Pregnant Lady In a Pool

Inferred conditions upon a Gregory Crewdson constructed image.
with Morgan Peterson and Raha Mahmoudi

Environmental mapping and material energy manipulations.

American photographer Gregory Crewdson has built a body of work that teeters on the unnatural, the eerie and the obscene. He is the photographic version of a David Lynch film- his photographs are true productions, where team members often wait all day to capture the perfect shot. Crewdson precisely places each element and waits for a moment when environmental factors (manipulated and real) merge to produce his desired photographic effect.

This studio was tasked with mapping a Crewdson photograph’s environmental energies as they are to understand the creation of an image. Once mapped, material energy manipulation was introduced to further exaggerate the potentials of the scene. Meaning, if relative humidity is the combination of heat in the environment plus moisture in the air, what qualities would the scene render if the temperature was raised to the level that standing water would now produce visible steam?

In the end, the question of manipulating the atmospheric levels of the environment asks how architecture could produce these effects and what it would mean spatially. To better understand the interiors of our architecture, we must understand the micro environments we hold in space. Temperature rises here mean olfactory increases in an individual carrying scents into other rooms. In this way our interiors become interconnected in

The analyzed photograph was Untitled (Pregnant Woman/ Pool), 1999 depicting a pregnant woman standing in a kiddie pool, while another individual fills the plastic container with a liquid. Environment 1 is created through the combination of the light reflection from the pool, the hot water provided from the hose, and the sound the stream makes while touching the standing water. Crewdson artificially lights the scene with a directional spot light from the right, we presume this is omitting roughly 300 lux. This spotlight highlights Environment 2, where the two (three with the unborn) individuals are gathered. Adding olfactory readings and omitted body humidity adds to the temperature and moisture level in this environment. Environment 3 encompasses the adjacent space the artificial light is barely touching. Noted on the ground are the horizontally demarcated spatial environments, where the third figure lies just slighting within Environment 3. The broader space includes leaves of the trees rustling, artificial light sources from the surrounding homes- framing the highlighted scene. It’s in this zone the worldly energies exist that become the base for the manipulation of the internalized environments.

Fall 2020