Debra Phillips

Overview

The roundest object in the world is Debra Phillips' second solo exhibition at BREENSPACE. Showcasing two photographic bodies of work, Phillips takes as her starting point the Avogadro Project, an attempt to create a new standard measure for the kilogram. At present, the kilogram is the only standard international unit of measure that is still defined by a physical object, and a fragile one at that. Locked in a vault in France, 'Le Grand K' is a cylinder of platinum and iridium, an object which has only been handled three times in the past century and yet it is still 'losing weight'. The CSIRO Precision Optics team in Sydney together with the National Measurement Institute have been seeking to produce a replacement for the world’s lone kilogram (or, now, slightly less), one which can be created from a single substance and can be replicated. Importantly, this object is also perfectly spherical — the roundest object in the world.

It is interesting that Phillips has chosen photography to explore the idea of replicated perfection. Phillips’ first series, 13 photographs shot in the studio with photographic standard measure backgrounds of either red, blue, green or grey (referencing RGB and the grey card) display the tools and output of the man-made Avogadro Project. The second series, shot on a large format analogue camera, displays termite mounds located on the NSW South Coast. Each mound home is individual and self-contained, a climate controlled perfect world naturally occurring. Comprising of 26 photographs printed using an outdated process these images are slightly unstable, each displays minor tone differences, some more sepia, gold or red than others, although ultimately each is incredibly rich and detailed.

At the point between analogue and digital, the one-off and the replicable Phillips presents a collision. The man standing between the two is the world master lens-maker, Achim Leistner. Working by hand to ‘massage the atoms’ of the new spherical kilogram he polishes the globe so as to create the closest approximation of perfection. They haven’t succeeded yet, but imagine his hands.