*1962 in Birmingham, UK, lives and works in London, UK
Modern technology, the recording of time, and the documentation of movement come together in Susan Morris’s work. By using digital tracking devices worn on the body, the artist records her daily routine or seemingly repetitive gestures to produce images that reveal a body caught up in the machinations of clock and calendrical time. At the centre of Morris’s practice, explored through a range of different media, is the very traditional idea of an artist’s self-portraiture serving as a commentary on subjectivity in general.
“The SunDial:NightWatch” series began in 2010 and consists of large Jacquard tapestries derived from Actiwatch recordings of Susan Morris’ fluctuating sleep/wake patterns as well as her exposure to light; many of these are taken over long time periods of up to five years. In this series, the Jacquard loom becomes a device for making automatic drawings, with each minute directly translated into coloured thread.
In this instance: “Binary Tapestry (Sunshine)” the artist arranged the daylight exposure data collected over a year in horizontal bands, each representing a 24h cycle. The vertically arranged piece clearly reveals the seasonal shifts in the amount of daylight exposure encountered in a northern-European setting.
Niklas von Bartha