For more animations visit www.eatmydata.co.uk
Produced at IAMAS, Japan
The
core idea
is to create a series of independent animated mobile stories
that reflect on how the individual has become increasingly
isolated from physical interactions in an android networked
and gadget orientated lifestyle. The individual is represented
by a fat man, a minimal representation of the human form free
from characterisation and self determination. Its ability
to operate, or do more than signify human form is activated
through a consumer product.
These
objects are trapped by their own internal logic and a database
of actions. They are simple vignettes unable to relate to
anything other than themselves. Consumer products, such as
phones, computers and televisions set reinforce the isolation
and offer the means for the object to re-combine and loop
through its own history.
The drawings
would describe mechanically driven movements based on the
rituals of everyday life. The visual treatment and programming
reflects the mechanistic nature of routines controlled by
time, queues and levers.
The drawings
are constructed from simple black and white lines based on
the visual language that I have developed over the last two
years, see http://www.eatmydata.co.uk
for examples of previous work. The minimal visual style has
been developed by the medium, computers can produce exquisite
clinical lines not possible on paper but the style also contrasts
the excess of visual imagery within contemporary culture.
Development
of my practice
From October 6 to December 6 I was in residence on a European
Media Artist Residency (EMARE) at Werkleitz Gesellschaft,
Tornitz, Germany. This residency enabled me not only to produce
http://www.emptydays.co.uk
but due to their extensive video library I was able to contextualise
my practice within the history of experimental film. Two artists
influenced my thinking on the development of movement beyond
the cinema. The first was Robert Breer's mutascopes, these
are small kinetic sculptures similar in design to roladexes
with cards fixed to an axis and stuck to a base. He was making
these at the same time as Len Lye and Nam June Paik were also
experimenting with the presentation of persistence of vision
as independent objects. The second was Moholy-Nagy. I visited
the bauhaus archives in Berlin and was fascinated by Moholy-Nagy's
kinetic sculptures. Both artists are concerned with composition
through time and explore the use of repetitive cycles and
re-combinative loops as public sculpture.
By developing
my work for PDAs it extends this tradition of the film makers'
desire to move beyond the theatre and explore the idea of
movement within a public space. The cinema dictates a linearity
to a seated audience full of expectations. Audiences in public
spaces are more ephemeral and their gaze wonders around the
environment. This is a different expectation to the focused
attention of theatre goers. In a public space a three minute
narrative would be lost or maybe glimpsed by only a few whereas
a repetitive series of loops would reflect the nature of a
wondering gaze.
Giving
the animated objects a physical form is an important part
of the project. Instead of taking away the screen, it’s
about making it very present. Instead of encouraging the viewer
to suspend disbelief, it’s about showing the monitor
as a physical object, which like other objects in galleries
and museums plays a role in transmitting ideas and values.
The single
large projection makes the statement "this is important
and you must concentrate on this series of events and in this
order". By screening the animations on small screens
inside their own technological border, that of the PDA, and
within a body of work the statement reduces the importance
of each object. It is just one of many. The whole statement
cannot be trapped within one person's field of vision or comprehended
as a single object. There have been many films that have dealt
with split screen narratives, most notably rybcinski's new
book where nine cameras fixed at different geographical points
track the progress of a book as it passes between different
characters. But it still follows a linear narrative within
the same picture frame. i would like to experiment with presenting
movies as independent objects that can only be linked through
visual association, by the audience scanning the wall and
determining their own order of events. The objects would be
presented in their own device, that is the viewer will be
able to see that the work is being screened on a small computer
which will reinforce the individuality of the objects.
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