For Soho Photography Quarter, we present Paul Dolan’s Thermal Properties, a looping video that features 3D scans related to two renewable energy projects in South Tyneside, which use river water and a flooded mine to heat local homes.
Working with local residents and retired coal miners, Dolan scanned living spaces, personal items, life preservation gear, and new energy infrastructure. In the video, CGI software simulates thermal imagery and melting, creating a fluid link between people, objects, and surroundings.
Originally commissioned by CoLab Sunderland, University of Sunderland, SeaScapes and South Tyneside Council for the Blue Futures exhibition, curated by Dr Suzy O’Hara.
Paul Dolan is an artist, assistant professor at Northumbria University and member of the Cultural Negotiation of Science group.
His work engages with the material impact of digital technologies on the environment and planetary resources via photography, computer-generated image making techniques and programming. Dolan arranges components of digital images (material, algorithm, time, energy, temperature, infrastructure) into poetic assemblages. His works engage with aspects of digital life that lie beyond human perception, incorporating the hidden and unseen (thermal and infrared images, secure data centres, the glitches of image rendering processes) and the conflicting time spans of computation and geology.
