
Timothy Betton
My practice is concerned with the forensic display and performance of lines, shapes and space as they are intersected, interfered with and interjected by; light and colour. I am interested in how we experience space and the human need to create boundaries within space.
I use ‘lo-fi’ techniques and methods of production to construct spaces with a ‘hi-fi’ appearance. Pushing against the virtual world, I use basic materials to assemble spaces that become a ‘spectacle’. Occupying the position of the ‘amateur scientist’, I put together experiments that test how light can transform space, how it can be distorted and how it can be classed as a material. Light’s intersection with space is a main focus in my work. Space can be found in the physical and the digital. Should we believe all information and not debate the networks that we are placed in?
The way in which one person views and perceives an image or space will be different to others. How an image or space is recognised and responded to is an aspect I want to play with in my work. I am intrigued by the middle stage between noticing and recognising an aspect of something and the certainty of what that thing is.
My work sits within this middle stage, causing confusion but also interest. I want to push the boundaries of turning one form into another form, switching from architecture, to material, to digital etc. I am ultimately examining ‘non-space’ and how society and architecture operate in those spaces, whilst investigating ways in which the digital redefines the physical world and the process of this redefinition.
The viewer’s interaction with my work is crucial to the experience, whether walking within the installation or viewing it from a distance. When experiencing my work the viewer is reminded of the material qualities of the digital, along with how light and colour can transform space. Basic but spectacle like, my work attempts to glamorise and romanticise digital and lo-fi material.