A series of artefacts that are based on the original imagining of Sophus Tromholt. Sophus Tromholt (2 June 1851 – 17 May 1896) was a Danish teacher, astrophysicist and an amateur photographer. He worked as a teacher at Tanks School in Bergen, Norway 1876-82. In 1882 he was granted a scholarship by the Danish and Norwegian states to study the northern lights (Aurora Borealis). Unable to photograph the Aurora Borealis, Tromholt proceeded to made detailed drawings that were based on observation. Refound by Christine Finn the drawings were encountered during a research trip with the Reading the Landscape Research trip to Orkney.
The artefacts here are an attempt to provide an indexical quality to a chance encounter – and one that is based on the inherent failure of photography at the time of Tromholt. Utilising a home-made ultra photosensitive surface, I made these plates photographing the night sky. The images are successful failures in terms of photographic representation, relying on starlight to make an imprint with equipment that is very close to what Tromholt would have used in his time. This delay in indexicality – starlight in this case takes so long to reach as that the actual star might not exist anymore – is a testament in the fracture of photographic time, and an indication that even though the result might fail in terms of representation (only a real astronomer would be able to decipher the location the photographs were made at, based solely on the location of the stars and time that these images were made) but speaks of an attempt to reconnect temporarily even if the subject matter is suggested.