Monday, November 9, 2015

Index

Table of contents 

 The links on this page are organised 
-first by the nature of the posts (artist research, general research, and 'research through making')
-then in chronological order, from oldest to newest

 Bold links are more relevant, in hindsight.


Art-related research:

 15/11/14 Van Gogh 'Turbulence' video
25/2/15 'Sustainability has become a growing focus of artists' (and art schools') attention' Huffington Post
4/3/15 Art New Zealand: 'Watercolorists Travel Light' Marita Hewitt (contemporary NZ painter)
5/3/15 Michael Wolf (contemporary photographer)
6/3/15 Groupe F 'Skin of Fire, and my thoughts on 'spectacle', and the effectiveness of different media
8/3/15 David Shrigley (contemporary NZ artist) and the dark power of humour
18/3/15 Sculpture on the Gulf - Waiheke
21/3/15 Fruit and veggie comics
21/3/15 Auckland Lantern Festival
21/3/15 Botanical illustrations - used as references
21/3/15 Damien Hirst (contemporary installation artist), and some key writings about food politics / religion / agriculture
21/3/15 'Paint before you Plant' workshop
21/3/15 'Preservation' by Blake Little (contemporary photographer)
21/3/15 Marcel Odenbach (contemporary collage)
21/3/15 Dwyer Kilcollins (contemporary sculptor) - similar to wild beehives
21/3/15 Kara Walker (contemporary installation artist)
31/3/15 Monica Ramos (illustrator): a single lady's shopping list
31/3/15 Te Uru gallery: Will Ngakuru, Rachel Bell, Fred Harrison and Tracey Tawhaio
3/4/15 Peter Doig (contemporary painter)
3/4/15 Bettina Van Haaren (contemporary painter/printmaker)
3/4/15 Jenny Saville (contemporary painter)
11/4/15 Chiara Lecca (contemporary sculptor)
20/4/15 Leigh Clarke (contemporary sculptor / printmaker)
22/4/15 Michio Kon (contemporary photographer)
22/4/15 Brock Davis (contemporary designer / photographer)
22/4/15 Karsten Wegener (contemporary food photographer)
22/4/15 Miles Aldridge (contemporary photographer)
22/4/15 'Ingestion' series - Nate Larson (contemporary photographer)
22/4/15 'Food: Art for the World' exhibition 
23/4/15 The Art of Making a Book (video)
4/5/15 Paul Noble (contemporary artist - drawing)
14/5/15 Aubrey Beardsley (printmaker)
20/5/15 Daniel Spoerri
20/5/15 Lernert and Sander: Contemporary food design & photography
20/5/15 More from Lernert & Sander
20/5/15 Michael Hight (contemporary NZ painter)
20/5/15 Luise Fong (contemporary NZ painter/printmaker)
20/5/15 'Contraband Room' by Taryn Simon (contemporary photographer)
31/5/15 Peter Coffin - flying fruit x rays (contemporary video / installation artist)
1/5/16 'Taide' - Finnish contemporary art magazine, artists working with food
3/6/15 Barbara Tuck (contemporary NZ painter): Orients and Mortals
3/6/15 More works by Barbara Tuck (contemporary NZ painter)
13/6/15 Jacqueline Fahey (contemporary NZ painter)
16/7/15 Klaus Pichler (contemporary photographer)
27/7/15 Lara Favaretto (contemporary installation artist): Gummo IV
31/7/15 Ben Young (contemporary sculptor)
1/8/15 Riukuse Fukahori (contemporary painter/sculptor)
1/8/15 Marilene Oliver (contemporary printmaker/sculptor)
4/8/15 Sam Van Aken: A tree that grows 40 different kinds of fruit
5/8/15 Artists working with conveyors: Emily Jacir, Aaron Flint Jamieson, Gabriel Lester, Christine Wong Yap
6/8/15 'Food Player: Design with Taste' essay
6/8/15 Jakub Geltner (contemporary installation artist)
9/8/15 'The Twenty First Century Art Book' scans: various artists
14/8/15 Henry Gargreeves (contemporary photographer)
27/8/15 'Yes Naturally: How Art Saves the World' scans
10/10/15 Walter Benjamin: 'The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction'
18/10/15 Fiona Pardington (contemporary NZ photographer)
18/10/15 Simon Denny (contemporary NZ installation artist)
20/10/15 Brendan Fitzpatrick (contemporary photographer)
20/10/15 Aparna Rao (contemporary installation artist)
22/10/15 Simon Ingram (contemporary NZ painter / installation artist)


Inspiration from Europe trip:

25/2/15 Claire Tabouret (contemporary painter)
25/2/15 Benjamin Chasselon (contemporary painter)
1/3/15 Pierre Bonnard, and several paintings at the Louvre
1/3/15 Yves Wacheaux (contemporary painter)
3/3/15 Jean Helion and Pegeen Vail Guggenheim (printmakers); Manet
3/3/15 Fresco




General research (not specifically art related; exploring wider themes) 

 22/11/14 'Can Climate Change Cure Capitalism?' Elizabeth Colbert
24/11/14 'Talk to the Animals: Are you guilty of animal cruelty?' NZ Herald
27/11/14 'Everything you do is unethical, so get off your high horse already' Vice
5/3/15 'Hot Air' documentary about coal and climate change in NZ
8/3/15 'Dog Food' short film 
12/3/15 Satellite images of NZ farmland
12/3/15 Striking images of factory chimneys
14/3/15 'From Excuse-itarian to Vegan' lecture - video
14/3/15 'Animal Research is Hazardous Waste'
16/3/15 'What We Eat Affects Future Generations' NZ Herald
18/3/15 Image of beehives at Waitaramoa Reserve
21/3/15 Stock image of fruit picker
21/3/15 Research regarding disposable coffee pods
21/3/15 Toxic Fruit Packaging
21/3/15 Petition: ban bee-killing pesticides
21/3/15 'Story of Solutions' video
21/3/15 'Cancer warning on 3 pesticides - UN' NZ Herald
29/3/15 'How to talk about climate change so people will listen' The Atlantic
31/3/15 'Pesticides Could Halve Sperm Count'
31/3/15 'Principles of City Land Values' - thinking about analogies
3/4/15 'The Taniwha of the Tarawera' - Russel Norman on river pollution
3/4/15 'Unpure New Zealand' - photos of livestock around waterways
3/4/15 Photograph of cyanobacteria bloom in a Californian river
3/4/15 'Can your grocery shop really save the world?' Green MP Sue Kedgely
3/4/15 'The Ethics of What We Eat' e-book 
3/4/15 'Make-up tests on animals banned'
3/4/15 Happy Easter: 'Germany aims for chicken sexing in the egg by 2016'
6/4/15 'Love Food Hate Waste' - plus some thoughts on food waste and responsibility
6/4/15 'Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables' - French initiative to reduce food waste and encourage fresh produce consumption
6/4/15  'Talk to the Animals' the great easter bunny hunt / Hells rabbit pizza controversy
11/4/15 Are almonds that bad?
12/4/15 Temple Grandin (movie, TED talk)
12/4/15 'Coke Life' and 'green' food labelling
18/4/15 'National Identity in a Global Political Economy' - investigating NZ's 'clean green' image
21/4/15 'The Daily Show takes on Monsanto' video
21/4/15 'Cancer: Prevention is better than cure' Organic NZ
21/4/15 Assorted research: Papatuanuku & Gaia; Veganism and feminism; Call for plastic bags to be banned; Millenials - a food-obsessed generation
22/4/15 FRUITS AND VEGETABLES - XRAY & MRI
22/4/15 Hungry Planet: What the World Eats
27/4/15 Go Green Expo: information overload
28/4/15 I smell a rat - The Seralini Controversy
28/4/15 political cartoon
28/4/15 General 'food/health' imagery from Pinterest
28/4/15 Educational Posters
20/5/15 Aerial perspective in food photography
20/5/15 'That Sugar Film'
24/5/15 The Politics of Food Blogging: a rant about food on the internet
31/5/15 Food Waste
8/6/15 cover art from Listener 
22/6/15 'Genetic Modification: The Flip Side' video
8/7/15 A clever billboard - animal testing
17/7/15 Several articles on the connection between sustainability and health/diet
4/8/15 'Peganism'
5/8/15 New Scientist: 'Time for a new act'
8/8/15 Body Worlds exhibition
8/8/15 Vegetables grown in space: NASA's International Space Station
20/8/15 'Floral Radiography' - medical journal article
26/8/15 'Animate and inanimate worlds' - Stuff Matters
29/8/15 'Analogue Slices' - amazing video of animated MRIs
30/8/15 'This Changes Everything' movie trailer
5/9/15 Development 713: the Food Systems course I'm crashing
7/9/15 'It's Not Climate Change, It's Everything Change' by Margaret Atwood, and an article about global food distribution

"Making research," in sections:

 1) Experimental beginnings (2 February - 28 April)

25/2/15 Honours Project Proposal
14/3/15 A note on documentation 
14/3/15 Drawings + writing about dairy industry
14/3/15 Vet Butcher drawing
14/3/15 Lucerne etchings with drawings
14/3/15 Lucerne etchings with drawings 2
14/3/15 Watercolour drawings: pests and kiwifruit
14/3/15 River painting (wip)
19/3/15 Laser cutting honeycomb (wip)
19/3/15 Edition of 12 mini prints - bees 
19/3/15 My works in the Elam International Printmaking Workshop exhibition, George Fraser
21/3/15 'Domaine' painting, and notes on experiences of 'agriculture' in Geneva
29/3/15 More watercolour drawings: pests and kiwifruit
29/3/15 First attempt at aquatint etching
29/3/15 'Garden Fresh' copper etching
29/3/15 Chicken plant sketch
31/3/15 'Pick Me' watercolour drawing
31/3/15 River painting - oils
4/3/15 playing with false colours in found satellite image
11/4/15 'Animal or the Food' - completed chicken plant drawing
11/4/15 Watercolour drawing: Dog
11/4/15 River painting - acrylics
12/4/15 In which I start to think about transparency and layering
16/4/15 Notes on moving this blog from Tumblr to Blogger
18/4/15 Drawing: livestock emissions
26/4/15 Honeycomb paper
26/4/15 'Decisions' - dominoes game, first incarnation
27/4/15 'Decisions' additional info (wip)
27/4/15 'Decisions' - dominoes game, final outcome
27/4/15 Bee stamps
27/4/15 watercolours, handmade paper and word play
28/4/15 Lisa's summary of my first crit

 2) X rays: first incarnation (1 May - 7 June)

 1/5/15 The first X ray images ("This project just got real")
4/5/15 Behind the scenes of making the x-rays at Mercy Radiology
4/5/15 Customs Security X-ray images
4/5/15 Behind the scenes of making the Customs Security images, and additional material
4/5/15 Using photoshop to colorise high-res x-rays
11/5/15 Coke Life photo manipulation 
14/5/15 Painting: layers colour-coded by medium
17/5/15 Design for x-ray grocery bags
31/5/15 A pause
31/5/15 Test screen prints 
31/5/15 Final 2 screen prints for cross-supervision crit (also here)
31/5/15 Grocery bag outcome
3/6/15 Tori's notes taken from my cross-supervision crit
7/6/15 Mid-Year Progress Report (draft)

3) Painting (8 June - 14 July)

 8/6/15 GMO rats: watercolour sketch
6/7/15 'Bio In Security' watercolour painting
7/7/15 'Have you ever seen such a thing in your life' watercolour painting
7/7/15 'The Colonel' watercolour painting
7/7/15 'For One' watercolour painting
8/7/15 'Oma, oma, oma' paper sculpture
8/7/15 Working notes for 'Oma, oma, oma'
8/7/15 Working notes for 'Have you ever seen such a thing in your life'
12/7/15 Embossing test
14/7/15 Notes: 'Is food art?'
14/7/15 Mid year report from Judy

4) Printing on alternative surfaces (8 June - 9 November)

 8/6/15 Print on re-usable beeswax wrap
14/7/15 Printing on mouse/rat traps (wip)
24/7/15 Mouse and rat traps continued (wip)
6/8/15 Edamame pattern - prints on paper
8/8/15 Rabbit bodies (wip)
14/8/15 Petri Dishes - version 2
14/8/15 Fruit Boxes
14/8/15 Fruit boxes - scanned
14/8/15 Scanned cross-sections of fruits
21/8/15 Animation tests
21/8/15 Corn printed on acrylic
21/8/15 Screen printing onto vinyl (wip)
23/8/15 Grape Spiders - screen print
23/8/15 Professional printing onto vinyl
23/8/15 More fruit boxes
23/8/15 Prints in petri dishes
23/8/15 More petri dish experimentation
5/9/15 WIP: metal work and electronics
7/9/15 WIP: test install of fruit box prints
7/9/15 Installation for Visiting Crit (with Lisa Reihana)
7/9/15 Notes from crit with Lisa Reihana
7/9/15 Petri dish presentation (wip)
7/9/15 PRINTMAKING NIGHTMARES, part 1
7/9/15 Test for scrolling images (video)
7/9/15 Back for more x-rays
7/9/15 Test for installation (video)
7/10/15 PRINTMAKING NIGHTMARES, part 2
7/10/15 Colour schemes
8/10/15 Notes on abstract writing
8/10/15 Presentation ideas for large conveyor belt
8/10/15 Another idea for large conveyor
9/10/15 Welding metal brackets (wip)
11/10/15 Large prints on paper 1/3
11/10/15 Large prints on paper 2/3
11/10/15 Large prints on paper 3/3
11/10/15 Large prints on paper - black and white
16/10/15 Installation for final crit
27/10/15 Flag idea
2/11/15 Edamame (test prints)
3/11/15 'Arrivals' - screen print on paper
6/11/15 'Arrivals' - WIP
7/11/15 Final installation WIP images/video
8/11/15 Final installation notes: 'Mass Produce'
8/11/15 Final installation notes: 'Sweet Deal'

Sunday, November 8, 2015

FINAL INSTALL - 'Sweet Deal'





This conveyor belt has spent a long time feeling confused about its purpose in life. It still felt like a 'found object' as opposed to an artwork I could yet call my own - all I had done to it was build new legs for it. It sat in my studio for months waiting to be used in some way, wondering how it was to be repurposed, waiting for a space that was big enough to properly display it.

In my final crit, I asked whether my classmates thought I should stick any images onto it, as that was what the vinyl prints were intended for. I showed them a few layouts and options.
The verdict was no. Leave it blank. The reasons being that the movement and noise and the presence of the object itself are enough. The blank white surface asks a question, challenges the viewer, etc etc. Covering it in colourful images would make it too busy.

I took their advice, because that's what crits are for.

However. Once it was installed in the exhibition space, set up alongside the work Mass Produce that is undoubtedly the main event of the installation, things changed.

This work was always meant to take the back seat - its function is mostly to house the reflectors for the sensors. But everyone who came through and saw it all agreed that it needed something extra. In the middle of a big empty room, there was no real danger of it looking too busy (like it did while stored in a tiny studio crammed in with the work of 6 other students.)

Thank goodness for Andrew who came in x2 days before deadline while I was laying out the potential images, and we had a chat that went like this...

Him: Have you decided whether you're going to stick these on it?
Me: No, not yet. Everyone said it was enough on its own, but now I'm not sure.
Him: I don't really get it. Let's say you leave it blank; what does it do when it's on its own?
Me: I guess it moves... and it makes noise
Him: But is that the sort of art you make? Art that 'moves and makes noise'?
Me: No! You're right! My art is all about translating images... and I love colour...
Him: Well then, there's your decision.

Lightbulb!

I spent hours trying to decide how to lay out the images. Sorting them by colour, size, country of origin, and trying to order them in a way that seemed like 'organised chaos'... It all felt wrong.
Then I realised that every single item I had a box for was also featured somewhere on the black conveyors immediately behind me. Another lightbulb moment! I used the order that already existed within the other work me to determine the chronology of the box images, starting from the seam line of the white conveyor belt, so they too are organised by season, forming a cyclic system that makes so much sense. This decision provides yet another subtle factor which connects the two works by making them refer/'speak' to one another.

One day before final deadline: calling my dad (who is an engineer) to help with the fact that the rollers of the white conveyor were out of alignment and the belt was pulling over to one side and bunching up. Rollers re-aligned, crisis averted. Then a day spent cutting out and applying the stickers.
Crisis number two: the catch was that several of the stickers were printed on a different kind of vinyl, one which was less adhesive than the high-quality optic permanent vinyl, so they began peeling off when the conveyor was on and moving... I guess it just wouldn't be my art practice if I didn't encounter one disaster after another.

The day of our final hand in and I'm going to the factory again to re-print the images on a better type of vinyl. Hopefully I can re-apply them in time, on top of everything else to do...

But I'm glad this work now feels like it's mine. It has my touch - colour, representational imagery, design, logic. It makes use of the stack of boxes that I've been collecting all year from the back alley of my local greengrocer store, Jack Lums, and which I have constantly said I will not present as readymades because my practice is all about translating images in ways that conceptually alters them in some way.

My favourite parts of these boxes are:
The neon text on the 'Flavor grown tree fruit' box - 'May be treated with, in any combination, fludoxonil, dicloran, dcna, fenhexamid, propiconazole to inhibit old. coated with food grade beeswax, vegetable, and/or petroleum based wax to maintain freshness'
Organic bananas with a logo for 'Primus Labs' - grown in a lab, but no mention of a farm?? Plus the temperature logo immediately above it that looks like a beaker
NZ Capsicums clearly bound for Japan because of the katakana heading 'Gorume Papurika' (gourmet paprika)'; also the peppers with a silver fern inside them. (I used to live in Japan so I feel like this is a slightly autobiographical touch...)
'Sweet Deal' oranges - another reference to the 'gambling' connotation in Mass Produce.

I have decided to use 'Sweet Deal' as a title for this conveyor belt on its own. 'Mass Produce' refers to the wall works; however this is also the title for when the two works are presented together.

Final notes about this work...

 I think the duality that it provides is extremely important.
Firstly, the two elements of this installation are literally and physically connected by the sensors and reflectors. There is an interdependence: Mass Produce would not be able to move without the other work returning the signal, while the movement, and the orientation of the images and text of Sweet Deal draws the viewer to the side, from where they will activate the movement of the other work. Each work guides the viewer to properly experience the other.
It's a very manipulative arrangement - the viewer is essentially steered through the work. Their movement is designed, like in the layout of an airport (as Simon Denny points out, discussed in my essay) because making the viewer walks between the two works is vital. (Strain suggested using tape along the ground or rope barriers, but I prefer this design component that anticipates choices rather than literally directing them.)

This year I have been working with two types of x ray imagery - medical radiography, white on a black background, and airport scans, colours on a white background. For this reason alone there is a sort of yin-yang relationship between the works and processes embodied in them.
There is also the clear idea of 'outside-inside'. One depicts the packaging, the idea of 'outside', which both conceals and advertises its contents with colourful cartoonish eye-catching designs - a facade which is appealing and potentially misleading. The other depicts the idea of inside, cold and colourless, truthful, scientific, sceptical.

In this way it becomes about questioning possible discrepancies between what we see and what we know - what is depicted to consumers, and what is hidden from them.

Edit: I printed some new stickers in time, but the curve of the conveyor means that wherever it stops, the print resting on its edges will develop wrinkles. I've decided simply not to worry about this. They look like the corrugated texture of the cardboard, anyway.
If Elam has taught me one thing, it's how to embrace such imperfections - they just show the process.
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FINAL INSTALL - 'MASS PRODUCE'




This work was such a huge investment; it addresses so many ideas, and brings up such a variety of different readings from everyone I discuss it with. I'm going to try to list them here.

-Supermarkets
-Packing houses - where fruit/veg gets sorted as they move across conveyor belts
-Biosecurity, and irradiation of imported produce; processes of pest control and systems of protecting our ecosystem
-Airports and luggage screening, 'declare or dispose'
-GMO - science, investigation/intervention into nature
-X rays - RISK that cannot be seen, dangers, implied 'brokenness'
-Treadmills - a lot of people think that these are treadmills when they first encounter it. Fair enough - they do look extremely similar. I think treadmills symbolise a gruelling contemporary obsession with, and pursuit of, a glorified idea of 'health'.
-Judith Darragh calls these works 'Contemporary Still Lifes'; a tribute to traditional still life paintings (particularly Flemish) which conventionally depict fresh produce and often subtly indicated social class. The conveyors also have their own inbuilt 'gold frames!'
-I find it amusing that these could be called 'moving image' works - a static image, but on an animated moving surface
-Surveillance technology (sensors, detecting movement)
-Screen print - the significance of the 'screen'; 'screening' can refer to security
-The sensors have not been altered in any way for the installation, the element of their interactiveness is a happy coincidence. They are designed to respond to the items on the supermarket counter as they move along, so that they stop at the edge by the cashier with the scanner. To have the walking viewer activate and determine this movement literally puts them, unawares, into the position of an item from the supermarket. A passive commodity, defined by their financial value, passing between the hands of larger forces...
-The black background relates to film reels - of both radiographic images, negatives of film photography, and traditional motion picture reels; all processes which are now mostly digital. In many ways the experience of shopping too is becoming digital...
-The direction of the movement is a significant and deliberate decision. The images are not moving upwards - which would imply growing up from the ground like a plant, or reference scrolling film credits. Rather, this conventional direction is turned upside down, and they are moving downwards - which gives the impression of coming towards, rather than away from, the viewer. This implies the ease with which food arrives via the supermarket, almost 'falling from the sky', implying a sense of ignorance / naivety about where our food comes from, and possibly also the mysterious corporations at the top of the food chain - 'above' us and out of sight.
-The direction of the movement also becomes a reference to slot machines, gambling - some winning it all, while almost everyone else loses it all. Gambling with our future, and the GMO crops on which we are placing our bets. Select images can be lined up in a row, bringing in all the winning money...
-Corn and soy - dominating the world's farmed crops. Despite the diversity of the thousands of edible plant species on this planet, a huge majority of plants grown for consumption come from these two crops,  alongside rice and wheat. This idea of uneven distribution speaks also about social issues, wealth and inequality - hunger and poverty exist in the same world as excess food waste and an obesity epidemic.
-Smartphones - rectangular, black technology (a sort of monolithic version); the movement imitates the gesture of 'scrolling,' while the images reinforce this, relating to the huge current trend / subculture of images of healthy food posted and shared on social media
-Food/plants 'made human' - via their scale, being 'portrait', and vertical upright, eye level, the connection to body parts via radiography, the inescapable Arcimboldo reference
-Hanging tapestries (e.g. Pierre Bonnard's 'Femmes au jardin' panels in D'orsay is one of my favourite artworks - four long panels displayed together) and other quadtych artworks that reference the seasons, such as Arcimboldo's portraits - this idea of four divisions also makes me think of four suites of playing cards (more gambling connotations)
-They relate back to a hands-on scrolling canvas that I made last year. The feedback I received at the time was that it was my most successful work of the semester, and my tutor and examiner were disappointed that I didn't make more of these and develop the idea further - until now!
-Word play of 'conveyor' - the work interrogates art's ability to convey messages/ideas
-Seasonality, and the rotation of seasons...

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Saturday, November 7, 2015

FINAL INSTALL WIP






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Friday, November 6, 2015

Arrivals: WIP

Working images for 'Arrivals' (pentaptych)

My method was to print the images with no prior planning/designing of the final layout. This led to some troubles by the time it came to do 4th layer, but for the most part this was a liberating approach. There was some deliberation, yes, but I had no idea how the final outcome would look - and  I didn't do any initial registration prints onto plastic, either, so each initial print was a surprise.
I did 4 editions of each page (4x5=20 pages total) but with 12+ individual prints on each, I only managed to get one suite of clean final works. So the result is truly an 'original print.'

Above: beginning the second layer

Before cleaning the stencils, I decided to print them on fabric, too.


After the second layer...



And after the third layer.

This is where it became tricky to decide where the next and final layer - blue/winter produce - would be positioned, so I did some cut-outs of tissue paper to play around with the  different possibilities.

The result 


Finally, since I had four unique soy bean images and four colours to work with, I printed one of each colour - so that, like the conveyor work, it is still a statement about seasonality / globalisation / genetic modification / food deserts / crop diversity (or lack thereof) / processed food, as well as being overtly about biosecurity and processes such as irradiation. 

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Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Colour coded screen prints on paper - FINAL

After printing these images, which are colour coded by season (using only 3 colours but blending two together to signify Autumn and Spring) I had the realisation that I should have just included a 4th colour. After all, as you can clearly see in these images, the bright orange which is the code for organic materials becomes a distinctly brown colour in areas where the items are more dense.
This idea hit me just a couple of weeks out of our deadline and I thought it was a shame that I wouldn't have time to execute it. Not on the scale I wanted to, anyway. Especially since I'd already cleaned off the screens from the conveyor belt prints, so I would have to do everything from scratch again.
But what the hey. Time running out, I went for it.
Here is the outcome. 50+ individual prints, spread across 5 A1 pages, to make a sort of 'mural', or suite of adjoining prints, that is 3 metres long.
The title is 'Arrivals'







Side by side - these can be laid out in any order, as the images form a continuous loop:

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Monday, November 2, 2015

Edamame, quadricolore

Test images for a larger work...





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Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Flag idea


I recently printed one of my fruit box images onto fabric, thinking of doing a series of flags. In my final crit, my classmates discouraged this idea, and after some reflection I understand why. Bringing in the 'flag' idea, which I thought might help with my reference to globalisation/borders, is too topical-bandwagon and detracts from the real focus of my project.

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Thursday, October 22, 2015

Simon Ingram

Simon Ingram's practice really fascinates me. I remember his show at Gow Langsford earlier in the year, Paintings of the Sun. My project has changed so much since then - it has taken a step in a similar direction to his, I think - and so on reflection I have a lot more appreciation for the work than I did at the time.

Elements of interest:
-Incorporating machinery and mechanical equipment;
-live, autonomous movement as part of installation;
-Drawing from scientific data/imagery
-Using coding systems to determine aesthetic choices and translation
-Overlap between different media (installation / painting)
“By deferring to the machinic, by tuning his antennae towards the ether, by translating sound waves into computer code, Ingram allows that he (and we) are enmeshed within a much larger system. His works demonstrate, in both their mode of making and as finished products, the subtle, irrevocable connections between organic and manmade, technological and human, abstract and animate, visible and invisible, coded and real. He lets things show us something about themselves and reminds us that our minds and bodies are closer to nature and to machines than we might like to imagine.” 

 Christina Barton, Painting Machines, Bielefeld: Kerber Verlag 2014, p.6. 
His works talk about art itself, and processes of making, from a sort of analytical, logical, scientific/engineering angle. To make a machine that paints - isn't this essentially replacing the artist with a robot? Simultaneously, the works seem to talk about scientific processes and technologies from very much an art-world, 'outside-the-box' angle. To be a painter, and to use scientific data to determine decisions and aesthetics via a 'coding' system, and mechanical equipment to execute it. These are two opposing worlds, each addressing one another and working in surprising compatible way.
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Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Aparna Rao

Since my planned moving installation is activated by the viewer walking past, I enjoyed this TED talk - artist Aparna Rao also makes viewer interaction part of her artwork.





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