vSLAM Camera Paintings Acrylic on Canvas 130 x 130 cm

This work forms part of a broader project exploring the contemporary use of cameras in domestic, every-day applications and appliances, where a conventional ‘photographic representation’ in print or digital form is not the intended outcome. The work considers how contemporary digital photography might exceed the familiar visual experience of the photographic image.

Visual simultaneous localisation and mapping (vSLAM), refers to the process of calculating the position and orientation of a camera with respect to its surroundings, while simultaneously mapping the environment. These works were made by customising domestic ‘robot’ vacuum cleaners which use vSLAM cameras to navigate and map the spaces through which they move. Akin to producing a photogram, objects are placed directly onto/into the back surface of a stretched canvas on the studio floor. The canvas stretchers act as a frame within which the camera moves while navigating the objects, simultaneously distributing and moving paint from its body’s water chamber (mopping facility). Once dry, the canvas is removed from the frame, turned inside-out and re-stretched so the inside surface becomes the outer, visible surface.