2012
pigment inkjet print, each 84,1 x 59,4 cm
The works on paper »Set: blue sky« and »Set: green screen« share the same formal structure, consisting of three seemingly abstract forms, one of which, in green and blue respectively, occupies nearly three-quarters of the surface. In the lower section, this is demarcated by one black and one grey surface which suggest a fall of shadow. Only upon closer inspection of the two works is it possible to notice that when compared set: green screen – with the monochrome green space dominating the image – in »Set: blue sky«, the colorful surface has almost imperceptible tonal gradation. The pale blue is darker towards the top edge. set: blue sky is a photograph made during a film shoot. »Set« refers therefore to the concept of film set. The white corner wall can be recognized as the upper edge of the film set which serves the simulation of a virtual space for a cinema film. The blue sky, which determined the specific weather of the actual location of the shoot, is visible above this white corner of space. The title of the work set: green screen refers to the use of green screen technology in cinema. Green screen technology is used in film productions as a method with which to place objects or people against a different background and afterwards to simulate a space for the shoot that does not coincide with the one in which the objects or the persons find themselves at the time of filming. Tess developed the idea of combining two spatial and temporal spheres of set: blue sky, by replacing the actual space, captured by the section of the sky, with a »green screen« on which the viewer can project all manner of backgrounds and spaces. In this particular image, two temporal and spatial spheres are brought together that in reality are remote from one another: the simulated cinematic space on the one hand with its actual space and point in time and the real space of the location of the shoot and its duration which arose in the same place. Accordingly, »Set: green screen« is effectively the same image as »Set: blue sky«, with the difference that a monochrome green screen has replaced the blue surface of the sky.
