on the subject of holograms but the producer told me he wished they had had two programmes to fit all the material in, so I may well end up on the cutting-room floor (or whatever the digital audio equivalent is). I know they talked to Sean Johnston too.

Never Ending Tour

I seem to be turning into a sort of holographic Bob Dylan, as my touring exhibition moves from venue to venue. This week I installed it in sunny Basingstoke at the Willis Museum.

It's a nice small local museum with a recently refurbished temporary exhibition gallery on the ground floor. The location is the town's Market Place and one of the few areas that hasn't been totally usurped by the motor car and shopping mall culture that predominates the vicinity. If this is like any of the other places I have exhibited, once the word gets round, people will be packing into the gallery to see the holograms.

It is over six months since the last exhibition and unpacking the holograms for display was like meeting up with old friends. In the case of self-portraits by Margaret Benyon, Patrick Boyd and Martin Richardson, that is literally the case and, since Margaret now lives in Australia, I am more likely to see her hologram than I am her self. Hanging the exhibits in a different order makes it a fresh experience too and one sees the work in a new light (no pun intended - though the spotlights in the museum were brand new, as it happens).

Though there were some good sightlines in this space I found it hard to photograph with stills so have posted a video of the show on YouTube. It runs for about five minutes but is still pretty much a run through the gallery. If you have the time , I hope you consider it worth a look:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVRo2BYTZeI

Colour Holographic

I recently paid a visit to my friends at Colour Holographic at their East London location on the River Thames at Trinity Buoy Wharf. Mike Medora and Nigel Robiette have previously been best known for their full colour stereograms, used predominantly in advertising by clients such as Diageo, Nike and Warner brothers, with whom they have a long-standing contract for 'Moviposters' - holographic trailers that can be seen in cinemas across the UK. Also known for their excellent 'BB' holographic emulsions, CH have begun to produce some impressive full colour Denisyuk style holograms and have authorised me to show the following photos of some recent test pieces.

That's Mike holding a hologram of a guitar neck, in front of one of his stereograms.

The concept of using holograms for museum displays and high-end jewellers' windows begins to look feasible at last.

http://www.colourholographic.com/

Turrel Exhibit

I haven't seen the exhibition myself, only a pretty rubbish video clip on the internet
http://www.artnewyorkcity.com/2009/09/10/james-turrell-holograms-pace-wildenstein/
so it is hard to form an opinion. Nevertheless, I can't believe the show is as bad as this vile review by Karen Rosenberg in the New York Times makes out:

JAMES TURRELL

PaceWildenstein

534 West 25th Street

Chelsea

Through Oct. 17

The idea of using holograms in art seems laughably dated or, at the very least, kitschy. (Dalí probably doomed the medium, in the early 1970s, with his holographic portrait of the rock musician Alice Cooper.) Not even James Turrell, the artist known for making light and space behave in mind- and mood-altering ways, is able to redeem them.

Mr. Turrell’s 15 “transmission light works” are modeled after abstract paintings. They try, not quite successfully, to exorcise the hologram’s hokey, representational associations while retaining a phenomenal quality. Wedges, halos and orbs of light appear to project or recede from mirrored supports. The most interesting examples are physically assertive, even threatening; knife points and lassos emerge with the slightest shift in position.

Other shapes are obliquely referential. One blue-green trapezoidal form recalls Mr. Turrell’s “skyspaces,” open-ceilinged chambers meant to be viewed at dusk. Another, in the form of a long, tilted ellipse, hints at an old painterly illusion: the anamorphic skull in Holbein’s “Ambassadors.”

As a group, however, these works seem like oversize versions of the holograms used to secure credit cards and currencies. One suspects that they are just as functional: something to fill the gallery while Mr. Turrell finishes his site-specific installation, “Roden Crater,” in Arizona. KAREN ROSENBERG

Talk about having a fixed mind-set! If it wasn't so depressing I would laugh.

Holofax Camera

I have been offered a Holofax 50 - a compact camera system for the manufacture of reflection holograms, made in the UK in the 1980s. The original price was over £4,000 but the owner will consider any offer. Anyone interested in knowing more, please let me know. (The laser appears to be working).

A number of holograms by Light Fantastic are available from the same source.