End of Semester Crit

Though I have not posted any of my new work from the past couple of months, here are some shots from my end of semester crit that give an idea of what I have been doing. As previously seen, my work is still program generated for the most part.

Stay tuned for more posts over the holidays.

Prix Albert-Dumouchel Vernisage

So my first post in months shows me with my son, sister, partner at the vernissage for the Prix Albert-Dumouchel, a print competition here in Quebec. The show itself had a few interesting pieces and but on the whole was not overly impressive.

The winning Entry was pretty interesting as it dealt with themes that I am interested in as well - notably language, identity and relations. Though if I had to vote on a winning piece I might very well have chosen the same one, I still find it strange that one of the three judges was a the print director at UQAM and the two winners were from there. Seems to me to lack a certain ethic and most likely a conflict of interest but on the whole I do not care much for competitions. I need them for the CV but these are rarely a proof of superiority, just taste. Winning would not have proven me better and losing does not prove me worse.

Still a fun time was had and I was proud to have introduced my Son Lukas to his first vernisage. Hopefully, he will get many opportunities to accompany me in the future.

Awards

Though, I don't have any new work to show right now, I do have some news pertaining to my education. 

The first piece of good news is that I have been awarded the prestigious Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) for 2009-10. This alone will make my next year a really interesting one as I will be able to concentrate on my studies and not have to worry about working.

Also, I have just found out that I have been awarded the Yves Gaucher Prize in Studio Arts from Concordia University for 2009. 

So, all-in-all, I am having a pretty good week.

Untitled Landscape #2

Here is my last offset litho of my undergrad degree. 

For this one I tried to work with subdued colors and include (a barely noticeable) white layer on tan/grey paper. Overall I like the quality of the print even though it does not stand out like the previous colored ones. The white is subtle but it does make a difference. 

At least I finally learned how to print clean with the plates. On the last official day of my undergrad degree i finally realized what I was doing wrong on the press.

I have yet to name this piece so for now we will call it "Untitled Landscape #2".

And one more time

Conspiring

Here is one (at a slightly higher pixel resolution) of brutus and a gang of senators conspiring to kill Julius Caesar.

Brutus

Continuing with my digital TV watching machine, as well, as with HBO's Rome, Here are two versions of Brutus, right before he plunges his dagger to finish off Julius Ceasar.

These tewo images use the same algorithms as the death of Ceasar (seen in my last post below.)

Watching TV Digitaly!

My latest attempt at digital printmaking has me revisiting the Pixelography project but with a newly programed version. 

After realizing the limitations with Max/msp I have recreated the pixel capture program in Java and have included a few new algorithms for how the pixels capture and draw the images. 

As well, instead of feeding the video directly into the program, this time around, I am watching the films through a video camera pointed at the tv. Basically, I have created a "subjective" viewer that just happens to be a digital device. And this particular viewer was watching the death of Julius Ceasar from the HBO tv show Rome. 

I have included here two versions of the capture, one with the same linear algorithm as my last Full Metal Jacket series, and one with my new k*counter%arrayLength algorithm. Though both very simple the perceived image speaks volumes about the role the perceiver has in creating the object viewed.

Ashenvale Bridge

Here are some shots of my newest Video Game landscape done on the the Vandercook press with polymer plate. 

Though I had some major problems exposing the plates I am fairly happy with the resulting print.

New project: Untitled Landscapes

For my new project, just started this week, I am going in a very new direction. I am creating line screened offset lithographs and polymer plate "Landscapes". As usual, my interests lie in the construction of images as they transverse different mediums and paradigms and so these particular landscapes come from digital gaming worlds and then get "translated" into traditional and older analog reproduction techniques. 

In all cases, I would like to preserve some of the unreal whimsy or romance of the original, while transforming it into something wholly ambiguous.

the only real issue right now, is that the outcomes are quite aesthetic, and as a general rule, i prefer when the aesthetics play a secondary role to the thought being generated.

I will have to try more and see how the process works as a generator of interesting questions.

This was also a practice run for me working with the large offset printer and though it was fun to learn, my body is still aching from the two days of printing with it. It does feel good to use my entire body to create something again, as sitting in front of a computer can sometimes be very alienating.

Narratives - Art Matters 2009

Here are a few photographs from the Narratives show at Art Mur in which I showed my digital print series on Full Metal Jacket. 

FMJ Series Continued

Here are some of the last images produced for the Art Matters show at Art Mur. Though these don't look like much displayed on screen, they are quite interesting when printed on quality paper. As much as I profess to care more about content, rather that aesthetics, I still can't help appreciating a really beautiful image.

Full Metal Jacket series

These are some new experimentations with representation, time and perception from Kubrick's seminal film. I am now, more preoccupied with looking for how time and space are created or reconfigured through the modes of representation or perception we use. 

While all this is still not clear in my head the outcomes of my attempts are strangely poetic and aesthetic to me. 

I wonder if others have anything to gain from these. I guess we will see when these are on display at Art Mûr next week.

Start the Presses

After a long break from the printing presses, I have started to work with my line screen experiments again. To start me off I am working small and with one or two colors and will hopefully work towards more complex images as the semester advances. 

This test was done using a polymer plate and printed on a Vandercook Proofing press. Though, the tests started out really well, after a few prints it started filling in and I could not get it back. Additionally, I kept getting ink on the back of the printed pages and did not notice it until I got home with the prints. I will expose another plate with a modified matrix and try again this week.

Digital traces

Here are digital time-lapse captures taken from within the EV building of Concordia University. 

What we inevitably see is how a slowed down digital capture exposes the digital process. What is qualitative and continuous in analog equipment becomes sequential, precise and divisible in the digital. Movement can be captured, but only in a precise, yet abstract way. We don't get the faint, blurry trace that we have come to expect from time-lapse photography. What we get is a the precise information of that existed in that pixel position at that particular time. 

Moving Bodies are transformed into information - numbers to be precise -  and only those things that appear immobile allow themselves to be understood. 

Full Metal Jacket Diptych

Here are my most recent attempts at a conceptual use of my, slightly modified, temporal palindromatic pixel sampler! I know that doesn't make much sense, but I am in no mood to explain what the program is actually doing at this point.

The Organic and the Algorithmic

So, after that slight setback last week, I am back at it with a modified version of my video processing software. I realized, that in reality, the work I was (or still am,) doing is not that interesting. The problem with machine processes is that once the "fun" work of writing a program is done, the output becomes predictable and uninteresting. It may be interesting to look at, but it lacks any opportunity for continued thought.

I am not saying that there is nothing to think about. I am just saying that once there has been one piece of work output, each additional one, is redundant. The program is too predictable and that is the obvious shortcoming to all programed works. The addition of random elements, arguments or parameters, is usually not the solution, as again that just gives the appearance of difference. 

Though, my knowledge of programing is extremely limited at this point, I am starting to see the limitations of purely programed work and why it has usually failed to hold my interest in the past. I need to find a way to imbue them with more "organic" algorithms, if that is even possible or meaningful. 

Shut it down!

Ok, so it is rare that I have to completely pull the plug on something that I have worked so hard on, but today I am doing it. 

By pure coincidence, I came across the work of American artist Jason Salavon, and realize that he has tackled the same issues as me, but seven years earlier. And when I use the word "same" I do not mean "similar", I mean the same exact thing. Same look, same point, same format, same everything. 

I have never heard of this guy before and I have lost weeks of work, as their is no way I can keep going with this without outright plagiarizing. 

Here is the link to his 2001 works that have staled me thus. http://salavon.com/MTVsTop10.shtml