beauty

studio update

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Here are a couple of things I’m currently working on in the studio. Both represent some long term ideas coming together with many different mediums with the end goal of telling more stories about an envisioned dystopian future. I’ve been wanting to make a container for one of the Eternal Vision drone minis for some time. This first version came together well and has inspired some upgrades to the next version… I’ve also started a short book with text and images that showcases The Last Operator diorama. Below is an image from the book.

Endless Ocean Drone Container, laser cut plywood box with magnet closure for 3d printed figure.

 

The Last Operator, mixed media with 3D printing, 9 x 6 x 7 inches, 2024

Photographed with printed backdrop

history repeats itself

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Actual history, an alternative history or even a completely invented timeline, they will all eventually repeat themselves. I find that as time passes there are patterns in what make. Specific ideas that are reoccurring, each time becoming more articulate as I learn new ways to recreate them. I am not just doing the same things over and over again. Both of these images are about similar repeating ideas, but are so very different in how they appear. They both evoke thoughts of searching, a form of future surveillance within a disorienting landscape. One presents an atmosphere so thick that it could be concealing any possible danger. The other creates a similar sense of unease within the landscape, however this time it is vastness that creates the sense of awe or unease. Both are simulated worlds seen through a screen. The first of the two image is of one of the original miniature drones. It was made of kit-bashing model parts and photographed in a glass tank with “practical effects”. The second image is a more recent version of a drone, 3D modeled with the dual intention to 3D print them for miniatures and to use them in digital animations. I think it is import to take note of these kinds of reoccurring ideas that we attempt to resolve or explain over and over again in the studio. Keep searching.

Inquest Model 006, Digital Photograph 2007

Endless Ocean Drone 1001a, 3D Rendering 2023

digital ghosts

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corrupted data… incomplete file structure… error… error… error.

end of transmission

What does digital decay look like? As corruption compounds and data gets fragmented digital hallucinations begin to form. Paranoid thoughts of an artificial intelligence loosing its mind. Autonomous systems acting on lost transmissions and incomplete information drift towards total collapse.

aquatic observation

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I’ve imagined the drone 1001a as the aquatic version of the original all seeing model 1001. This drone hovers quietly over the ocean or just on the very edge of the shore. It exists in the time of the endless ocean. Long after our technological demise, the inevitable consequences of climate changes come to light. There is nothing. A hopeless horizon extends in every direction. What fragments of land remain are scattered far apart with only empty waters between them. The detritus we leave behind will always remain. Now it is mostly seen as sun bleached plastics that float on the surface or wash up like an artificial red tide. This drone constantly patrols the water, searching for anything that breaks the pattern of emptiness. How far does the ocean reach? Is there anything at all beyond the horizon?

Drone 1001a Augmented Reality test. Click to play the video with sound.

Right now this specific work is moving in two distinctly different directions. The physical 3D printed versions of the drone are being used to tell this part of the story through hyperreal miniature landscape dioramas/scenes. The 3D model has been painted, textured and animated, so it can appear digitally in augmented reality. Each direction has its own unique set of concerns and potentials. Together they will help tell a more articulate story that has the potential to spill out into the world around us.

the clues are all around us

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Cellular communication towers, patriot missile batteries, primitive spears and lances, radar dishes, the ostankino tower and nike missiles, antenna of all types. These are a few of the of the very specific things you will see in my landscapes. Everything I include has a purpose and everything relates to the content or the ideas that I hope these places inspire in the viewer. I have been told at times that these ideas are prescient, but how I see it, this is how it has always been and will always be. The feedback loop is the same, the technology is what advances. Is this not what we always desire?

mini card detail

DISTANCE Works on Paper by Skowhegan Alumni includes two machine drawings

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D O R S K Y G A L L E R Y Curatorial Programs is pleased to announce

Distance, curated by Betsy Alwin and Steve Locke

Opening on Sunday, February 17, 2019 from 2:00-5:00 p.m. and remaining on view through April 7, 2019.

Curators Steve Locke and Betsy Alwin organized their exhibition around the concept of distance in dialogue with divisions in the contemporary moment. Solmaz Sharif’s poem “LOOK,” which explores consequences that result from perceptions of difference and distance, served as inspiration for both the curators and the artwork in the show. This led to a very specific conception of social, political and tactile distance, represented by 57 artists from 18 states, 9 countries and a 60 year span of Skowhegan alumni: Kim Abraham, Alejandro Acierto, Lauren Adams, Negar Ahkami, Colleen Asper, Rebecca Baldwin, Keren Benbenisty, Caitlin Berrigan, Suzanne Broughel, Derrick Buisch, Neil Callander, Greg Chann, Sue Collier, Oliver Comerford, Karishma D’Souza, Anthony Craig Drennen, Jesse England, Nicholas Fraser, Baris Gokturk, Rachel Granofsky, Mark Haddon, Russell Hamilton, Katie Herzog, Carol Blaser, Saskia Jorda, Courtney Jordan, Nils Karsten, Becky Kinder, Baxter Koziol, Shaun Leonardo, Anthony Lepore, Cyriaco Lopes, Colin McMullan DBA Emcee C.M., Master of None, Nat Meade, Alex Morris, Helina Metaferia, Nyeema Morgan, Bennett Morris, Ester Partegás, Carol Pepper-Cooper, Bundith Phunsombatlert, Marilyn Propp, Hanneline Røgeberg, Sherrill Roland, Michelle Rosenberg, Annesofie Sandal, Amanda Schoppel, Austin Shull, Molly Springfield, Draga Šušanj, Elizabeth Tubergen, Traci Tullius, Tabitha Vevers, Robert Wechsler, Yoav Weinfeld, and Jane Westrick.

Missile Defenses, Landscape 010

Missile Defenses, Landscape 010

Missile Defenses, Landscape 019

Missile Defenses, Landscape 019

Thanks

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Thanks to everyone who came out to the opening of Machine Vision at The Press Hotel. It was a wonderful crowd filled with friends from all over. I’m especially grateful to have the opportunity to show so many of the drawings in one place. The full breadth of the series is visible with so many of them together. Extra thanks to the staff at the hotel for all of the work they put in to make the opening so special. 

Missile Defenses, Landscape 01x

Missile Defenses, Landscape 01x

New ideas take hold as the old ones try to hang on...

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As each new piece is finished it is hard to not ask myself what is next. For me it’s a natural tendency to want to start or resolve something new. One of the things I do to counter that is to look closely at what I have made for potentially previously unseen variations or experiments within the parameters of the process. Currently I’m continuing the Machine Drawings series, while starting to experiment with some new ideas. The focus of the current drawings is to amplify and expand on some of the nuances or unique qualities of the previous drawings from the series. I’m specifically working with a more narrow color palette to a few quieter landscapes that have more atmosphere. Simultaneously I’m experimenting with translating the drawings into dimensional objects. I’ve started by using the laser cutter to cut out and etch lines into the layers of the drawings. I will be using colored acrylic plastics with varying densities or etched lines on them. It is critical that these pieces take on not just the photographic qualities of the drawings, but also some of the interactions between line and shape. I’m not exactly sure where this will lead or what the final piece(s) will be. Possibly some kind of shadow box, infinity space or illuminated diorama…

Studio sketches

Studio sketches

Drawing Machine

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This clip shows one of the large machine drawings in progress. For this drawing I’m using the full size CNC to make a drawing that is 39 x 50 inches. Moving up to this scale from the smaller CNC has revealed some unique phenomenon. Not only does it take considerably longer to finish, upwards of 150-200 hrs, but there are also many unique marks that are only revealed at this scale. The resulting drawing, because of it’s large scale, becomes more immersive to the viewer. It also reads well from further away and makes more use of the perceived colors created by the overlapping horizontal lines. Stop by The Press Hotel to see this drawing and more in the real. @thepresshotel #machinevision

MACHINE VISION

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As technologies escalate and expand surveillance capabilities they dictate how we perceive and act simultaneously. We are witnessing the creation of a post-human vision that incorporates both the visible and invisible spectrums. This interminable vision has given us a false sense of control and institutes a union of the real and the virtual. Our current state of anxiety, insecurity and unease propels us to amplify our pursuit of more expansive autonomous systems that act on the immediacy of both actual and manufactured data. The reality of horror is deferred through the sterile views produced by this technology. Acting as global deterrents, these systems perpetuate an endless feedback loop suggesting the eventual breakdown of control, and ultimately, the decay of information itself.

These drawings are the culmination of a multidisciplinary process and a complex translation of my ideas. I’m using a CNC router as a drawing machine to create  images that blur the boundaries between contemporary technologies, photography and the traditions of drawing. Made entirely out of horizontal lines these intricate landscapes appear digitized and contain glitches and artifacts of the process which clearly reference interlaced video and the aesthetic of surveillance. Revealed within these ruinous worlds are the technologies of surveillance and communications juxtaposed with the weapons and systems related to global conflicts past and present. This visual combination speaks to the tensions between what we find beautiful and what terrifies us.


Missile Defenses, Landscape 013

Missile Defenses, Landscape 013