Electric Skies

Electric Skies uses the built-in Color Swap function of a compact digital camera in fog, overcast weather and diffuse light. The selected colour was dispersed across the frame, without a single object or clear boundary. The camera picked up slight shifts in the sky and intensified them together with sensor noise.

The sky appears as a grainy, uneven surface.

Architecture cuts into and contains it; wires score it; branches are retained in some places and disappear in others. Halos, reversals and false divisions appear where air and object meet traces of the camera attempting to determine where one colour ends and another begins.

The photographs record what happens when weather passes through a crude colour-selection tool. Fog and cloud cover return as noise, hard edges and unstable fields of colour. Grey air becomes part of the image’s material structure.

Dark grainy sky above scaffolding and buildings.
01The Weight of Air
A pale arched facade and a modern building beneath a deep blue grainy sky.
02Between
Pale curved concrete walls enclose an opening of blue-black grainy sky.
03Vessel for Weather
Overhead wires cross between city facades under a nearly black sky.
04Wired Atmosphere
Bare branches reach across a dark grey-blue sky.
05Black Reach
A small bird sits among thin branches against a grainy grey sky.
06Bird of Grey
Pointed sculptural forms stand between buildings under a rust-coloured sky.
07Uneven
Dark and pale tree silhouettes overlap against a blue-green grainy sky.
08Dark Tree, Pale Tree
A bright flare rises between city buildings beneath a deep blue sky.
09Luminous Error
A construction crane and buildings stand beneath a layered blue sky.
10The City of Air