Ele Willoughby
things from secret minouette places
Light Boxes
This series of multimedia works combine lino block prints on delicate, translucent Japanese paper with simple electronics (LEDs, batteries, switches) and wooden boxes. The work investigates some of the most beautiful, natural light phenomena, including the auroras and bioluminescence.
The 'Polar bear and Aurora' lightbox incorporates self-flashing RGB LEDs, Japanese washi and light gels. The LEDs cycle through different intensities of red, green and blue light, with their own frequencies so that the overall colour pattern is stochastic, and forever changing. It is mesmerizing.
The 'Bioluminescent Comb Jelly Lightbox' illustrates one of the marvellous jellyfish-like marine creatures, the Ctenophora. The combs are the celia (the hairy bits) which they oscillate to swim. They are also voracious, invisible to prey, hermaphrodictic, and bioluminescent. These creatures really do look like they have lines of flashing multicolour LEDs. Sometimes, I think that our science fiction depictions of space aliens are too tame; there are stranger creatures here on earth.
Works including Block Printed Circuits
Working with electrically conductive ink and open source Arduino microprocessors I am printing my own sensors and actuators. The print itself can act as a capacitative sensor. The artwork becomes interactive when these sensors are used to trigger a response. I can print my own speakers, by making an electrically conductive spiral and placing it next to a strong rare earth magnet. Thus the print itself is made to vibrate and produce sound.
I began with as part of my series on the biodiversity of bees, making electrically conductive bee proximity sensors, which buzzed when approached. The sound wasn't merely buzzing vibrating paper speakers, but actually playing back samples of bee sounds.
The image shows an Arduino with sound shield, two bee lino blocks and my spiral lino block for printing speakers. The video shows the first prototype.
'The Bees' is a multimedia piece with 6 different linocut bee species on Japanese washi papers with spiral on the reverse, to act as a species (from 2013).
This evolved into the 2015 piece 'Bee Homes'. My process is documented in the images below: the blocks and microprocessor, the bees printed in electrically conductive ink and sewn with electrically conductive thread so each bee/sensor could trigger its own sound track, the electronics on the reverse and the completed piece, incorporating the block printed bees and collaged Japanese papers. The circular shapes sweep from the lower left, indicative of the homes of the native bees, who are solitary and often dig holes in the ground or live in holes in logs, to the better known hexagonal cells of the imported European honeybee at the upper right. Each bee triggers a track containing field sounds of noises it makes as well as spoken words, describing the bee itself and its nature.
Prints That Change Colour
This series communicates an idea by employing special inks which change depending on conditions, including thermochromic inks which turn colourless when heated, UV activated inks which change colour when in contact with UV light (such as direct sunlight) or glow-in-the-dark.
Consider my thermochromic portrait of Louis Pasteur, surrounded by bacteria. When heated, the bacteria disappear, as a visual metaphor for pasteurization.
My thermochromic linocut portrait of Wilhelm Röntgen (1845-1923), who first discovered x-rays, is layered on top of a linocut of his skeleton. Thus, when heated, the skeleton is revealed, as with an x-ray image.
Is Schrödinger's cat in the box, or not? It depends on when you look at this linocut! This colour-changing thermochromic block print shows the famous thought-experiment of renown quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger (who would never hurt a real cat!). Both the cat in blue and the poison in pink will disappear when the print is exposed to heat.
This linocut 'Jackson's Cameleon' is printed in regular, thermochromic and UV activated inks. When cool and not exposed to UV light, the cameleon is green and orange. When in sunlight and above 30 degrees C, the cameleon turns yellow and green.
This is a lino block print of Marie Skłodowska-Curie (7 November 1867 – 4 July 1934) shows the famous Polish-born, naturalized-French physicist and chemist at work in her lab. The contents of her lab glassware appropriately glow-in-the-dark!