Peter Coffin believes art is an alternative to rational thought. He is influenced and intrigued by phenomena that many do not understand and appropriates information and images from art history and science within his work. He investigates how and why things work, and from these investigations he uses his art as a tool to extend our consciousness and transcend our everyday experiences.
For his commission at the Curve, Coffin presents three related elements; a multi channel video, an audio soundtrack, and a series of small sculptures - that all challenge our point of view and understanding of the spatial, and temporal.
The video piece, which is projected around the vast back wall of the curve, in 16 screens is of a Japanese Garden. Traditionally Japanese Garden design philosophy is characterised by the effect of altered spatial perception, and its relationship to the notion of natural landscape. They use illusionistic techniques such as overlapping elements, shifts in scale, and multiple points of focus to create a false sense of space. By using a toy helicopter, with cameras attached to it, the images are disorientating and confusing, the images move from projection to projection, creating an uneasy, rocking movement. As you only see a portion of the garden at a time it becomes difficult to see the garden as it was designed to be seen. Coffin seems to try and go against these Japanese philosophies and reveal the true essence of the garden.
Although the audio soundtrack is a seperate entity, I believe it to react more coherently with the video projections, rather than the sculptures; at various points within the Curve, the vistor encounters the soundtrack of someone walking and whistling (as if, around the garden). The directional speakers used create a strange listening experience that is focused in seperate spots-loud in some places, quiet in others.
The third component to the installation is definately the strongest, Coffin has created a series of objects and sculptures presented on plinths. Common, everyday objects such as a compass, a beer can and a leather shoe are placed next to sculptures which have been produced by a complex process of 3d scanning, digital manipulation and printing. The two objects have a sense of duality, and of pairing, although when you initial enter the gallery it is sometimes unclear how they relate to one another. Sometimes the transformations made are playful and funny, whilst sometimes he has used highly complex mathematical or scienticial equations. You see the conch shell that has been transformed as if it was being looked at through a kaleidoscope, a skull turned inside out, a pine cone that has been "rubix cubed", and a leather shoe, as a feotus in it's 1st trimester. It's as if Coffin has let the viewer into an alternate universe, a universe where these objects might make sense.
His manipulation of sound and art (such as in his piece Untitled (GreenHouse) where he invited musicians to play in a greenhouse to test the effects of music on plants) helps us to see what can usually only be imagined, mapping a strange hypothetical terrain that is personal to him. In July 2008, he built and flew a 7-meter wide UFO over the Baltic, to test psychological theories of fear and to offer a spectacle for curious onlookers. Coffin's work always seems to be about transformation, and how we use our senses in different ways in different circumstances. He uses points of reference; such as the objects used in the sculptures, and famous artworks (as in his silhouette sculptures) that allow the idea and concept of the work thrive.
