dark cloud / white light

Day into night and back again, in a single unbroken frame.

Medium: Time-lapse, photography, landscape art, sound
Capture: 24-hour holy grail time-lapse, 8K from 36MP raw
Exhibited: Pātaka Art + Museum; Silo Park; Pah Homestead; Festival of Colour, Wānaka
Audience: 130,000+
Composers: Rhian Sheehan, Michael Cathro, Peter Hobbs, Ridge Jaggers, William Basinski, Claire Cowan, Keith Ballantyne, Tristan Dingemans, Michael Hodgson, Cam Ballantyne
Collection: Kā Mauka Whakatipu held by the Wallace Arts Trust

dark cloud / white light is a fully immersive, audiovisual synaesthesic experience, combining time-lapse, photography, landscape art and sound to create an intimate experience of awe and wonder.

Viewers become mesmerised by the New Zealand wilderness as the work seamlessly transcends from day to night and back to day — a technique known as the Holy Grail of time-lapse photography. Each looping landscape carries an original score composed for it.

Each work is a twenty-four hour sequence recorded in 8K from 36-megapixel raw frames, and in the exhibition each one loops continuously. Kā Mauka Whakatipu — 2085, scored by Rhian Sheehan, received an honourable mention at the International Photography Awards in 2014 and is held by the Wallace Arts Trust. Ki Piopiotahi — Gertrude Saddle is a dual-screen work, scored by Tristan Dingemans with violins by Alex Vaatstra.

Four artworks from the series received honourable mentions in all. A behind-the-scenes documentary, exhibited alongside the works, follows the two years of frames it took to make them.