The Spectrascope
gallery installation

Top two images: Installation view of The Spectrascope at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester © Susan Collins 2005;
Third image from top: Installation view of The Spectrascope at the Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam © Susan Collins 2007;
Bottom Image: Installation view of The Spectrascope at
Site Gallery, Sheffield © Susan Collins 2004

The gallery installation of The Spectrascope consists of a large scale projection of the image updating in real-time accompanied by the 'fear frequency'.
This is an audio frequency of 19hz, which is just below the range of normal hearing (infrasound), but which has been linked to distorted vision (including spectral images), discomfort, and 'irrational' fear and has been found to be present at sites of apparently haunted locations. Introducing this frequency to the gallery invites the viewer to question whether the frequency itself is creating the disturbance or whether the site of haunting is creating the frequency.

Time becomes intrinsic to the work as the previous 76,800 seconds (just under a day) are displayed pixel by pixel within a continuously updating timelapse film, caught in a single frame. Poised between the still and the moving image, the lens and the pixel, the installation explores how images can be coded and decoded using both light and time as building blocks for the work. In The Spectrascope time is counted across the room from top left to bottom right in vertical lines.

This version of The Spectrascope was commissioned for the StoryRooms exhibition in the 1830 Warehouse of the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester (11th October 2005 until 15th January 2006), and has been exhibited as part of The Blur of The Otherworldly: Contemporary Art, Technology and the Paranormal, at the Center for Art and Visual Culture, Baltimore (20th October to 17th December 2005); A Retrospective of British Media Art, Kunsthaus, Dresden, Germany (9-19 November, 2006) and Video Vortex, at Montevideo/The Netherlands Media Art Institute in Amsterdam (20th October until 2nd December 2007).
An earlier version of the Spectrascope was commissioned for Haunted Media, Site Gallery Sheffield in 2004

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