Tyne Bridge By Night 1990 Four Connecting Photographic Works As photographs echo a reality, a lens is a filter adjusting distance and focal ratio. Just as reproduced images echo originals, maquettes are templates for larger works. My photo-booth bridge was originally made as a performance commission in 1988 under the auspices of Projects UK, sixty years after the completion of the steel and concrete bridge. I wished to make connections between local icons and the way that these are reproduced in photographic form, often as postcards. The re-iteration empowers the icon - in fine art the Mona Lisa is the ultimate example. The reproduction of the work allows it to exist outside the bounds of a gallery or other specific location. The postcard is a standardized form of portable art only possible since the invention of photography; a fine art currency, somewhat diminished as visual experience, but nonetheless an easily available and affordable version that can be collected for reference and enjoyment. Based on an ordinary picture postcard, my photo-booth interpretation is a logical enlargement (2 x 3 metres). Just as the Tyne Bridge was built in tandem with the Sydney Harbour Bridge, so, in parallel, my work is now transmuted into another form by translation into another medium: that of the scanochrome. A literal siting of the booth on the bridge would complete a full circle: two feats of mechanical engineering locked into a temporary public embrace; a mechanical performance. This junction commemorated individually by those who walk over the bridge, through the booth and take a personal photographic record with a photographic backdrop of the bridge. The Tyne Bridge being a maquette for the Sydney Bridge, my "echo" of the Tyne Bridge by Night, a version proportionate to the postcard. The scanochrome a re-echo keeping a similar ratio directly relative the the original Sydney enlargement. << back