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.

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.

Brendan Fitzpatrick

Another artist who has done some stunning work using x-rays is Brendan Fitzpatrick

I also found his 'Mother' series interesting (it reminded me of this work from earlier in the year)

Simon Denny

I would kill to see this year's Venice Biennale. In particular, Simon Denny's work is on point and I would have loved to see his installation in Marco Polo airport. I'm grateful for Jon Bywater's lecture about 'Secret Power' earlier this semester, which helped us all to understand and appreciate it. Before hearing it get thoroughly unpacked by one of Elam's greatest minds, I couldn't make much sense of it, although this was probably because I hadn't given it much contemplation. It's hard to do so through journals and the internet, when the work is clearly such an immersive, site-specific experience. I envy the full impact that it must have had for the viewers who got to see it in the flesh.

Although I was never very interested in Denny's practice until recently, over the course of this year I have found more and more to like. I think this is largely because my own art has begun to address similar themes and incorporate similar elements - like large technological equipment, and methods of installation that speak for themselves.

His '1000 words' in ArtForum was an interesting read. In it, he talks about the 'opacity and translucency' of digital communication in connection with the layout/design of airport architecture. This is a huge part of my work too - exploring the "transparency" of wider systems that we are subjected to but have little or no control over.

Finding connections between systems and pointing out potential corruption via simple objective presentation, rather than political/subjective - this is exactly the angle I have taken. I'm not sure to what extent this was a direct influence of his work, or whether it would have taken the same course anyway. Considering the acclaim of this particular project of Denny's, my work has definitely been positioned in a sort of dialogue with his, whether I want it to or not.

Either way, thanks Denny. Your art is my art's cool uncle.

Fiona Pardington

An artist I have so far failed to mention...

Fiona Pardington, NZ photographer, DocFA at Elam. A major show of 100 of her photographs was on display at the Wellington City Gallery recently.

Her work has "a painterly quality that visually reference seventeenth century painting traditions as well as the 16th century vanitas traditions. The images are not only memento mori ['remember that you have to die'] in the provision of poetic signs of time passing and things dying - from dandelion clocks to gecko skins - but of cultures meeting across seas"

Aesthetically they are quite similar to my white-on-black prints (this is why Judy suggested her as a reference to look at.)

21st Century

This post has been hidden as it contains scans of copyrighted material for personal reference.

Click here to view full post: the password is my art school's name.

Jakub Geltner

Really enjoying looking through the portfolio of Czech artist Jakub Geltner:

Cultural landscape:

Nests:

Groups of satellite dishes and security cameras have invaded parts of Europe, clustering like seagulls around beach rocks and growing like barnacles on the sides of buildings.
These aren’t installations by any government, but rather works by Prague-based artist Jakub Geltner—part of a series called “Nest.” Geltner started the project in 2011, using strategic groupings of man-made technology to explore how humans and their machines have “infested” all kinds of spaces. (source)

“The urban landscape is our modern nature,” Geltner says, in that there’s always a rivalry between planned and random growth. Buildings, for example, are like trees that have been purposefully placed in a specific area. In nature, trees are spontaneously adorned with birds’ nests or lush moss. Random growth on buildings, however, comes from humans who crowd the exteriors with all sorts of appliances for surveillance, entertainment, and communication.Geltner’s work speaks to just how much technology has bled into the urban (and natural) landscape. His sculptures are beautiful, confusing, and discomfiting— exactly the kind of tension he wants his audience to consider. (source)

Conveyor belt art

I recently obtained a 3m long conveyor belt.

My uncle Trevor, of V3 - an exhibition equipment company - custom-made it for a client, for a one-off event, and apparently no one has any further need for it...

So, while thinking about what to do with it, I've been looking up other artists who have worked with conveyors...

Artist unknown

Emily Jacir, 2011. 'A closed-circuit conveyor belt going endlessly in circles.'

Aaron Flint Jamison, 'conveyor', 2013

Gabriel Lester
Flat as the World is Round, 2010
85 x 40 x 150 cm
Flat conveyor, simplified exemplar, motor, lamps

Flat as the World is Round (2010) is a metaphorical play with moving scenery in which the very prosaic construction of a conveyor belt at a supermarket checkout is transformed into the magical world of a shadow show. A continuous cycle shows us the different milieus we encounter in our everyday lives. This work subtly combines the medieval concept of a flat earth, which is now recognised as absurd, with elements of Plato’s cave allegory. It uses ironical and, above all, poetic means to present a world of shadows and illusions to an observer fascinated by the silhouettes on the wall.

Christine Wong Yap, Pounds of Happiness (conveyor belt), 2009, paper, neon gel pens, glitter pens, wood, motor, table, 48 x 34 x 24 inches / 122 x 86 x 61 cm

A kinetic sculpture that displays a looped drawing of pound store products drawn with pound store materials.

Marilene Oliver - the human 3D printer

Virtual gallery: Le Corps En Questions

Some of Marilene's works…

Some excerpts from her artist statement

My material is digitised bodies. Concepts such as Hans Moravec's 1988 call to 'download our consciousness to the datascape in order to survive' serve as springboards to create artworks that speculate how we might survive, refigure and evolve in the Digital Age. ...At first my work attempted to repair the fragmentation and dislocation brought about by medical imaging and to reclaim the body from the contemporary medical and digital gaze in order to poetically subvert it and offer future relics of our digitised selves. ...Most recently since moving to Sub Saharan Africa I find myself struggling with a new understanding of the medically scanned body. Whereas before the scan dataset was something I took more or less for granted, I now recognise its strong symbolic resonance signifying privilege both in terms of wealth and access to digital technology that is far from global. 

And from her research statement

The aims of my practice based research project are to examine from an artist’s perspective, the processes needed to digitize the body - how flesh can be translated to pixel (digital photography), to voxel (Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Computerised Tomography, Positron Emission Tomography and Ultrasound) and to xyz co-ordinate (3D laser scanning). By looking at the history and evolution of these technologies as well as working closely with radiologists, scientists and technicians to acquire medical imaging datasets and 3D laser scans, I seek out metaphors and poetic readings of the translations that take place as well as finding ways to repair the fragmentation they promote.

Riusuke Fukahori

深堀隆介 - Riusuke Fukahori

Japanese artist Riusuke Fukahori paints layers of acrylic on resin to create incredibly realistic sculptural/3D paintings of goldfish in water

Ben Young: Aussie glass artist

Ben Young makes sculptures out of layers of glass; he says in a video interview that he doesn't use a computer, the entire process is executed by hand. I'm curious to know how he measures and cuts the curved edges so precisely.

Artist Klaus Pichler Showcases Rotting Food In Still Life Series

Full Article Here

The project, titled "One Third," takes its name from the 1.3 billion tons of food -- roughly a third of the total world supply -- that regularly goes to waste according to a 2011 study by the United Nations. At the same time, 925 million people worldwide live with the threat of starvation.

The images, beautifully composed but often stomach turning, are accompanied by statistics regarding the food's origin, time of harvest, means of transportation, distance traveled and its carbon footprint.
In a statement accompanying the work, Pichler writes about the disparity in food waste between industrialized and non-industrialized nations.

Artist website here - "One Third" project -  "Skeletons in the closet"

12 Course Meal in a Can: Chris Godfrey

All in One

"Questioning the novelty nature of our consumer culture. This 12 course meal in a can offers the average joe, the chance to dine like royalty without the washing up." - Chris Godfrey's website

Daily Mail article here