The 2D

Enthused with the wonder of the solar system (a very exciting thing) I kept thinking about gravity, and how concisely the previous line of experimentation seemed to have expressed the concept to me.

The work I then produced was a bit of a tangent. Having previously rejected the notion of including additional materials I went and brought in a fine liner. The image below is an A4 drawing using black fine liner straight into my sketchbook, and it was an attempt to create a textured density - using dots and scratches and scribbles I tried to make a 2D representation of gravity.

Whether or not I succeeded in that I am still not entirely sure - some people think it's obviously expressing a shift in density and instantly think of planets and stars, and some people have exclaimed "it's like a jam donut!", and I don't think they're wrong either.

I then was not content to move on - not least because I had run out of machines to take apart. I photocopied the piece several times, enlarging it and cutting it up and re-arranging even the image itself. 

Above is my favourite example - I had already experimented with ribboning and changing the display of photographs before, and this image greatly interests me because I have not changed the density nor mass of the image, the entire thing is there, and yet we see twice as much and only half at the same time.

We fill in the blanks to find the whole thing, and end up with two.

Whether or not I choose to make any more drawings along this line of thinking, I am not sure. I really enjoyed making it (for five hours, it occupied a fair train journey) and it was an interesting tangent to explore, however I feel that it it precisely that - tangental - to a lot of the work I was creating before.

Nevertheless, if I naturally respond to future forms I create in the future with this sort of drawing, I won't stop it from happening.

Gravity

As a result of 'reducing' down I have been considering more arrangements and forms.

Firstly, I arranged the screws in a rough sphere, the largest in the middle. This gives the shape the illusion of density, and I feel is expressive of a gravitational pull - it makes me think of the early stages of the formation of a planet, wherein larger masses converge, and as they grow they pull in smaller pieces.

I then neatened the edge, and pulled the larger pieces away from the centre. Whether the simile of the formation of a planet could be extended here is questionable - I feel that it has taken a step away from the larger scale.

                                     

However, with the addition of this next picture (showing that I have decreased the circumference of the outer circle, pulling the larger screws once more into the centre) I have created a sense of narrative - when displaying the pictures in sequence it becomes clear that there is some kind of process occurring.

                                     

And the final piece in the narrative brings my mind back once more to the formation of a planet, however now it is the final stage - wherein the gravitational pull has formed a roughly spherical shape enveloping the central force, larger, simpler components towards the middle, whilst the outer layers are more complex.

What is interesting about this comparison to me is how trivial the arrangement truly is - both of the screws and of the creation of planets, and how one is larger to the extent that the human mind cannot entirely comprehend it. Also I greatly love how neat it seems - the screws from a typewriter arranged in a very different way, still managing to help create a story.

I find that when I have the concept of planets and solar systems so clear in my mind when observing the screws, I stop seeing them as screws and they become symbols. I think that it is easy, when looking at photographs, to forget about scale. In order to bring reality closer, I arranged the screws around my outstretched hand.

I think that having this image afterwards does help to bring the real world closer, and then at once I realise that I don't want the real world to be closer. The symbol of the hand is yet another reminder to me that this is a pile of screws on a table, its something physical and trivial that I have done, and it's right there - temporary and practically meaningless. Whilst it may turn the story towards me, towards the human inventor or worker, I find the formation of the universe to be such a hugely magical idea that anything following seems dull.

Perhaps, if we make this the final piece of the narrative, it could be taken as a statement of the human impact on the planet - there is no sphere left, as I used the screws to make the shape. With enough human meddling, will we destroy the planet? I think it's a fair point, if a point made incredibly frequently to the extent that it's cliché.

Of course, this all rests on the assumption that when faced with the original picture, everybody thinks of the science behind the birth of planets, which seems fragile.

Reduction

Following the line of development, I've decided that 'Reduction' is a suitable title for this series of work that I've been producing.

Because, logically, 'reducing' the form of these objects is exactly what I am doing. From the moment in the Catalysts project when I decided to deconstruct the CD player, I was reducing it's form to simply the screws. Whether or not this action has any particular meaning can still be debated - I prescribed no meaning to it besides 'destruction' when I started, and only later did I contemplate what it could have signified.

After developing a pattern of behaviours (find item, unscrew item, glue screws together, bin mess, rinse, repeat...) I felt that I was making no progress. Whilst I had very much enjoyed reducing these items, I've simply ended up with a collection of reduced forms, and how can I change that? How can I possibly continue without getting bored? Once you establish routine, you normalise the forms and from that point on it becomes repetitive and dull.

In an attempt to explore the other possible forms, I've totally avoided the super glue. Below are the screws found in a broken typewriter I liberated from my local dump. 

I laid them out neatly on an A4 sheet - it occurred to me later that this was fairly ironic, as a white A4 sheet of paper may be exactly what we put in the typewriter, so the presentation forms what is almost a parody of the destroyed function. 

In addition to the screws, an interesting metal form was found as part of the leverage to pull the letters to print the page. These little hooks were a vital part of the structural tension of the typewriter. After I sorted them out by their specific shape and curvature, I photographed them on an A4 page of my sketchbook. I decided to glue them in, in exactly this form, as I found it aesthetically pleasing.

To progress with the screws, I researched into forms of kinetic sculpture - the antithesis of the static sculptures I had created. I also had wanted to try fixing the screws together using some other medium, so I tied them together with string. Unfortunately within moments the strands became tangled, and the string was too fragile to pull it all apart. 

To recover this, I did nothing.

Instead, I simply experimented with the mess that I had. If I stretch it out it looks like fruit on branches. If I shove it all in a bunch in the middle then it looks more dense, as it occupies space on the page in a shape that we can understand more easily.

By changing the shape, I can change the perception of the mass present.

The last image shown above is the string left over after removing the screws. I'm not sure if I like it, mostly because it was born out of a deep frustration and untying all the knots hurt my fingers. Also quite frankly the string bundled up looks strangely reminiscent of noodles, and any significance in the transformation of the space/mass is lost in the viewer thinking of noodles.

So I feel like I've reached a dead end here, unless I want to bring new materials into the mix. 

With the screws now separate, I decided to fix them together with a piece of wire. Here they are in the chain created.

This now appears as some awful crack through the white image. It's also a much more awkward shape to display, and creates a larger volume of space around it in the image.

I don't know what line of thinking I wish to develop - whether I consider new materials and continue reducing (but by introducing something 'new' this seems to have shot itself in the foot already) or start reducing another object in hope that I will discover an idea that I believe is suitable for the project.

Follow-up

Instead of following the project work, after the Christmas holidays I decided to return to the more conceptual work I'd been doing with the screws and once-weres. I continued to take electronic appliances apart - items including headphones, a walkman, and then later a washing machine and a computer. 

I found that out of all the ways of displaying the small sculptures, this fashion creates a sense of blank space around them, which draws attention to how little space they actually occupy. This is especially notable when the piece has a title such as 'Washing Machine'.

Beyond the therapeutic nature of disassembling formerly functional, the act of taking something as cumbersome as a washing machine was an opportunity to glimpse into an unknown part of our daily life - millions of people own these things, and hardly any of them will have seen the inside of one.

It is with this in mind that I now present the final sculptures, tiny and void of the density with which they used to occupy space.

I would say that displaying the sculptures in one row is a more effective way of drawing attention to their lack of body, and when they are spread out and given a larger background the effect can be increased tenfold.

How much I wish to explore this remains undecided, however I do wish to continue experimenting with displaying the screws in different manners, to investigate how to manipulate the perception of the space surrounding them.

Made-up Worlds Part 2

Creating the physical model was an entirely separate task to developing the idea. Thankfully I had some packaging cardboard to space - slicing this created simple tower blocks with readymade floors.

Gluing these together was a simple and effective way of making unique (whilst still incredibly brutalist) forms. Using pinking scissors to cut paper staircases was also a terribly lucky coincidence - whilst I wish the scissors had created smaller forms, they did in fact create the perfect suggestion of stairs. I spray painted each building and several pieces of cardboard, and then saw about assembling the model. 

My plan for lighting the city relied heavily on what I had learnt from a youtube video explaining the process used to create the model city from the film Bladerunner. As explained in the video, 2D cutouts are used towards the back, 3D models at the front of the shot. Lights shine up from the base, with the wiring concealed below the floor.

Obviously we were working at a much lower scale of production, with the base of the model being composed of two A1 sheets of cardboard. After spray painting the bases, I painted on a vague roadmap that perhaps resembled a circuit board more than anything else. I found that this worked very well, as it suggested a structure to the city without looking too familiar in comparison to any existing place.

The lights I used were in fact outdoor christmas lights, as this meant that I would at least be able to reuse some of the materials I had purchased for the construction of the model.

          

 After I had finished assembling the model, the group and I all filmed the final video. This took the better part of the day, as we experimented with lots of different angles and potential shots. Thanks to the help of another group, we had access to a coloured LED lamp which was controlled remotely, so we had the opportunity to experiment with a far stronger lighting element than originally planned.

The lamp not only let us view and discuss the immediate effects of changing the colour, but allowed us yet another way to manipulate various shots of the video. Switching between blues, reds and oranges, we could very easily dictate the mood without permanently affecting the model itself.

And as an additional bonus, on one of the shades of yellow the centre of the lamp glowed orange and the edge was a green ring. By moving the light we could control the length of the shadows, and the combination of the two created what was by far one of my favourite pieces of footage, which when sped up resembles a time lapse of a city using perhaps a tilt-shift lens.


One element I felt the model was missing was smoke - although the paint work and lighting at the back of the model suggested night and vague pollution, it was not explicit enough without the presence of traffic noises in the soundtrack.

I would have liked to add smoke to the model in some form - a low hanging mist, even a breath of cigarette smoke over the top to create an additional sense of depth and physical air.

If I had more time I would also have wanted to spend more time making smaller and smaller 2D buildings in the background in order to give a greater field of depth for the camera, and perhaps install lighting of some kind beyond the fairy lights in the base.

I attempted to have the top of one of the towers light up by placing it directly on top of a light and have the ceiling constructed of parcel tape (as the windows of the model building I made previously had been) however as you can see (the top of the tower is visible at the very front of the image above) the light was not strong enough to make the tower look anything but brown.

Whilst I didn't manage to create any successful hollow buildings, I purposefully created structures with the towers to have courtyards, through which light could shine and light up several surfaces at a time.

Our group produced three final videos. Below is the one that I created - model made, filmed, sound design and editing all myself.

Made-up Worlds Part 1

For the last two weeks before the Christmas holidays we took part in an interdisciplinary project. I chose to create a short video of a model of a made-up world - a world and model of our own construction.

 Starting off with absolutely no limits besides what we believed that we would be able to produce, I found the freedom a welcome turn, and generated a host of ideas and conceptual sketches.

We found that the two most striking ideas were that of a world of diamonds (and nothing else) and a world of endless staircases, not unlike the famous piece by Escher with infinitely looping staircases.

The staircases were inspired by a set of concrete steps that pass through a narrow alleyway, steps that are lit by dim orange streetlights. I was particularly interested in how they seemed to glow orange after it had rained, due to the reflection of the streetlights.

Given that the area is very quiet (people only use the steps for access to the back of the station, as so there is a stream of people every twenty minutes or so) and the high walls of the buildings either side completely enclose the light, I felt that the staircase became entirely muted, and a bubble of a world. However, we decided that because of the warm orange glow, we would make the staircase world a loud, exciting place, full of movement and life.

The diamond idea I particularly liked because again, it held a sense of isolation - diamond structures suspended in an endless void, like stars in space without any planets or debris. It also seemed to be particularly elegant, and had the potential to be oppressive (some force that may have destroyed the surroundings) or hopeful (the last, repopulating ships in the galaxy) depending on whatever sound we applied to the video footage. We felt that the cool blue tones and severe shape of the diamonds would lend itself more readily to being perceived as 'cold' 'hard' and therefore, oppressive.

By combining the two we would create a city of staircases, living and dying underneath the cold eye of the diamonds, which would float alone in the night sky.





To accompany the initial design of the world, I created some characters.

This is because I felt that a story world is inseparable from the characters that inhabit it, the world should reflect the character, and thus the character should reflect the world.

As a result, I created two young girls - to be innocent and ignorant of any social corruptions in the worlds they represent, that were just reflections.

The diamond girl has sharp eyes, straight hair, neat and plain clothing, and bone structure that suggests she may be from East Asia. However her colour scheme is kept at a silvery blue, alike the diamond ships.

The city girl has larger, rounder eyes (to take in more light) and wider, softer features. By giving her darker skin and a chaotic curl to her hair, I made her resemble someone of African descent. She has a hand-me-down coat, and a long floppy scarf that I imagined to trail behind her as she ran clumsily up and down the steps.

I found that this exercise really helped me gain an in depth understanding of the world we had begun to create, and as I continued to develop a 3D realisation of how this world would work, I used the characters as a measure against which to judge creative decisions.

At the end of the first week I had created a model building that represented the average architecture that could be found in the city; corrugated iron ceilings and panels much alike  Dharavi in Mumbai, Asia's largest shanty town. Then, with the added element of the staircases to give a height to the city, the shanty town built up and up towards the stars.

To the right, the cardboard model was spray painted rusty brown, black, and a metallic silver to suggest age and weathering. I then placed several candles inside to show that it was inhabited.

This practise provided a further reference when considering the final model.

Catalysts

The purpose of this project was to start from a point of research and expand upon that. Starting from Conceptual art, I considered pieces by Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, and other Dada artists before looking at Assemblage art, and artists such as Jean Tinguely.

                               

  

To keep with the traditional attitude of Duchamp, I first experimented with whatever I had on hand - car registration plates, a toy keyboard, a CD and tape player, and later on, a sheep skull. It was greatly amusing to pull apart everything I could reasonably get my hands on considering the shorter time frame I had been given for this project than my previous two.

I assembled them and considered the new forms, shapes, and also any lack thereof. My experimentation wasn't so much in order to achieve anything, more towards discovery, and as a result this project has produced a series of different images that I could all happily use. I experimented with using the piano keys to obscure the letters of the plates, leaving them useless.

I have realised over the course of these few days' experimentation that I greatly enjoy making items useless.

 
  

 


To further this line of thinking, I considered how to transform these ‘readymade’ objects. After ‘unmaking’ them, I applied the same idea to them as I had the registration plates - how to best render them completely useless, yet again. By removing their only function, they could no longer be considered as the objects they once were.

At what point did the CD player stop being a CD player? When I took all the screws out, it was a potential CD player in different parts. When I glued the screws together and removed any possibility of the pieces being reunited, was that potential destroyed with any object we might still call a CD player? Or had that potential already been destroyed when I accidentally ripped with wiring from the speakers in an attempt to access more of the screws?

Questions like this might be travelling too far into the philosophical, however in conceptual art, it is ideas like this that may drive pieces.

The photograph above shows (from left to right) a piece of the plastic body of the CD player that once-was, a headless quadrupedal body made using wiring and circuit boards, and a sheep’s skull. From displaying the three once-were-objects next to each other, I am forcing an association between them; an outer casing, a structure of connections akin to motor neutral pathways through a body, and an organic, complete skull.

Whether this implies that they all fit together in some way, or tell some meaningful, disturbing story, is entirely subjective. However, these objects were all once part of something that had a function that is now impossible for them to ever regain. I think that bringing in complex ideas behind simple or seemingly random collections of objects is both highly enjoyable and rewarding.

Ultimately, I would have loved to have more time to simply keep unmaking objects, to keep re-assembling and to experiment even more with creating associations between them. However, as I have to leave the project, I am satisfied with the level of sophistication of ideas I managed to express in such a short space of time.