TRIP PIECE
SOAK SIN
OR CREASE
Anagrams of previous piece: ‘Pinciers Parasites Crookee’.
Archive for April, 2010
Trip Piece
Thursday, April 22nd, 2010Metahaven: Uncorporate Identity
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010For the past week I have been enjoying dipping in and out of Uncorporate Identity, the first book from design speculation office Metahaven. Although the book includes much of Metahaven’s design work and research, the book cannot be categorized as a monograph, it exists in a grey area that is particularly suitable, as the work of these designers rarely fits into a category that could easily be called ‘graphic design’.
Pinciers, Parasites, Crookee – Part 1
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010Back to the sculpture studio for more casting experiments using letterpress type. I am making a set of chance words again. These are going to be cast in Grot, using wax and gel flakes. What I am doing differently this time is making a rubber pattern from the type, then casting that in rubber again to make a mould.
Smithson, Breton, and Black Humour
Tuesday, April 20th, 2010Robert Smithson on laughter in his ‘Entropy and the New Monuments’ essay:
‘Fuller was told by certain scientists that the fourth dimension was “ha-ha,” in other words, that it is laughter. Perhaps it is… Laughter is in a sense of kind of entropic “verbalization.” How could artists translate this verbal entropy, that is “ha-ha,” into “solid-models”? ‘
I found Smithson’s alignment of minimalist sculpture movement with laughter surprising, as are his references to horror and science fiction. The latter is more easily explained by the difference in time and context. Of course, to see the work he refers to in 1966 would be a completely different experience than seeing them now. However, the idea that these sculptures have could have a humorous reading is an unexpected and welcome reminder that art, and art criticism does not need to be po-faced.
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Entropy and the New Monuments Part 2
Monday, April 12th, 2010
Entropy and the New Monuments Part 1
Monday, April 12th, 2010This morning I read ‘Entropy and the New Monuments‘, an essay by Robert Smithson from 1966. ‘Instead of causing us to remember the past like the old monuments, the new monuments cause us to forget the future.’ The essay is filled with references, some familiar, such as to the ‘Jabberwocky’ and the work of Flavin, Le Witt, Judd etc, but there are also many others that are rather more obscure, I though I would collect some of these here. Firstly, the ‘Park Place Group’, a group of artists working together in New York from 1963 onwards. These included: Anthony Magar:
Endless Feedback
Thursday, April 1st, 2010I got my feedback for the first half of the course, among the suggestions to move my work forward was a reference to this video: Peter Weibel, The Endless Sandwich, Closed-Circuit Video 1969. This work relates to what Mei Li and I did in our camera experiments.
Take the Middle Fork Down, Part 5
Thursday, April 1st, 2010Finally the moment of truth, had the plaster and ceramic cracked and crumbled, had the metal broken the mould, in short, after weeks and months, would I have anything to show for my work?
Arctic Circles, and Stripes, and Diamonds
Thursday, April 1st, 2010A couple of weeks ago I spent a day making some graphic for some friends of mine, Thirty Two, to use in the new Arctic Monkeys video. Here are some test stills of the patterns, I am pretty sure I shouldn’t be putting up any images of the band without their permission, hopefully I will be able to upload the full video when it is ready.
Take the Middle Fork Down, Part 4
Thursday, April 1st, 2010This project is the latest in a series of experiments I have undertaken in casting type from letterpress into various mediums. In this case I used the lost wax process.The last post about this process left off after I had coated the wax pattern in ceramic shell. The next phase: plaster. The first thing is to built a wall around the object so that the plaster could be poured.
