Work:
Astrolabe University of Tasmania Inveresk Library,
Kerning RM,
Kerning TCB,
Astrolabe TCB,
Orrery,
Things to have on a night stand,
Sky as Syntax,
Don't drink the milk!?
Writing:
Entangled,
[...] flows through the line break or ends at it.,
{dys} functional,
2 September 2019
Astrolabe University of Tasmania Inveresk Library
For Sawtooth ARI x University of Tasmania 'Ways of Knowing' project in the new Inveresk Library, Launceston.Showing alongside Lex Palmer Bull. Curated by Zara Sullivan.
Emmalyn Hawthorne, Astrolabe: minuter, 2024. 3D printed PLA, 16.4 x 16.4 x 13.5 cm. Skyline documentation by Zara Sullivan. Photographs by Zara Sullivan.
In her recent body of work, Astrolabe, Emmalyn has been using Optical Character Recognition software to ‘read’ skylines and 3D printing to model the output. The software interprets the skyline as though it were handwriting, comparing the curves and angles to its database of written text. Sometimes just jumbles of letters and punctuation come out and other times whole words or phrases. For Inveresk Library, Emmalyn engaged with the view from level three, installing the resulting sculpture in alignment with the skyline that generated it.
Emmalyn finds skylines and words are similar in that the way we perceive them depends upon our own positioning within physical and cognitive landscapes. Always in flux, they evolve and morph as we continue to interact with them over time. 3D printing then gives form to these histories — its layering of a thin line of filament across a surface not dissimilar to stacking pages and pages of writing. An astrolabe is a hand-held astronomical instrument, sometimes regarded as a rudimentary analogue computer, used for reckoning time and making measurements that enable the user to orientate themselves both on Earth and within the celestial sphere. This work offers a similar means of orientation and understanding, charting lines back through times, perspectives, and our, frequently destructive, use of the landscape and of words.
