PROJECTILE //

Taking my octopus font to 3 dimensions.

When I saw a slide projector at a jumble sale last weekend for just £15, I would have to have been mentally ill not to invest. Okay, it was a bitch to lug back from Berkshire (BERKSHIRE) but so worth it. I bought some slide cases and made my own slides by printing some digitally manipulated characters onto acetate.

The idea behind the shoot was to recreate the appearance of tattoos on the body. Contortion of shapes; the way the ink wraps around the torso and limbs in a seductive manner. The octopus holds much symbolism in Japanese mythology, and my research has pointed me in the direction of a plethora of contemporary tattoos of octopii, which both borrow from ancestors and portray the current trend of anthropomorphous designs.

Another inspiration was the discovery of octopus wrestling, a truly odd sport which originated in Japan and I found through my research of the painter Hokusai. The idea of human and cephalopod grappling on a linoleum floor whilst candy pink symbols flash up on the screen and an adjudicator watches on intently (without blinking, might I add) was simultaneously enthralling and repelling.

I took characters from my 'Fisherman's Wife' font and made a digital collage, focussing on the scale and orientation of the letters. My intention was to create a canvas from which I could extract sections for my slides. I abstracted the characters in order to remove them from the context of a font and replace them in one of far more intrigue. Hugh modelled for me, and we had a pretty successful shoot because of his omnipresent want to help a brother out. Together we positioned his upper body within the projections so as to 'wear' the shapes. I chose to shoot in black and white because the lighting was so dramatic that it created an aura of unworldiness in my living room.