Thereal androo

[ambernorman-unsw]

Interrupting Transmission By blocking the door of the elevator on the third floor, we prevented people accessing the lift in lower floors

[tutorstolemynamecofa2015]

[tutorstolemynamecofa2015]

How many of you remember this as a kid? I do, I remember breaking it...accidentally ahempt*..and amongst the white mess were these black dust. At the time i didn’t realise what they were exactly but I had stumbled across magnetic iron fillings. Simone Hill’s images sparked a memory and another experimental idea began. In order to experiment with this material, i needed some and finding a store that sells a container of it was impossible (thanks Bunnings for no help ): ). Hence why i decided to extract it from the kids toy . The task of finding these magnetic drawing boards ended up being alot harder than anticipated. Stores just do not sell them anymore. Upon almost giving up i stumbled upon small 10x9cm board at Big W. $10. I was in luck, the size bothered me so I bought 3. I broke the boards open and used magnets to extract the iron fillings. The patterns that the fillings made in accordance to magnets were finely detailed, following the magnetic path. It gave a frozen movement much like Robin Wight’s ethereal fairies and Richard Stainthorp’s raw lustful desire sculptures. 

It becomes a real shame that there wasnt enough metal iron fillings or a strong enough magnet to incorporate into the final piece. The playing around did however stem the foundation of how my final piece would look. 

[tutorstolemynamecofa2015]

“Desire is a magnetic energy. It’s what pulls us toward that which we want and can be a powerful motivator for action in out lives. Desire, and the energy contained within it, is arguably one of the main reasons we bother to do things in out human lives...desire serves as an impetus for satisfying our instinctual urges” - Sterlin Mosley http://www.insightfulinnovations.com/zykrblog/magnetic-desire-exploring-the-energy-of-wanting

From this I took the idea of desire being a magnetic impetus and decided to explore if magnets or magnetic forces could offer a route to expressing desire in my final body of work. From various magnetic forces I found the substance of Ferrofluid quite interesting in behaviour. This idea was quickly scrapped because lets face it..i don’t want to spend $66/100ml. 

[tutorstolemynamecofa2015]

Upon further research of using wire/metal sculptures i stumbled across the works of Robin Wight, specifically those of ‘The Dance of the Fairies’.  Despite the artist inspiration being the ‘dance and struggle with the wind’, this particular image reminded me of my desire works in the first assignment, where desire acts as a driving force. I really like how the artist sublimely blends the ethereal steel sculpture naturally into the environment. There is so much movement and life expressed by the sculpture and you can piece together a part of a story being told. From my interpretation it seems like the fairy desires passionately to be like the dandelion, to be free and fly away. 

[tutorstolemynamecofa2015]

Research: The sculptural work of Ricahrd Stainthorp 

Using wire he captures the raw essence of lustful desire. The way the wires remain frozen in movement is so beautiful and something I would consider using in my final assessment II. 

[sandraqicofa]

FINAL ASSESSMENT II - Threading Through Space

REFLECTION STATEMENT (700words)

“The brain is the only thing that named itself”.

With my initial concept of the humanity’s tendency to categorise, this quote triggered the evolution of my idea, shifting from categorisation of people towards focusing more on our desire to name things and organise information in a structured way. Why is it that we feel the need to name things, draw mind maps, flow charts? Is it a territorial issue? Is it wired to our way of living? I began to research the reasons and benefits of humanity’s organisational traits as well as the desire to name the information that we obtain, and ended up with three simple reasons.

To create system in informational chaos

To make an object/thing seem more alive

To claim it as our own (information)

And so, through my research, I began to find ways to portray this organisational structure that we use to accumulate information. I began to look at maps and realised its structural quality exists in many forms of our lives. It’s branched out lines can be seen in conventional land maps, contour maps; even our human veins and tree branches contained this chaotic yet visually stimulating clustering. Continually intrigued by maps I progressed to consider what kind of materials I could explore to express these shapes.

Because I primarily worked with Photoshop for my initial human poster- something that I was adamantly comfortable with, for my final work, I wanted to challenge myself through exploring materials that I was unaccustomed with. I considered unfamiliar mediums such as videography, stop motion, clay making, wood, ink and using textile materials in conjunction with my information categorisation concept. This opened up a whole new world of incorporating 2D and 3D elements, mixing mediums and sculptural forms. I came across a few artists that were able to show me the potential of clay and 3D forms, such as Alexandra Bruel who’s hybrid clay sculptures integrated pop art and minimalism to create comical yet symbolic works of art (his clay stop motion ‘Rebus’ (2013)). This inspired me to try clay modelling, however after creating some bone sculptures of a human hand (from home-made air-dry clay), and clustering the individual pieces into symbolic shapes, I felt it wasn’t really effective in expressing my concept.

Eventually, I gravitated back towards the web and map like structures that reveal our systematic way of viewing the world through categorisation, and so I began to sketch up some vein patterns with stiff lines, curves and branches. An interactive infographic I stumbled upon by PEER1 Hosting which allowed you to zoom into the ‘web of the internet’ likewise presented a beautiful web pattern of information and further inspired me to continue to explore the intricate details of web-like systems, slowing moving away from the ‘branching’ form I initially started off with. 

Revamping the form that I wanted my final piece to take, I decided to move away from my initial 2D experiments into a 3D work of art. Thus, I began to explore ways to model 3D maps. Through artist Emma Johnson’s 3D map work, it triggered the idea of working with 2D layers to create something 3D. And so I experimented with layers of white card with stencilled shapes and lines for a 3-dimensional effect. It was relatively aesthetically pleasing but I felt something was amiss, especially noting that there was only a limited amount of layers I could put together before it would become too opaque to see anything behind the first few layers.

I became stuck on this issue for a few days while I frantically tried to think of ways to add more layers without losing transparency. After copious amounts of brainstorming and research I recalled an artist I had seen that also worked in layers: Nobuhiro Nakanishi, a Japanese artist who works with transparent, plastic, layered sheets to create mesmerising 3D landscapes. Ultimately, using clear plastic was the perfect solution to my opacity issue, and so through obtaining PVC sheets, I began to experiment with a number of mediums on top of the plastic, such as ink, knife scratching, paint and thread. Because plastic was such a foreign material for me, it was difficult to determine which medium overlay would work best, however after numerous trials, I decided that thread was surprisingly bold and effective in relaying my veiny map-like shapes.

My final work presents a 3D ‘web’ in 18 layers of threaded PVC held in place, evenly spaced (3.5cm) on a long polystyrene board. The web gradually transitions from chaotic veins to a structured system through the red to blue thread to represent how we translate information into knowledge by categorising, naming and organising. In a way, it almost seems like we work as robots, processing the things we see, hear, smell everyday into memories, experiences and opinions. A paradox in itself. The transparent layers reveals the intricacy of the web and the progression of our categorising process. I decided to create a red to blue gradient as red is often seen as a colour of tension and chaos, in contrast to a cool and calming aura to blue. Ultimately, experimentation and research of material/practical dominated the evolution of my final major project, contrasting my initial human poster which primarily focused on conceptualism. In this respect, I was able to challenge myself as hoped, in terms of expressing my concept through unfamiliar and thus, more difficult means.  

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Web structure inspiration: http://www.peer1.com/map-of-the-internet-infographic

Nobuhiro Nakanishi - Layered PVC research: http://www.spoon-tamago.com/2012/04/26/layer-drawings-by-nobuhiro-nakanishi/

Why we name things research: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5285531

The naming of names research: http://www.quora.com/Why-do-we-name-things

Francois Robert - “Stop the violence” Bone symbolism work: http://thedesigninspiration.com/articles/stop-the-violence-bone-art-by-francois-robert/

DIY Air-dry clay recipe video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx0YufAcjcU

Mitch Doueihy - Minimalistic design layouts: http://mitchdoueihy.com/

Alexandra Bruel - Pop art clay sculptures: https://www.behance.net/alexandrabruel

Emma Johnson - layered map art: http://www.marycnasser.com/blog/friday-favorite-emma-johnson

Water Ink - Solidarités International: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq9mw8wR-1Q

[tutorstolemynamecofa2015]

le Artiste Statemente

The typical Google searches and general accepted "meaning" all gravitate around the idea that desire is simply a fixated state of yearning, driving those caught within its resisting pull to attain whatever it is they wanted in the first place. And ..that's literally it. A simple point A to point B. Very much like Gilles Deleuze, I attempted to stray and walk a desired line away from the norm. That would mean throwing away ideas like lust, sexual endeavours and all the countless other "I want this" approaches. At first I wanted to mock the idea, of the "tunnel vision" that people go through; where all they see is that focal ending. The idea of a desired pursuit blinding our judgement as we only look forward. The saying "stop and smell the roses" intrigued me and correlated well. When thinking about desire we forget to consider the other aspects of the journey. This is the first part of my poster. I wanted to reveal that there is more to desire than simply a single layer. From my poster I tried to incorporate folds to hide another layer showcasing the simplistic view of how we view desire. I kept the colours dull with nothing happening but a single stroke of a line. The hidden layer of my poster reveals another side of desire. I attempted to answer the question, what happens when we attain desire ? a part from the usual, finding new desire. In accordance to the question Desire is impossible to fully attain and impossible. What if it is? I researched great feats of desire historically and noticed a pattern. Man takes.first step on moon, others are inspired and follow. Man climbs the once thought unclimable Mount Everest, others follow. There's is a direct correlation between attaining desires and inspiring others. And it's not just the final ending, it's everything along the journey, everything people do in pursuit of a desire inspires others along the way. I tried to incorporate this idea that desire creates inspiration. I decided to choose someone's at the top of a mountain reaching out to another below symbolizing this desire leads to inspire concept. Desire is a form of constructive force. We grow, learn and influence others.

[tutorstolemynamecofa2015]

Opened.

[tutorstolemynamecofa2015]

Illustrator redention

[tutorstolemynamecofa2015]

Prototype desire open

[tutorstolemynamecofa2015]

Desire closed

[tutorstolemynamecofa2015]

The Desire that Inspire..(my poster that is)

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room.  One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to receive his daily medical treatment.  His bed was next to the room's only window.  The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.  The men talked for hours on end.  They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, and where they had been on vacation. Every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.  The man in the other bed began to live for those one-hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by the description of activity and color of the world outside. The window overlooked a park with a beautiful lake.  Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats.  Young lovers held hands and walked amidst flowers of every color of the rainbow.  Grand old trees graced the landscape, and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.  As the man described his view from the window in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene. One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing through the park.  Although the other man could not hear the band, he could see the parade in his mind's eye, as the gentleman by the window developed a detailed picture with his descriptive words. One morning, the nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep.  She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away. As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.  Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the world outside.  Finally, he would have the joy of seeing it for himself.  He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed.  To his surprise the window faced a brick wall. The man called for the nurse and asked what could have compelled his deceased roommate to describe such wonderful things outside this window.  The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.  She said, "Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you." ____________________________________________________________________

Desire engulfs you, pulling you in until you are blinded by desire itself. 

[tutorstolemynamecofa2015]

The world is little, people are little, human life is little. There is only one big thing - desire

Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark

[sosuperawesome]

Dani Arias

[cofa1002miroslava2015]

Love watercolour

I find watercolour is very effective for a poster. It is easy on the eye and very expressive. I like the use of colours and form Dani Arias uses. There is a dream state of desire and a need to go beyond than what you see, directing you to delve within yourself and shake your intimate desires. I will have this interpretation in mind for my artwork, assessment 1 Desire. 

[cofa1002miroslava2015]

Desire 

Here we have a muffin that is desireable to the senses; sight, smell, taste. It was offered for free to the crowd yet once the muffin fell on the ground, it was not as desireable to the senses and/or not a need to eat it..yet one of the students still had the desire to eat it which was interesting and surprising to see. We all have different measures of desire where one would have totally disregareded the muffin after it fell on the ground, another went ahead and enjoyed a taste of it. This is a small observation that what we desire and the measure in which we desire, is not the same for everyone.

[chelseacofa-deactivated20210710]

mystification of the art world stemming from people’s desire to be involved

[tutorstolemynamecofa2015]

There’s just something so tempting to do what we shouldn’t, an urge to step pass that red velvet rope and simply let loose putting that signature moustache onto her million dollars face. But thats desire for you...