Hot Bodies
Stephen Burstow
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Free
Stephen Burstow. Human bodies run hot. Even at rest, the average adult generates as much heat as a 100 watt incandescent light bulb. This exhibition brings these traces into the visible realm.
Hot Bodies presents a series of portraits made from the thermal traces of human bodies.
Human bodies run hot. Even at rest, the average adult generates as much heat as a 100 watt incandescent light bulb. We lose this heat through our evaporating sweat, our breath, and our skin’s contact with surfaces. Long after we leave our bed, or get up from a chair, the warm imagery of our bodies lingers on. By using a camera that detects radiation in the far infrared spectrum, these thermal traces are shifted into the visible realm.
This use of thermal imagery extends a technique I first explored in a moving image artwork, Screening Bedtime. The thermal imprints left behind on sheets and pillows suggested the possibility that these traces could become portraits in their own right, independent of the bodies that created them.
These images make permanent just one moment from the dynamically changing heat traces we leave behind. But by presenting this series on translucent, suspended fabric, able to waft in the breeze, I want to suggest this constant exchange of energy between our bodies and our environment.
Perhaps because of the printing on cloth, some viewers have seen a connection between these images and the figure on the Shroud of Turin. I decided to investigate this comparison and my discoveries can be viewed in this short video.
Stephen Burstow is a Sydney-based visual artist and filmmaker.
As a director he has specialised in performing arts projects for film, television and digital media. His dance films have been awarded internationally.
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