Space Travel Screen Print

Rebecca created this beautiful print for the glasgow print fair under the theme of travel. Here she talks about the inspiration for the print.

the idea for the print was sparked after reading the first few pages of matt gaw’s book ‘under the stars’. in the opening pages it states that the moon moves 3.78cm away from earth every year.

this fact amazed me for how tangible that distance is. although relative to the distance to the moon it’s pretty small, in terms of visualising the annual effect, its pretty immense. it also means that in billions of years, the light of the moon will no longer be visible from earth.

compared to other prints i’ve produced, this is by far the smallest piece of data i’ve used for an artwork, but it’s no less important.

i used the annual figure of 3.78cm in a number of ways. the illustrated moons are made of thousands of dots and the diameter of each of these moons is 3.78cm. this means, each moon represents the distance the moon travels away from earth every year.

the height of the moon illustrations measures 37.8cm. this is the distance the moon travels away from the earth after 10 years.

and finally, when the dots of each of the moons are laid end to end, the distance represented equates to 2,000 years.

the print itself has been inspired by another futuristic great of his time – a true modernist designer – wim crouwel. perhaps best known for his use of grids, the design stays true to this accolade. the underlying image of the moon is actually a picture i took on the surface of a wave. the water was dark and the bubbles appeared like craters, which was perfect for this theme. i then created a piece of code that analysed the image. once analysed the image was then turned it into differing sized dots depending on the darkness of that image. all aligning faithfully to a rigid grid. over the course of the 36 moons, the image rotates anti-clockwise, just as the moon rotates around the earth, to return to its original position. the dots that create these illustrations of the moon also gradually reduce in size to give the impression that the moon is travelling away.

the design was then screen printed onto silver paper using black and fluorescent pink ink again in a nod to the long stedelijk museum posters designed by crouwel.

each print is then packaged in a telescopic 100% cardboard tube (in keeping with the space theme) and is made in the uk and more importantly, is completely recyclable.

there is also an option of purchasing this print with a magnetic oak poster frame. this frame has been made in shropshire. The magnetic strips easily hold your print in place along the top and bottom. Simply remove the strip on the top and bottom piece and place your print in.

print details
180mm x 510mm
edition of 100
250gsm gf smith peregrine majestic real silver paper
2 colour screenprint (black and flourescent pink inks)

oak magnetic frame optional by separate purchase (19.5 cm long)