‘USA ORBITS 2015’ is part of a wider project titled, SIGHTINGS which is an external website by Tom Pearman documenting a variety of what are called ‘Sightings’ – whilst at the same time, references Andrei Tarkovsky’s film, Solaris (1971).
On a recent trip to the North American East Coast, Pearman has used the visited landscapes of his trip as circling planetary orbits, suggesting that life experiences all radiate into the conscious pool of ephemeral memory.
In the Russian science fiction film, the planet Solaris, appears to have the power to create and distort memories of the crew of a space station studying the planet.
The ‘orbits’ include Manhattan, Philadelphia, Boston and Coney Island and are the visible landscapes seen through a glass-mounted montage held up to a camera. The montage is derived from a 1938 print by Man Ray for London Underground titled, ‘Keeps London Going’.
The artworks are also influenced by the process known as ‘movie matte painting’, the traditional visual effect used by filmmakers to enhance a film’s scene, by painting imagery on glass and placing this glass between the subject and the film camera.
The trip to North America in 2015 provided narrative content for an ongoing graphic novel /e-book that Tom is developing titled, ‘BUSINESS CLASS / MOT’. It is a short story based upon a hybrid ‘sc-fi – ‘Wizard of Oz’ narrative.
