Saturday, September 27, 2008

Willing the Grid. part I

In case people haven't gotten it yet, my work last year wasn't really about grenades. It was more about structures and systems; relationships that define perceptions and not objects in-and-of-themselves. 

A grid is a very relevant structure in this sense. It grounds and systemizes thought, ideas, architecture, etc. Is this what people seek? A willing of the grid at the expense of a groundless potential? 

Friday, September 26, 2008

And again!





Since I felt the last 4 color litho was such a success i decided to up the challenge with a much finer dot resolution and try it again. Of course, I got myself completely in over my head and had no end of trouble printing this. Wasted films, plates, paper and time to finally end up with a paltry edition of 3! 250$ worth of material and perhaps 35 hours to get 3 prints that are not even that well printed. At least I ended last year with a valuable lesson in humility. 

So this is how JPG compression works!



I have so much more respect for the computer after trying to draw like one. Understanding how simple things like compressing a JPG image require some pretty creative constructions has completely changed my view of the dichotomy between the analog and the digital. 

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Precious Grenade in CMYK




This 4 color offset lithography uses the concepts of commercial CMYK offset printing process and makes the color illusion created by half-tone patterns explicit.  Though the pattern is an obvious distortion, the image from far appears top be full color. Does exposing the illusion change the way we understand perception? 


Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Art Matters 2008




My drawing installation at last years Art Matters Festival at the FOFA Gallery. Three grenades, or perhaps, three representations of grenades. 

So many people automatically assumed that I was protesting war with this work. As if an image of an unarmed grenade was inherently political. Or even the actual grenade lying on the floor between the two images. Anti-war or pro-war? 

Maybe it had nothing to do with war and more to do with the way we, as thinking creatures, relate and identify to an object of our own creation. This work turned out to be a great example of the paradox of being attracted to something we have been conditioned to revile. And, luckily for me, more people than I had originally expected came in for a close look and realized that the grenade was not the real subject of this work, but merely a vehicle for a more abstract idea of relative truth and tautological systems.

First words

For intellect in the service of the will, that is to say in practical use, there exist only individual things; for intellect engaged in art and science, that is to say active for its own sake, there exists only universals, entire kinds, species, classes, ideas of things.
– Arthur Schopenhauer