Big Blue
In 2019 I was invited to do a residency at Interval, a performing arts space in Bristol city council’s old offices, above St Nicks Market. When the council moved out, they left a large wide-format device, no one was exactly sure what it was, but they knew it was used for making blueprints. The machine had several UV tubes in it, and it would feed paper between these. However, it was also broken – the rollers were not working when the machine turned on. I was invited to come fix it, experiment with it, teach everyone about it and make some work.
My first step was researching the machine – and it turned out to be an old Diazo Printer. A machine used by architects to make technical copies of designs. It was used with special diazo paper, which it would expose with a clear negative and then expose the paper to ammonia fumes to develop. The machine still had the old ammonia tank, nice and full. Fixing the machine was surprisingly simple, as all that had happened was a fuse had blown. I ordered some diazo paper from probably the only remaining place online. *Update – it is no longer found online and probably is no longer in existence*. After the battery incident, I was keen to not be exposed to any extra chemicals – so I chose instead to use Cyanotype, which is a relatively harmless process, and also was the traditional form of making architectural copies. Below are images from the workshop.
I was designing work for the upcoming Zenith’s exhibition in Wroclaw. I was inspired by the stars, designing the stars and drawings from space. I created a large drawing, scanned it on a wide format scanner and printed it on a large transparency. I coated several papers with the cyanotype chemical and after exposure, I washed them in a large plastic tub. The Japanese Hosho Roll from Intaglio printmakers was far more sensitive to the cyanotype than the Fabriano Sketch paper and created a much clearer image. I was not entirely satisfied with the final design, but it gave me many ideas and considerations for future projects.
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