A DREADED SUNNY DAY, dye-line print installation, WestSpace, Melbourne, February 2005.

The text below is an excerpt from an article published in Mongrel 2 (forthcoming).

Dye-line printing is an almost obsolete technology for reproducing architectural drawings. The dye-line printing machine fixes shadows cast by drafted ink onto photosensitive paper in a mechanised form of direct photography. My dye-line work explores the latent tonal potential and light-shy nature of this medium. Tonal depth and contrast are produced through variation of exposure time and the depth of shadows cast onto the contact print by folded and layered papers of varying translucency. Compositions are assembled onto acetate or trace or laid directly onto the photosensitive paper. Drawings, text and found objects thin and flexible enough to pass through the machine’s rollers may be integrated into the prints. Aging the developing chemicals produces a range of hues from blue-grey to mauve through to sepia.

As large format photocopying replaces the dye-line printers still used in suburban offices, dye-line paper may become unavailable. That the prints themselves fade over time adds a certain poignancy to the medium’s expected demise.

West Space’s Gallery 3 is down the back, small, (4.1×2.8×3.5 m high) windowless, symmetrical, tomb like. It accommodates audio/visual work and has a sound proof door. A small hole just above the skirting serves as a conduit to a/v equipment in the gallery’s back room.

A Dreaded Sunny Day attempted to integrate the photosensitive nature of the dye-line print with its subject matter and presentation context. Contemporary lifestyle architecture presents as spacious and light filled. A Dreaded Sunny Day accommodated an un-Australian desire to withdraw into the dark in the middle of the day. Partly a reaction against the glare of “open it all up to the backyard�? house renovations, it grew from a liking for dark rooms on a hot days and the need for shade in order to think. Its subject matter was the architectural shadow and in the by-products of its production.

Shadows were cut from planning permit shadow diagrams prepared for five projects: Complicated House, House Deprived of Mystery, Thick Skinned House, Shallow House, and Glance. These drawn shadows, separated from their diagrams, form patterns of implied movement as they represent the shadows of the building at 9 am, 10 am, 11am, etc. The shadow diagram contains the edge of the building that casts the shadow. The small flame-like rosette figure, for example, is composed from the shadows predicted for a North Melbourne courtyard next door to the Complicated House, hourly from 9am to 3pm on 21st September. All five projects were eventually granted permits but remain unrealised in their intended form. A Dreaded Sunny Day performed a minor redemption.

A dreaded sunny day
So let’s go where we’re happy
And I meet you at the cemetery gates

The Smiths, Cemetery Gates from The Queen is Dead, 1986.

The dye-line machine used to print the wallpaper is the Oce 200, semi-dry type (as opposed to those which emit the strong ammonia fumes remembered by many architects). It uses a photographic type developing fluid that smells vaguely like vinegar with the slightest hint of ammonia. The paper is lime green in its undeveloped form. The smell of dye-line tends to linger and it affected the architects and engineer who stepped into Gallery 3. They engaged in nostalgia for their work experience days at the print machine.

The prints were pasted onto walls with basic wallpaper glue (cel-mix). Making use of dye-line paper’s availability in long rolls, traditional wallpapering techniques were adapted in order to apply the prints to large surfaces. Dye-line paper is thinner than conventional wallpaper but quite resilient. Once dry it becomes very taut and almost film-like on the wall. The wall is therefore very evident behind the paper. The concrete ceiling was papered in tiles into the rough squares outlined by the ridges of concrete that had seeped through its panelled formwork.

Previous works (SDOGGRA! prints and Shallow House Wallpaper) used cardboard from which the walls, roofs and stairs of architectural models had been cut as the basis for the printed forms. Dye-line printing has been a sustained project since 2001. It grew directly out of architectural practice.

Thanks to Simon and Freda Thornton Architects for the use of their dye-line machine.
Thanks to the City of Melbourne for a grant from their 2005 Arts Grant Program.