Research Overview
Wadcock’s studio functions as a testing ground for threshold conditions, where perception is held between recognition and uncertainty. The work is less concerned with producing singular images than with arranging materials, light and spatial relationships so that attention slows and begins to examine itself.
The horizon is a central device. It organises space, anchors the body and acts as a meeting point between inner and outer states. Whether formed through photography, ink, etching, constructed gradients or implied edges, the horizon is used to create a state in which the viewer has to navigate without an obvious narrative guide.
Fieldwork in mountains, wetlands and city seams provides the experiential base. Photographs, sound, found fragments and time-based notes made on site return to the studio as raw material. These are then translated into slow processes: rust blooms, saltwater ink spreads, tonal plates, long exposures, light tests and constellation arrangements.
The research asks what forms of quiet, durational awe can be cultivated in a culture of acceleration, and how art might create spaces where doubt, distance and ambiguity are not problems to be solved but conditions in which a different kind of clarity can arise.
Conceptual Links
This research sits at the meeting point of several strands of thought. Theories of the sublime inform an interest in how the mind responds to what exceeds easy comprehension, while phenomenology of perception supports attention to embodiment, orientation and the lived experience of looking. Depth psychological perspectives contribute a language for interior weather, thresholds and images that resist simple interpretation.
In parallel, strands of existential philosophy and contemporary critiques of acceleration frame uncertainty, hesitation and slowness as ethically charged positions rather than mere aesthetic choices. Landscape studies and ideas of the “constructed environment” provide further context, treating horizons and built spaces alike as structures that quietly organise attention and belief.
Collaboration Brief
This practice is art-first, yet it is deliberately structured so that its conditions can be understood and, where appropriate, shared with researchers in allied fields. The work may be of interest to those exploring perception, attention, memory, decision-making and the effects of ambiguous sensory environments.
Possible collaborations include small pilots in gallery or landscape settings that compare different conditions: horizon versus non-horizon, quiet versus saturation, presence or absence of a waypoint, differing scales or timings. Measures could remain lightweight, ranging from self-report and simple timing tasks to basic physiological markers, depending on context and ethics.
Any collaborative project would be co-designed to respect consent, privacy and autonomy. Instruction would remain minimal to preserve the character of real encounters with artworks. The aim is not to treat installations as experiments, but to allow them to function as carefully constructed environments that can open onto clear, testable questions if a shared language is found.
Methods
The core method is a movement from field to studio to installation. In the field, Wadcock uses walking, stillness and horizon study as primary tools, gathering photographs, sound recordings, environmental fragments and drawn or written notes that register changes in light, scale and internal state.
In the studio, these materials are translated through processes that foreground duration and uncertainty: ink blotting in salt water, controlled rusting, photopolymer etching at tonal limits, digital image degradation and the construction of gradients and light fields. Constellation is used as a spatial grammar, arranging works so that adjacency and interval carry meaning rather than a single object dominating the room.
Throughout, iterative testing and reflective writing are used to refine the conditions needed for perception to slow and for the work to remain non-coercive while still charged.
Materials
Materials are chosen for their capacity to hold time, trace and subtle change. Current work involves archival papers and inks, photopolymer plates, mild steel, slate fragments from Welsh rivers, salt solutions, rust processes, low-frequency sound sources and controlled light.
Digital tools are used sparingly, often to generate blurred horizons, long exposures or degraded images that sit at the edge of legibility. These are translated back into physical form through printing, etching or projection, keeping the focus on embodied encounter rather than screen-based experience.
Across all media, the guiding principle is that materials should be given clear parameters and then allowed to behave according to their nature, so that meaning can surface indirectly through process and relation.
Sites & Scale
The work moves between studio, gallery and landscape. White-cube spaces allow for distraction-free control of light, sound and spatial relationships, making it possible to test small shifts in gradient, timing and adjacency. Landscape sites provide ecological validity, situating work within changing weather, uneven ground and the presence of non-art structures such as fences, paths and waterlines.
Scale is treated as a relational tool rather than a spectacle. Works are often sized slightly above or beyond the body so that viewers feel implicated but not overwhelmed. Larger constellations distribute thresholds across a field rather than gathering them into a single focal point, encouraging slow navigation and self-directed routes through the space.
Ethics
Ethical considerations sit at the core of the practice. Authentic intent, refusal of deception and respect for the autonomy of viewers guide both the making and presentation of work. Installations are designed to invite encounter rather than to manipulate or shock, and explanatory text is kept minimal so that interpretation remains open.
When autobiographical material is present, it is handled with restraint and never used as confessional spectacle. Any collaborative research with institutions would follow established procedures for consent, accessibility, data handling and risk. Participation would always be voluntary, and conditions clearly communicated.
The underlying commitment is to create spaces in which people can meet uncertainty, distance and doubt without coercion, and to treat attention as something to be held with care rather than exploited.