Interzone

Journey through interzone with neonlocust as your guide

[neonlocust]

Reflecting on Richard Wilsons piece 20/50 ( ha ha did you see what I did there ) I was struck by this happy accident that occurred will cleaning my oven baking tray after a bacon sandwich I had the other day. Not quite sure if the Saatchi Gallery will be as interested in my interpretation but it did highlight to me the importance of research as it was only by looking at works at this gallery that I became aware of this artist work. that said back to the library.

[neonlocust]

Richard Wilson's fascinating piece 20:50 using old sump oil  creates a piece using reflection thanks to the intense darkness of the oil playing with the galleries architecture giving the illusion of a highly polished floor, a deep dark pool or to me the absorption of darkness and feel by the observer.

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Nelson has received his Turner prize nomination for building installations out of wood and punctuating them with junk. He creates stage sets, emotionally charged false buildings within buildings. The rooms and corridors are self-contained, with ceilings. And yet they're not seamless. They have a raw, wooden hokeyness, a rankness, a stench of bitter memories

      He has been making his fictional architecture since the early 1990s. This was at a tangent to the glamorous London art world.

   Nelson's art has the psychic malignance of surrealism, as it peruses the city's forgotten corridors and long-locked rooms. It's gothic, baroque, it's whatever name you give an art that fabricates alternate worlds. His installations are a means of storytelling, but the kind of story he tells is not a narrative. It is a series of moments, an atmosphere.

[neonlocust]

Revolutionary multi-material 3D printer launches

An innovative twist on the three-dimensional printer will transform new product design

Stratasys

A quirky innovation on the 3D printing front could revolutionise the way the whole process works, thanks to a new development that allows the production of multi-material, full colour objects. Utilising an advanced ‘triple-jetting’ process, the new system allows a trio of materials to effectively be combined into one streamlined creative workflow.

Stratasys, its developer and the company behind the MakerBot line of 3D printers, claims that the development could make the sophisticated three-dimensional printing process much more efficient. However, the cutting-edge technology does not come cheap, with the full-colour 3D printer boasting a price tag in the region of £200,000.

Stratasys

Mass market moves

Although the device is aimed at commercial 3D production, it represents another move towards mainstream usage of three-dimensional printing to generate anything and everything, from novelty ornaments through to replacement parts for just about anything. In a recent flurry of 3D activity, another pioneering company, 3D Systems recently unveiled its own multi-material 3D printer, although the rival product lacks the multi-colour sophistication of its counterpart.

That means the Stratasys-developed Objet500 Connex3 Color Multi-material 3D Printer is one step ahead of the compeition and will, says its makers, be used primarily for generating 3D prototype designs, which could have obvious cost-saving benefits for large corporations who need to move quickly in today’s ever competitive global marketplace.

Stratasys

Perfect prototypes Stratasys revealed that engineers at beta user Trek Bicycle in Waterloo, Wisconsin are using the Objet500 Connex3 Color Multi-material 3D Printer for assessment and testing of accessories like bike chain stay guards and handlebar grips prior to actual production. “The Objet500 Connex3 Color Multi-material 3D Printer changed the way we manufacture at Trek, augmenting our traditional, time-consuming CNC processes with fast, iterative and realistic prototyping and functional testing,” says Mike Zeigle, manager of Trek’s prototype development group.

“Now we produce bicycle parts that look and feel like production parts. We are particularly excited about 3D printing our models directly in color. This gives our designers the ability to graphically display color contact pressure map data on rider contact parts like seats and grips. We are also working on doing the same with FEA and CFD stress data on structural bike components,” adds Zeigle.

Stratasys

Conventional wisdom

The new hardware and software technology has been involved at this week’s SolidWorks World convention, an innovation-fest focusing on 3D printing and other ground-breaking technologies being held in San Diego. Boasting over 4,500 attendees, the event is an opportunity for the tech industry to show off new products and concepts.

“Stratasys’ goal is to help our customers revolutionise their design and manufacturing processes,” says Stratasys CEO David Reis about the announcement. “I believe our new Objet500 Connex3 Color Multi-material 3D Printer will transform the way our customers design, engineer and manufacture new products.  In general and with the Connex technology in particular, we will continue to push the envelope of what’s possible in a 3D world”.

Stratasys

Meanwhile, take a look at a revolutionary 3D concrete printer that can build a 2,500-square-foot home layer by layer in a single day: The 3D printer that

[neonlocust]

Mat Collishaw

A lot of his work focuses around the use of video and lightboxes and found inspiration through the book A Colour Atlas of Forensic Pathology, in 1975 by Austin Gresham. Collishaw said it became "the Britart bible", as a source for explicit images of dead bodies for artwork, which interested me as one of the pieces of work I started on last term featured some images I had taken of a dead cat I found on my way home one evening. He is best known for a piece entitled Bullet Hole which in actual fact is a close up photograph of a wound caused by an ice pick.

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Sketches of Aldous Huxley. Just trying to find a " look " for my icon book

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Brew

As part of my on-going collaboration with other artist and the devolvement of GREEN EVENTS we are constantly looking for new venues. We have recently been introduced to Brew coffee shop and they are keen to get involved with the local creative scene around Huddersfield.

Last Friday evening Rich T (partner in GREEN EVENTS ) arranged an evening featuring work from his fellow students at Calderdale College and some fantastic local musicians.

The night was a success as many local artists attended allowing for some great networking and this has opened up possibilities for collaborations.

Brew was very happy with the attendance and has invited us back to do one of our events. This is allowing us to approach a new and different audience. Each venue we have so far has a different type of patron and this is great for me to ascertain what type of work appeals to different audiences. This will help me taylor make my shows to specific audiences and make them more successful.

[neonlocust]

The Black Mirror-Reflective statement

As The Black Mirror project draws to a close I reflect upon the last few months and the journey I have been on from the research of artist, films, materials and experiences.

 I really feel that a sense of importance and urgency has entered the processes that I am now employing to visualise and create my interpretation of the themes selected in the studios and contextual studies and traces of experiences leave a mark so too does each project leave its groove into my devolving working practice. Today’s lecture was very interesting that although it was directed to the ways artist use liminality within their work, I could legitimately apply it to myself and how I am developing as an artist. I am at that threshold between one stage and the next. My time in university is my rite of passage with my shaman guiding me through it to transform from one thing to the other.

As I become more confident in my work I am leaving the old identity of some who did art as a hobby to that of one who wishes to challenge our interpretation of the world we live in. I like the little tricks I slip into my work the tongue in cheek element and more importantly the freeness to allow people to criticise me without feeling woundered. I have always been a people pleaser which at time I have found irritating that I allow others to dictate my decisions.

Through this piece I have grown stronger in challenging others criticisms and not justifying my thoughts, actions and works but standing by them as well as alongside the critism and in some cases disapproval realising that they can all cohabit the same space with similar levels of acceptance.

 Do I deliberately invoke a reaction? Sometimes, which is part of my mischievous side but it is not with malice but more in tune with the archetype proposed by Jung of The Fool and although seeming as though not to take things seriously is in fact an intelligent and manipulative person. Through art we have the power to direct our audience to come to certain conclusions or to challenge their preconceived ideas.

Already with this piece through posting pictures on Facebook I have received baffled responses and the age old “how can you call that art?” but of these some have come to question my practice with constructive whys and this has allowed them to consider something that they would otherwise dismiss which is part of what my work is about as a cognitive behavioural therapist. Using Neuro Linguistic Programming I challenged my own thinking processes and changed the way I view things and thus responded to the differently. So naturally the way I see the world and interpret it changes to and this comes out with the final pieces of The Black Mirror project.

 In TBM#1 the observer accepts the image and possibly recognises it as a piece of contemporary art, whether they like this type of art or not. They are then challenged to keep their original interpretation as it metamorphoses with lights revealing a second skin of meanings. Do we alter our perception or are our first thoughts reinforced. In life is our first interpretation of an event, a situation or an experience the honest one or does it changes as more is revealed. How we would have interpreted something ten years ago to how we do now surely has changed as we have become older, wiser more experienced. Are life experiences our light or reveal that permeate through the cloth?

In TBM#2 we are restricted in our view and only allowed to see from one angle more or less dictating what we see. But what is our natural inclination. We move around trying to broaden our view seeking more meaning trying to understand more. Do we smash the wall to see more no we allow it to hold us back from all been revealed to us, we almost have a respect for why it’s there, even though it stops us from having what we want. I was brought up in a very controlling household with strict religious constraints. I would naturally fight against these but at the same time recognised that some of these rules or restraints were there as a certain level of protection. The challenge was to work round these to get what I wanted but without drawing attention to me and then having stronger constraints imposed upon me.

 Where do I go from here? As with every project you always take some of it with you. Here will be the strength of character to follow what I feel is right and not to allow others to sway me. Yes listen to criticism and suggestions take these on board and assimilate those that I would find useful but remain bold and stick to my convictions.

As for pieces in themselves I do have an idea for the stripping away process to a juxtapose piece between the old, worn and discarded wood that I used in TBM#2 and mixing these with very modern new materials and possibly take that over into my next project in the new year.

[neonlocust]

Studio Statement 1

TBM#1 & TBM#2

Mixed media

Russ D Hunter

2013

As technology moves forward the way

we can observe films as well as other

media increases giving us more freedom

and choice in how we access the world

around us. Long gone are the days when

the only way you could watch a film was to

go the cinema. If you missed the showing you

would have to wait for it to be rescreened.

The film companies were in charge.

With the advent of home video they still had

control dictating when the film would be

released firstly for hire then for private purchase.

These two pieces harken back to those “good old

days” when ownership was still in the hands of the

creators. Your restricted viewing is controlled by

Me, I dictate what you can see and when. This

allows you to fall back into a space were you are

 in the hands of the artist who can then guide you

through the piece giving you a fuller and more

rewarding experience. Relax and see what I want

you to see.

[neonlocust]

Day two of studio set-up

Day two of setting studio up and although tensions where possibly running high amongst a few of those exhibiting. I put that down to nerves on their part. The main thing was I remained calm and assertive and all in all it ran very well and more or less everyone got a presentation space and seemed happy with it ( although there will always be those who………well you can guess ).

As for my final pieces they are really coming together and the one thing I have learnt is, things take longer to do than you originally planned, so I am so grateful that I started early giving me plenty of time and thus being less stressed. Because of this I have enjoyed the role and it has been a good exercise as I would like to look into doing this on higher level not only

in university but in a more professional setting such as a gallery.

[neonlocust]

TBM#3

[neonlocust]

Setting up studio for assessment

Well had a full afternoon of setting the studio to exhibition standard for assessment and must say I am exhausted. As usual the attitude amongst others is of apathy and that’s between those who can be bothered to turn up.

However I have come to expect this and imagine that once in real gallery settings such attitudes would not be tolerated, or at least I would like to think so. The main thing is my own mental and physical motivation staying intact and concentrating on presenting my work to its intended and best advantage, while at the same time motivating those whose work will be cuddling up to mine on either side is to the same standard.

I have had to be patient while putting my two final pieces together and not allow my hard work to be spoilt by shoddy presentation and so have had to learn that it is better to take my time and look for those final touches that give it its professional edge and this definitely means forgetting about people watching you and not rush so it looks ok and not perfect.

 I am glad I have started as soon as possible allowing me time to correct mistakes  as well as considering other possibilities, not only with organising the presentation of my work but of the rest of the groups in the studio. All in all a good days work and we will see how things progress as I continue my roll along side with Rory in organising T1/09. As Picasso said “Give me a museum and I'll fill it.” Somehow I don't think that will be a problem.

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TBM#3

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Lantern making workshop

Of the workshops that I have been running since September the recent ones have been more successful as I am starting to theme them. My most recent was in tune with the Festival of Light celebrations over the 6-8th December weekend and ran it as a lantern making workshop and had a great turn out.

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Copper Horses by Chris Harrison

  © Chris Harrison

                                       © Chris Harrison

                                       © Chris Harrison

                                                                                                          The Bradford Fellowship in Photography 2012 - 2013 Gallery Two: 15 November 2013 – 9 February 2014

Copper Horses by Chris Harrison is a new exhibition reflecting on identity, class, British industry and the photographer's relationship with his dad.

When Chris was a boy he believed his dad was a deep-sea diver who had adventures every day. In reality his dad worked in a factory as a precision engineer.

When looking at the photos by this chap I loved the intensity of the colours and similar to David Bachelors use of it in a when he did his first colourful work created a juxtapose between the old and used with freshly clean painted.

Of my favourites for colour richness was one entitled E2013. 434.32. and can see how with my piece TBM#2 the use of old tired and worn materials can be juxtaposed with a splash of colour.

I have also already decided to no longer name my pieces as this can detract or influence my audience as to how they receive the piece and just number them with a catalogue system and noticed that Harrison does the same with his.

[neonlocust]

Rory's Workshop

As part of our artistic development it is could we broaden our palate and learn new skills. With this in mind as a group we have decided to offer workshops to each other and teach others techniques from the strengths within our own practice.

Rory is a highly skilled illustrator and jumped at the chance to join his workshop showing some of his basic drawing skills. The advantage of this kind of learning over maybe on-line tutorials or books is you have the person there to talk you through the techniques and can pick up on bad practice before they become ingrained.

I enjoyed the session and picked up a few techniques that I can use especially in the development of my icon book for contextual studies.

[neonlocust]

After a tutorial with Bob and my use of colour he raised questions as to my overuse. I do agree on the use of more minimal tones with accents  to really emphasise a point but also do like the overuse of colour within certain pieces and will give more consideration so whether  I use a rich colour palate or a more subtle one.

However that said I have been looking into colour in more detail and especially other artist who use it. This brings me to David Bachelor who made some interesting justifications on his extravagant use of colour.

He said it is difficult to contain which makes it a fascinating subject. Its bigger than you are, the great thing about colour is it always succeeds your attempts to contain it intellectually or theoretically or in terms of various colour circles and so forth. This especially true as Steve Calcutt pointed out in our last I.T. workshop that the range of shades of colours now are so vast when preparing work for printing, projection that we are really spoilt for choice.

Bachelor does go on to suggest that many artist must have a form of Chromo phobia, as he researched colour throughout history, philosophy and aesthetics, colour he concluded is somehow represented as something other than  the finer workings of the western mind.

It is regarded as something feminine,  oriental,  primitive, kitsch, narcotic, infantile. Whatever it is it is not rational, male rigorous and philosophical either that or it is as cosmetic, superficial, and deceitful. I recognise these feelings and to be honest have fallen occasionally into that way of thinking but I feel that since been young recognising this and considering my nature have tended to ally myself on the opposing side of acceptance and gravitate towards challenging the norm. Maybe this is why I use colour so much maybe wishing to show that this abstract minimalism is so clichéd and that it does not make  your work instantly deep and intellectual.