‘Data Obtained By Sounding’ refers to a hydrographic chart annotation. Historically depth measurements were made by dropping a lead line, information about the nature of the sea bed was also collected by a layer of grease on the bottom of the lead. Repeated readings were taken to form a set of contours of the sea bed.

More recently depth readings were made using sonar equipment. Sonar operates in much the same way; echo sounders measure the time it takes for the echo of a ping to return to the surface.

These pings can be combined and expressed visually to form an image of the seabed. They remain a data set; A collection of measurements -
a series of distances from the surface to the seabed.

Collating this information provides a new perspective, altering the position of the horizon to an unperceivable position and proposing an impossible viewpoint.

Our perception is further altered by processing the data as a two dimensional photograph, viewed head on so we perceive it as a landscape view, while the image actually relates to data obtained over a straight course.

These works loosely explore the idea of viewpoints and a sense of balance in the alchemical energy contained within opposite forces in nature. The title is derived from alchemical writings of the Middle Ages; ‘As above, so below’ relates a concept laid out in the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus: “That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above, corresponds to that which is Below.” 

This work builds on a previous set of films with accompanying books (mutus liber) The first work in the series was Horizon Interpretation which proposes a false horizon of pyrotechnic fuse that appears to correspond with the visual division between the sea and the sky. The position of the horizon is subjective and relates only to my own eye level viewpoint. Using lens based recording media flattens that perspective creating the illusion that we are all sharing the same viewpoint.