Darkroom, River is a large scale immersive video projection with 4.1 quadriphonic soundscape.
The film was part of the Haunted Ecologies solo exhibition at the Stanley Picker Gallery, London.
During his fellowship at Stanley Picker Gallery, Pausz researched 19th century spirit photography, and how the techniques developed to manufacture ‘ghost’ in portraits were later used to modify landscapes. Pioneer photographer William H. Mumler was the first to introduce this genre as he became known for capturing iconic translucent ‘spirits’ which appeared next to portraits of living subjects. Mumler was later taken to court and prosecuted for fraud, and while never convicted, he was publicly shamed and eventually threw all of his photographic materials into the Hudson River.
During his early fellowship experiments, Pausz took analog photographs of the Hogsmill River and immediately developed them in the darkroom, going back and forth between the two liquid bodies of the river and the photographic developer solution. Darkroom, River documents the slow process of developing the images, and is accompanied by a composition with sounds recorded in the river using hydrophones.
Quadriphonic soundscape composed by Tómas Manoury using hydrophone field recordings from the Hogsmill river.