Overhead Project (Villa of Mysteries) Hamish Tocher

Hamish Tocher's Overhead Project (Villa of the Mysteries) draws upon the figures, mysterious initiation rituals and crimson hues of the Pompeiian fresco cycle of the Villa of the Mysteries. Using hand crafted projection devices Tocher has recreated and reimagined this classical chamber and its enigmatic scenes. With an undercurrent of mourning for the passing of the analogue tradition of photography, these ephemeral light projections sit at odds with the historical endurance of the frescoes they reference, whilst alluding to photography's origins in the unfixed projections of the camera obscura.

Click to download the exhibition text (PDF)

Presented alongside Matthew Hammond */Journey/*. In quite different ways Hammond and Tocher both interrogate the conventions and modi operandi of photography.

Blue Oyster Discussion Session 6: Tuesday 24 November, 5:30pm

"Photography never got any better than it was in 1840" - Chuck Close

Looking at the evolution of photographic technologies and ask how does aesthetic progression relate to technological progression? Does the former follow the latter, or vice-versa?

Exploring this topic will be:

Max Oettli: Blue Oyster Trustee and Senior Lecturer in Photography at the Dunedin School of Art
Gary Blackman: Scientist
Chair: Jonathan Marshall, Chair of the Blue Oyster Arts Trust and Lecturer in Theater and Performance Studies at the Otago University