Elizabeth Price SUNLIGHT, 2013 Two screen video installation, 10:00 min, installation view, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-On-Sea, UK The two-screen video work, SUNLIGHT (2013) has been constructed using thousands of glass-plate slides of the Sun, created between 1875 and 1945, which Price discovered during her on-going residency at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory. Produced systematically, these are some of the earliest technical images of the Sun and are photographed in ‘K’ light, a light of high temperature. Through this process the volatile surface of the Sun is revealed, a revelation that was used as a means of monitoring the impact of sunspots on the predominately magnetic technology of the period. These historic images are animated to create a continuous, evolving Sun, which is present throughout the course of the work. This stream of sunlight illuminates a terrain, unfolding across the two projections, in which a concise selection of motifs derived from packaging and branding are presented. Each image is intended to provide an element or prop for a drama. The research and ideas in SUNLIGHT are further expanded in her Art Basel Unlimited installation K
