BACKGROUND, THEORY AND PRACTICE

Conor Wilson

The Travelling Temple of Light constitutes the first phase of a project to build a permanent, 4.5m high, ceramic camera obscura - a 21st century folly / pleasure pavilion. The project is driven by a desire to create a public space, which is beautiful, thought provoking and joyful - to create a sculptural building / an architectural sculpture, which is firmly rooted in the past while looking to the future.

The idea originated in a conversation between Mike Hughes, of the University of the West of England (UWE), and myself, while on the coach to visit the V&A Museum in 1996.

We began with the discovery of a mutual passion for the huge, majolica-tiled European stoves, which we had both seen many times in the V&A collection, and ended, excited by the potential for a multi-functional, ceramic 'pleasure pavilion'.

Earlier that year, leafing through an old copy of Art International, I had come across a picture of an exquisite, 11th century Khmer lingam. This sparked an almost obsessional interest in the composite form in which an octagonal drum mediates the transition between a cube and a dome.

The form began to crop up in my work time and again and, after doing some research, I realised that it is probably one of the most frequently used forms in world architecture - sacred architecture in particular. I became intrigued by the idea of 'common' or 'shared' forms, which have become so familiar to us that they seem inherently beautiful and, at the same time, semi-visible.

(It is curious that often when people see my design they say something like "oh yes, it's just like the such and such building / temple / whatever". Each person cites a different building which, on investigation, prove to be quite different from the Temple of Light. Our eyes play tricks on us.)

I started to notice the form all over the place - the church of St. Gregory the Great, Horfield, Bristol (1933); John Strahan's Redland Chapel (1743), also in Bristol. Even the famous and controversially condemned 'twin towers' of Wembley Stadium, London.

The earliest example I can find is the 4th century CE pleasure dome, known as the Temple of Minerva Medica in the Licinian Gardens, Rome. The purest architectural expression of the form, for me, is the 11th century, Seljuk, Masjid -i -Jami, Isfahan (in modern-day Iran).

The idea for the ceramic 'pleasure pavilion' and the form came together in a design intended as a kind of secular re-marriage between East and West. I wanted to retain some of the sculptural simplicity of the Persian / Khmer treatment, while adding familiar, Renaissance-derived, architectural ornament like the blind porches and rustication. The doorway is derived from the shrine of the Temple of Horus at Edfu. I added the plinth detail to add greater 'weight' and to provide seating, to encourage people to experience the temple through touch as well as vision.

As often happens with my work, I designed the piece with just a few specific sources in mind and then conducted a voracious search for antecedents - for some reason I find it comforting to locate them. The concept was reinvigorated by a closer look at that great 18th century, English blossoming of garden pavilions, belvederes, mausolea and 'temples' - the wonderful creations of architects like Hawksmoor, Archer, Chambers and Kent.

The 'Temple of Light' name came out of this research - partly tongue in cheek, but also serious. As a confirmed atheist who worries at the 'god-shaped hole', I enjoyed the notion of adapting a cross-cultural sacred form to try to create a profoundly beautiful secular space.

The 'light' part, obviously, comes from the camera obscura - a device that has fascinated me since visiting the one in the Clifton Observatory on the Downs in Bristol. A passage from one of the many TOL documents produced along the way puts it like this: 'A camera obscura seems the perfect vehicle for a 'secular temple' - at once simple and profound, it focuses attention on the wonder of light and the sensory apparatus with which we perceive it.

To experience an open space, in real time, from within a small, dark room is somehow strange and exciting. The Temple of Light will heighten that contrast between interior and exterior - the human scale of the building and the beauty of the blockwork create a jewel-like interior, illuminated only by the magical presence of the landscape outside.

The experience is enhanced by the amplification of surrounding sounds - the visitor essentially becomes the central element in an instrument, played by Nature.'

Initially, the idea got off the ground as a research proposal submitted to the Faculty of Art, Media and Design (UWE) at Bower Ashton, Bristol. This proposal was supported by Mike Hughes and Professor Walter Keeler, who were keen to develop new approaches to ceramics through the recently formed research group, Ceramics in Space. Professor Masoud Yazdani, then Associate Dean of the faculty, backed the proposal.

My original intention was to build the Temple in one piece, by coiling, and then fire it in situ, as an event. This sort of thing has been done before, but clearly carries serious risks of major cracking and would have to be considered as an experiment. I also proposed to test two other construction processes: -Constructing whole (or in sections) with unfired brick, then dismantling, numbering and firing before reconstruction. -Cutting unfired clay blocks to size, with dimensions and cuts derived from scale model -construction post-firing.

When the Year of the Artist (YOTA) Residency scheme was announced in 1999, the project took on a different focus. The process of filling in the proposal form encouraged me to broaden the scope of the project and to think more in terms of a collaborative, inter-disciplinary approach. Although I have worked with other artists on event-based projects before, here was a chance to do something much more ambitious - to instigate a project which would allow cross-fertilisation of ideas from very different perspectives: Artists, Filmmakers, Academia, Industry.

For a start, the idea of creating a permanent, public building scotched the notion of in situ firing. The idea to build the piece from large, unfired clay blocks became firmer after I saw the work being produced in the symposium / conference 'Creating the Yellow Brick Road' at Wolverhampton University, summer 1999. The piece could be built whole and then carved, as a sculpture, before being dismantled and fired.

While working on the proposal I spoke to many artist friends - Paul Sandammeer of UWE came up with the idea of covering the surface with imagery. The very notion caused me some consternation (!), but the idea soaked in gradually and became a strong part of the proposal.

I had already added the the Travelling Temple element, a portable, working model, inspired by the sedan chair obscuras of the 18th century (the concept always makes me smile). I wanted to use this to promote the residency 'on the streets' of the South West region and have some fun with the serious business of perception. The idea developed to use this as a pinhole camera to make images of people / landscapes / buildings in the area surrounding the site of the permanent Temple. These would then be transferred onto the ceramic surface, 'grounding' the temple in its chosen location and giving local people a sense of ownership.

When I asked Justin Marshall (a friend who was also one of the symposium artists at Wolverhampton) to be involved in the project, he was just finishing a PhD in computer aided design and manufacture in relation to architectural ceramics. He introduced me to the heady world of CNC and cutter/plotter - processes by which photographic images can be transferred to aÊ clay surface as low relief. This would be perfect for the surface of the Temple - close-up, these images would allow the visitor to 'read' the building. From a distance, the subtle play of light and shade created by the 'prints' would enliven the surface without detracting from the sculptural solidity of the form - more echoes of Persia, whose spectacular, brick-built, tomb towers and mausolea were often completely covered with carved ornament and text.

I spoke to another friend, filmmaker Jeremy Routledge, about the possibilities for recording the building process. I was very excited by his suggestion that we put a webcam inside the Temple. The idea of the 'double surveillance machine' was born - the voyeurism inherent in the camera obscura is turned in on itself by putting the voyeur under surveillance. The earliest optical device is contrasted with the latest and most controversial.

We developed the idea of the TOL website, which would carry live footage from the interiors of both the finished Temples as well as documentation of the various building processes:

-The wooden, Travelling Temple build, at UWE's Bower Ashton campus.

-The brick build in a local brick factory.

The Year of the Artist Residency was awarded and Ibstock Brick Cattybrook Ltd. (in Almondsbury, near Bristol) agreed to support us with space, clay and firing requirements. Erik Geelhoed at HP Research Labs also promised to support us in any way he could - the project was up and running and in search of a permanent, public site and further funding.

Jacy Wall, a freelance arts consultant studying for an MA at Bower Ashton, kindly agreed to help us with fundraising. She advised us to produce a leaflet for potential funders. The process of writing the copy for this leaflet was, for me, the most fraught part of the project - the various agendas of everyone involved had to be thrashed out and the realities of obtaining funding for what was rapidly becoming a major public art project became more clear.

Inevitably, we had to work on elements of the project in order to fit the funding requirements. Jacy and I put in many unpaid hours drafting applications to grant making trusts and, primarily, a bid for £48 000 to the Regional Arts Lottery Programme (RALP).

Both North Somerset and South Gloucestershire councils had expressed strong interest in the project, but, after several months researching and visiting potential sites in Bristol and surrounding counties, we realised that we just didn't have the level of support necessary to secure a site within our YOTA time-scale.

(We did get as far as negotiating with Portishead Town Council (North Somerset) for a specific site - Battery Point, which we considered ideal, but issues of vandalism, maintenance, etc. seemed a stumbling block for them. We were offered a site in the nearby Port Marine (Crest) housing development, but considered it inappropriate.)

After taking advice from South West Arts we withdrew the RALP application and decided to concentrate on Phase 1 - the Travelling Temple. If a commissioning agent can be found and funds raised as a result of the Travelling Temple tour and accompanying website, we will build the permanent Temple of Light in the future.

The outcome of all this has been that the project has had core funding of £5000 from South West Arts and £2500 from UWE. If the project is ultimately proved successful it will have been due to the hard work (largely unpaid) and commitment of the three artists involved. It seems ironic that one of the main aims of the YOTA scheme is to ensure that artists are properly paid - laudable but probably impossible within the funding environment we currently have in this country. However, the eternal arts / funding debate might step up a gear - I hope that the Temple of Light 'experience' can become a constructive part of that debate.

We eagerly await your comments.

Conor Wilson, August 2000