rubyspatialart

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Not sure where to put this as it is far too long and in-depth for the reflective rationale but I thought it was important to include somewhere.

Working within a team on this project has been challenging.

In the beginning stages we set out who would tackle each part of the project. Emma said she wasn't too capable in photoshop or sketch up and was happy to be more responsible for the written part of the project toward the end.

With Emma being absent for a few classes and brainstorming sessions, Louella and I slowly took full responsibility of the material experiments and research in the early and mid part of the project, with Emma only retrospectively making and sharing material experiments with us later in the project.

Louella and I have shared other classes together and it has been easy to work alongside her. each week we established what we needed to work on, went away and worked on it, and then meet back up and continued to iterate our findings and thoughts about the project.

When it came to the end of the project and Emma started drafting the written aspects of the work, since she had minimal input in the work as it progressed and therefore was pretty disconnected with what we were thinking, the rationale and other powerpoint aspects weren't really aligning with our revised/iterated intentions of the work. Confusion and discrepancies in research and intentions of the work, and even just plainly badly written parts, led to a fair few rewrites and edits by Louella and I which lead to an unfair weighting of work for each of us compared with Emma.

It would be easy to say "this problem could have been solved if Emma was a better project partner" - and although it may well have been better if Emma was able to be more involved in the early parts of the project - the result could have possibly been improved if Louella and I were able to more fluently explain our experiments and findings to Emma before she commenced writing.

In hindsight, it would have been beneficial to more forcefully make sure Emma is included in the earlier parts of the project, and establish less heavily weighted "first half" and "second half" tasks for everyone.

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from this point forward we solely used the google doc to discuss ideas and experiments and work on the written aspects!

link to doc again :)

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Week 11

After attending class this week, Emma, Louella and I went back to Site 3 with our cyanotypes and natural dye experiments. We took some photos and videos of us holding the material up against the bridge and trees (without fixing it to them).

We've decided to go ahead with the cyanotyped and naturally dyed calico as our main component / module which would be duplicated and scaled up for the final installation in site.

I applied and developed the cyanotype solution to two more 3 metre pieces of calico - reusing the cuttings of native plants (Bottlebrush, Wattle, Corymbia, and Eucalypts such as ironbark and grey gum, spotted gum and bloodwood) I sourced from my parents property with the intention of using planned cuttings and fallen flora from Barrambin for the final project.

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Mid-Semester break + Week 10

We decided to do some further research on artists and do some experiments over the break and re-converge our ideas and thoughts in week 10.

The google document we set up to share ideas

After researching and experimenting over the break Louella, Emma and I met up at the studio and had another brainstorm and decided to go forward with the sails ideas, possibly mark making onto them as well as dyeing? Lou said she'd try out the natural dyes and I said I'd go ahead and try out the cyanotype on some calico instead of paper this week. Emma said she'd start looking into the Eco-material aspect of project.

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Week 9 - After in class presentation

This week Louella and I presented our ideas to the class as Emma wasn't able to make it because of work, but she volunteered to make the powerpoint for us.

We got some feedback on the use of noise - a classmate mentioned First Nations instruments using shells from their hometown Cairns we could further research - but wasn't sure if that would be applicable to our work.

After the presentation we experimented with aluminium cans, and different ways we could use noise - (PVC and metal pipes, rain sticks?, etc)

We decided that we wanted to possible move away from the cans and explore other materials we could use.

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This week Louella, Emma and I went down to our site (Site 3) and had a brainstorming session of what our ideas were and how we wanted to approach this work.

We decided we wanted to incorporate the bridge, recycled materials like cans, and create significant native flora from the area, and possibly incorporate sound of the materials being interacted with by the wind/water.

We took some photos and drew some sketches of our ideas (I compiled all our sketches together onto one page)

I then had the task of working on a photoshop sketch to visualise our ideas for our presentation.

Some artists Emma found were Fiona Hall and Janet Laurence.

Fiona Hall

An artist who works with recycled metals, as we are intending in our work, Fiona Hall created her series of works, Paradisus Terrestris entitled, from sardine cans. Hall is well known for extraordinarily detailed works that transform everyday materials into “vital organic forms with both historical and contemporary resonances”. Hall works across a broad range of mediums including sculpture, and installation, and her works thematically resonate with issues of environmentalism, conflict, and our consumption of products and resources.

Talking about her series Paradisus Terrestris entitiled:

Paradisus Terrestris entitled is a “series of fifteen sardine cans, transformed from the mundane detritus of contemporary consumption into refined aesthetic objects. The wound-down top of each tin reveals a human erogenous zone or body-part. Sprouting above these are botanically correct representations of native flora – suggestive equivalents of the anatomical details below. While these suggestive associations are often visual puns, Hall also uses the juxtaposition of the human body and native flora to imply a collision between Culture and Nature. Each component of the work bears three titles: the local Aboriginal plant name specific to the language group indicated in parentheses, the Latin (botanical) name, and the common English name. 

Hall’s inclusion of Aboriginal names (in consultation with indigenous peoples) in conjunction with Latin and common plant names refers to the colonial appropriation of land, and to laying claim to land through language. ‘… Entitled’ refers specifically to concepts of ownership and situates Hall’s virtuoso suite of sardine cans squarely within the discourses of postcolonialism.” 

from the video: MCA Artist’s Voice – Fiona Hall: Force Field, 2008

Discussing her environmental message, Hall says: “it’s one of globalisation and the marginalisation of the environment through land clearance, the spread of urbanisation, and pollution”.

Hall’s works are exceedingly detailed, and about this Hall says: “it’s important to be scientifically accurate, and therefore visually accurate and to pay attention to detail … to be as true to the original as possible, even though [Hall] may be using a material and presenting [it] in a context which is entirely alien to that of the world of science”.

Hall deliberately brings humorous juxtapositions into her works, stating: “somehow, someone can be dealing with very serious matters, but still find a certain amount of wit or humour within the subject matter, and then bring that into the realisation of [the work]. Perhaps the wit is borne out in part by the use of materials, but also in the natural forms”, and the interplay between natural forms and manufactured materials, such as Tupperware or sardine tins.

The surface or look of the work is also important – “being a lure to entice the audience to spend time within the conceptualisation behind the surface” – so there is an “anticipation of audience participation” that comes into play when considering “the final construction and presentation of the work”

Speaking specifically about her ‘sardine can’ works, Paradisus Terrestris entitled, Hall details they were made in response to the newly elected John Howard’s refusal to offer an apology to the stolen generation. The names of the works are prefaced with an indigenous plant name origination from a specific language group. The works are also a comment on consumer packaging – Hall works a lot with recycled materials that bring their own personal histories to the final work.

The sardine cans are a comment on “utilisation of materials from the earth in a way that is now becoming increasingly problematic and forcing us into a more creative solution to overcome that”.

Janet Laurence

Janet Laurence, a multi-disciplinary artist, works thematically with similar issues in her practice - exploring the “interconnection of all living things – animal, plant, mineral – employing diverse materials, to reflect on the “fragility of the natural world, its plight and potential restoration”.

Laurence’s work Cellular Gardens (Where Breathing Begins), is a set of forest tree seedlings, potted up in scientific-looking glassware, all “tubed up together as though they are helping one another”, suggesting both the natural benefits trees brings to one another in a forest, but also it suggests “a medical resorative intervention … to bring an empathy to these specimens using human equipment”. Similar medical apparatus are also bandaged to the fallen tree of Heartshock (After Nature), attempting a restorative process. These works  endeavour to create a deep connection between humans and nature in a “post-natural world”, in which nature needs help to survive.

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Task 9 (Physical): OBJECT+ SITE

Lilla and I were given the eco-materiality term "embodied energy". We initially thought an interesting approach could be to research the embodied energy in each of the materials we could use and create a visual difference in mass to show the difference in energy but we decided this progress of researching may not be applicable to our limited class time - and so we decided to use wire to create a writhing skeletal form around the post in our assigned area and use wet paper to create a outer form to somewhat hide the wire. We left some wire visible to connect with the idea that although you can potentially forget the embodied energy within a material and just take it at face value, the material still has that sprawling innards.

We also decided to incorporate sand and a shoe print to link back with visual connections of a carbon footprint.

After completing the first form, we decided to try out how else we could use this watered down paper, and covered another post without the wire. The effect was quite interesting to compare how the paper took to the pole. I also experimenting with how moulding the paper around leaf litter and twigs would look.

Overall I really liked this work, while we were trying to respond to "embodied energy" we also accidently made something which evokes a figure/body. Visually the work greatly connects with Janine Antoni's rawhide work Saddle.

Some artists I researched this week:

Christo and Jeanne-Claude's Wrapped Reichstag.

The process of wrapping the Reichstag, partially hiding it while also highlighting the contours of the building, connects with our decisions in the task this week.

"Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude had to fight for 23 years to realize this spectacular art action. ... On June 23, 1995, the last heavy sheets of fireproof plastic material were lowered onto the facade of the building. In total, the professional climbers had spread around 100,000 square meters of fabric over the Reichstag building before it was completely cocooned. They tied it up tightly with kilometres long ropes so that the contours of the building were still visible."

From the Wrapped Pont Neuf in Paris to the Wrapped Sydney Opera House, Christo and Jeanne-Claude never disguised their objects beyond recognition. Instead, they aimed to elicit curiosity about what lies within, or what Christo biographer David Bourdon called "revelation through concealment." This is particularly true of the Wrapped Reichstag.

Volz says that every installation is strongly tied to the historical moment in which the exhibition has taken place. "In the case of the Reichstag, that was clearly after reunification. It fitted in perfectly with the philosophy that the project enveloped history and then released it again so that a new history could emerge from it."

https://www.dw.com/en/christos-wrapped-reichstag-a-symbol-of-freedom-25-years-on/a-53928722

Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnels.

Although quite conceptual removed from the task this week, Holt's Sun Tunnels interests me greatly. Her use of inside/outside volume and also the extensive connections with site this work has is inspiring.

As Holt articulated in 1977: “The idea for Sun Tunnels became clear to me while I was in the desert watching the sun rising and setting, keeping the time of the earth. Sun Tunnels can exist only in that particular place—the work evolved out of its site.” Composed of four concrete cylinders that are 18 feet in length and 9 feet in diameter, Sun Tunnels is arranged in an open cross format and aligned to frame the sun on the horizon during the summer and winter solstices. Each tunnel is perforated by a series of holes corresponding to stars in various constellations—Capricorn, Columba, Draco, and Perseus—so that shadows cast by the sun through these small apertures into each tube trace the earth’s rotation. The work centres Holt’s interest in perception and involves a focus on time—sculpting the sun’s light through the interplay of land and sky, and celestial shifts from day to night. https://www.diaart.org/visit/visit-our-locations-sites/nancy-holt-sun-tunnels

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TASK 8 (Virtual) INTERVAL + SITE

This week we were asked to develop a site (Chauvel Place) within SketchUp using a plan of the area and then compose an installation within the space.

After creating the site in SketchUp I played around with different ideas of how I could install something within the site.

I started off experimenting with how I can alter forms and planes, and also experimenting with the materials library.

Although we weren't limited to create something that could be installed in real life, I was inspired when walking over the grass to get to the second year studios to create a work with real world intentions.

These circles imbedded within the grass would be made from a reflective / mirror material that would disrupt the day to day view of the grass as you walk and bring in an unexpected view of the sky and the trees above - hopefully to get you to look and appreciate its beauty.

Use of repetition and interval is unstructured and fluid to further this disruption of the straight edged everyday of this specific site and elevate the fluidity and natural of the above.

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Task 7 (Physical): INTERVAL + REPETITION + SITE

This week our task was: in pairs, produce an installation that explores interval and repetition in a selected area in Chauvel Place.

After some consideration, Louella and I decided to use the repetition in the fence, and disrupt it by hanging these slings filled with variously sized balls of clay.

The juxtaposition between the weight of the two materials was quite interesting to play with! when we were hanging the slings I wasn't sure how many of the clay balls we were going to be able to put in them, but surprisingly the paper held together completely and we were able to stack multiple clay balls in each sling.

Our main idea was taking a site which already contained repetition - but a very stark, linear, inorganic repetition, and complicate and disrupt this by bringing in organic, sling-like, stretching vessels of carefully rounded clay.

I also really liked the effect that the nearly tumbling out balls brought to the work. they feel both soft and cared for but also you can't shake the feeling that they could tumble out at any second.

Some artists I researched this week:

Ernesto Neto and his work Leviathan Thots

I found that Neto's use of organic and round shape, coupled with a stretched fragile appearing material, and the way these organic masses interrupt and complicate the site, connected greatly to our work this week.

"This young artist has a peculiar approach to space and the body. Rio de Janeiro, his native city, epitomizing the conflict between nature and culture, shaped his art. His sculptures often deal with the tensions exerted by gravity on skin-thin materials. His monumental installation will contrast the animality of a tulle-and-polystyrene creature suspended under the dome of the Pantheon, with the weight of History and the cultural layers of this landmark."

"Neto’s work hung from harnesses at various heights and with various shapes, becoming a form of great participatory intensity for the viewer as it excited the senses of touch and sight as well as a spatial feeling of monumentality. At the same time, the organic voluptuousness was notable for its equilibrium expressed in its relationship with the architectural space and the balance between weight and levity."

Walter De Maria and his work Lightning Field

This work by Walter De Maria, with its juxtaposition between rigid interval and organic shape, has a similar connection to our work.

Lightning Field, with its rigidly structured, mathematically precise grid of shining, polished steel rods is imposing an authoritarian, manmade framework on the otherwise expansive landscape. The use of strict interval and repetition has echoes of a military parade or war-games exercise, demonstrating the strength of a mighty power.

But when the sky is dark and threatening a storm, the structure loses its light and almost fades into the background, while the organic shapes of the lightning dominate the landscape. Additionally, as in this photograph, the lightening can take on biomorphic shapes, looming like spectres over the installation.

Such shifting can be seen, for instance, in his best-known and most celebrated work of land art, The Lightning Field, which De Maria completed eleven months after the publication of his untitled work in Vision. Consisting of four hundred pointed stainless-steel poles evenly spaced within a one-mile by one-kilometer grid in the high desert of western New Mexico, The Lightning Field appears in noticeably different dimensions to spectators depending on the intensity and angle of sunlight at the work's site. Under the near-vertical rays of midday light, the edges of the Field dissolve from view, accentuating the linearity of the individual poles most proximate to the viewer. In the raking light of morning and evening, the edges of the Field come back into view, making visible the complete volumetric shape bounded by all four hundred poles. What is more, there is a moment just before the sun disappears above the foothills at sunset in which the sharpened tip atop each pole begins to glow, rendering the appearance of the entire Lightning Field as a flat plane defined by hundreds of distinct points. Thus, over the course of a day, The Lightning Field can be apprehended through points, lines, surface, and volume.

De Maria reasonings behind why his work is specifically connected to this site are examined in Jeffrey Kosky’s text:

Is this the dawn of a habitable clearing or its twilight? The Pueblo peoples of the surrounding land, which include most notably the Zuni and the Hopi, are also sensitive to this ambiguity. They identify many places in this region as sites where their ancestors crawled from the caves and depths of the earth in which they had been made and emerged onto the earth’s surface, where they breathed air under the sky—and equally many places as sites where one can make the reverse passage, out of this world and into the other. As De Maria’s title suggests, the steel poles are powerful attractors of lightning strikes in an area that was carefully chosen not only for its isolation and expansive view, but also for the power and energy frequently manifested there in severe climatic effects. Extremes of atmospheric moisture, wind, and temperature are accompanied by heightened electrical activity. Strong winds of thirty to fifty miles an hour are said to blow steadily for days sometimes in the spring; only eleven inches of rain fall each year; thunderstorms can be seen from the field on an average of one in six days throughout the year; and on one out of every ten days a lightning storm passes directly over the field. Though not common, lightning strikes are unusually frequent in the area, charging the experience of being there with the promise of great power, but also with the unmistakable threat of destruction by the very energies that the poles seem to invite.

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/qut/reader.action?docID=1025964&ppg=36

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Task 6 (Virtual): VOLUME + PROPORTION II + SITE

Using sketchUp was a bit tricky at first but very interesting to be able to use and with some practice I think it will be a very useful and fun tool in conceptualising works.

Composition 1

For this task we were asked to make a composition that would be feasible in reality. I firstly started by testing out what I could do with the group and component feature to create a juxtaposition in proportion.

After duplicating and editing the spike forms I worked on how I could further complicate the spikes and decided to have a secondary set of spikes hanging from a ceiling to link to the visuals of stalagmites and stalactites - in this visualisation of the work it is within a room but I think an outdoor installation would be ideal, possibly where the stalactites are hanging from a buildings awning?

Composition 2

With this composition we were asked to create something not feasible in reality. With this one I wanted to see what I could create with the free draw tool.

I mostly focused on the difference in volume proportion I could create and make it seem like this large mass had little pieces broken off. I also played around with different textural effects I could use.

Going into this task I wasn't sure of what I could conceptualise within this program but learning it has opened up a bunch of ideas for future uses.

Artist Research

In this CG work by contemporary Australian artist, David McLeod, the variety of colours, shapes and proportions of the elements engages interest. While the curved surfaces of the geometric elements that initiate the two stacks create a sense of precariousness, the decision to create one stack resting against the other, solidifies the virtual structure. Additionally, the negative volumes, combined with the framed space within the work, create a visual balance, bringing a calming sense of harmony to the design. These decisions, combined with the generation of shadowed and reflective effects, bring a hyper-realistic finish to the CGI, which result in the work looking very convincingly grounded in its space.

reference

Although physical rather than virtual, Barbara Hepworth’s cast bronze sculptures, from The Family of Man series, are similar in design to McLeod’s, consisting of stacked elements with numerous voids and negative spaces, but in Hepworth’s case these abstract forms, “inspired by people and landscape “, sited in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, “provide 'windows' to the landscape beyond”. In these works Hepworth is also concentrating on the “counterplay between mass and space” that occupies McLeod’s CGI works.

reference 1 reference 2

The artist duo, Hande Şekerciler and Arda Yalkın (ha:ar), design their works by hand on a drawing pad, sculpting their figures individually using sculpting software. Textures are created using painting software without the use of readymade textures. Rendering these intricate images, with lighting, environments, and colours, creates depth and delivers a sense of realism to the figures. However, their works, such as Impossible Sculptures No.10, 2019, appear celestial, with no tangible connection to the terrestrial.

reference

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Task 5 (Physical): VOLUME + PROPORTION I + SITE

For this task I wanted to examine the difference in proportion of a volume made up of smaller linear volumes and a tightly compressed mass.

I used wire and clay. First, I cut out lengths of the wire and started spot welding them together to make several flat irregular meshes.

I then got smaller globs of clay and started making smooth biomorphic shapes.

I experimented with various arrangements of the elements, wanting to see how the welded grids created an impression of volume and how the large proportions of the wire structures, although largely negative space and volume, dwarfed the clay elements and gave a feeling of either control or protection of the more solid but smaller clay volumes.

I examined how different sites (natural and man-made places) affected the feeling of the work and how this was also affected by looking through the work from different angles.

Henry Moore talks about how masses of varied sizes work together in a spatial relationship, and how “the very small or the very big take on an added size emotion”. He also talks about how particular forms, convey meaning because of their “associated psychological” connections in our history and “habits of perception”.

In his work, Hill Archer, both of these factors are apparent. The sculpture consists of two arching forms and a central ball, and the proportions of the large, arching forms appear to dwarf the smaller spherical form, although much of the volume of the larger forms is negative void. This creates a tension between solid mass and open void and the shapes of the elements. The small central sphere, arched over by two rather biomorphic shapes, combine to create a feeling of either parental protection or “a darker sense of control and constraint”. Moore also sites many of his works in permanent outdoor locations, stating that his sculpture “looks right and inspiring” when in specific sites.

Russian AK-47 and bullet

Unlike Moore’s work, where proportion is metaphorically suggestive of a human relationship, Studio Drift’s Materialism series uses proportion in a literal sense. The collection of rectangular prisms in each work represents the proportional volumes of various materials used in the production of everyday consumer items such as phones, water bottles and vehicles. These geometric installations, with their elegantly staged forms, “confront the viewer” as they make “a clear statement of how much matter is extracted from the earth in order to fabricate” these consumer products.

Henry Moore ref 1 Henry Moore ref 2

Studio Drift ref 1 Studio Drift ref 2

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Task: 4 (Virtual): PLANE + SITE

I walked around the creative industries precinct to gather images of planar forms and surfaces.

I then went for a walk and took some photos of the property I live on.

after taking the time to cut out all the planar materials I had gathered and putting them into the sites, I ended up really liking the effect of only using the grey bench matieral.

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Task 3 (Physical): PLANE + BALANCE

This week in class we were asked to create a work using only the planar materials cardboard and/or plywood, no other fixings, and consider physical (and visual) balance.

I started off using some plywood off cuts from the previous class, but eventually decided I wanted to try out using the cardboard, specifically to see how I could warp it.

I cut out some tabs and holes in the card and then bent it around to create a cylinder.

I then cut one piece of card almost in half, leaving a piece still attached, and then made each piece into separate cylinders - I wanted to see if the counter balance would keep it standing or not.

It did stand by itself! But I then wanted to incorporate more cylinders to each side to add some visual dimension and see how much further I could push the balance.

The lightweight and bendable properties of the cardboard allowed me to join and intersect various elements in gravity defying ways.

The shadows accentuate the contrast and visual weight which further heights the precariousness of the work.

And consistent of a collection of curved planes, I ended up with a rather biomorphic shape.

Artist research

ref

Planar shapes and biomorphic forms appear in much of Isamu Noguchi’s work, for example his large stone sculpture, Kouros, is constructed using “smooth interlocking flat surfaces, slotted and notched together”. While Noguchi’s work is very different from mine, there are similarities in the works: Noguchi has used similarly natural fixing processes, and while Noguchi’s surfaces remain flat, the curved edges and the inclusion of voids and shapes suggestive of bodily parts, also bring to mind a fragmented and delicately balanced living form. There is also a quality of fineness in some of the connective points within the two works, which brings to both a feeling of tense balance.

ref 1 and ref 2

Finish artist, Miika Nyyssonen, regularly uses cardboard in his sculptures, however he builds his structures up in layers, rather than harnessing the planar face of the material. Nyyssonen’s Gravity and Reconstruction (1995), also utilises biomorphic forms in what visually appears to be a precariously balanced animal skull.  As the title suggests, the layered, cantilevered, and elongated structure allows the work to investigate literal and visual balance and how far a sculpture can push physical boundaries.

ref 1 ref 2 and ref 3

Phillip King’s Dunstable Reel also has qualities similar to my work. Although large in scale and constructed of brightly coloured abstract planes and arcs of welded steel, the gently curved planar surfaces interact with each other in a delicate, “gesturing” manner, creating a “playful vitality”. This, along with the work’s title with its reference to dance, reveal the work’s biomorphic style.

The way some of the planes meet the ground on very fine, single points and “remain so effortlessly up in the air” seems to both defy gravity and to confound a “viewer’s expectations as to what is possible or reasonable in sculpture”, especially one made from such industrial materials and processes. From the documented images, the work could be seen as “a collection of coloured paper cutouts”. Inspired by this connection to the materials of my work, I would love in the future to inverse this idea and fabricate a scaled-up version of my planar study in welded sheet steel, to be situated out in a paddock.

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Task 2 (Virtual): LINE + SITE

as an outside of class activity we were asked to use Photoshop and produce a visualisation of a linear installation work that incorporates elements of works from another artist.

I choose to use some of Urs Fischer's works.

I then went ahead and photographed a site in the area outside the workshops and Z12.

then using photoshop I incorporated parts of each of the photos I sourced of Fischer's work and installed some blue and orange tendrils weaving amongst the trees - making new lines and shapes out of the original ones from the images of Fischer's work.

Making this digital task was interesting! looking back I definitely could have been much more adventurous with the site and work I picked, and I will definitely try to be for the next digital work, but for this one I really wanted to connect the visual elements of the tree branches and these tendrils of Fischer’s work. The movement of the tendrils within and around the trees feels both soft/lethargic and fast/electrifying at the same time which I found quite appealing.  

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Task 1 (Physical): LINE + DIRECTION

this week in class we were given the instructions to produce a spatial work that explores line and direction (movement).

Making this work I wanted to experiment with the juxtaposition between straight/angular and flowing/organic lines and the difference in movement which can be created.

I used three pieces of wire and started by making each of them have organic swirling shapes at one end of the wire and left a straight end at the other.

I joined each of them together at the straight end with the spot welder and bent the organic shaped ends to create a sort of ‘feet’-like base.

I then decided to bend the top side of the wire into a straight angular corner to incorporate some string along the straight horizontal edge.

When attaching the string I used a progression of small pieces to much longer pieces which created a similar juxtaposition between straight/organic because the short string would stand rigid, and the long string would move flowingly downward.

I found it very difficult to photograph this work with all its intricacies on a busy background so I have also included some photos I took in the Z12 studio just for clear documentation sake.

It was interesting to create an interpretation of movement without a literal object/representation – but rather using the perceived difference in linear movement created by the process and materials used.

Using the spot welder brought a whole new ability to using wire for me, being able to join the wire together at interesting angles opens up an exciting new process to use when working with metal/wire.

After working on this piece and taking a step back to view it / photograph it I found the ways that these lines started to blend and meld together, especially when the shadows are hardly discernible from the wire itself at a distance, quite interesting! Two lines which are in reality quite far from each other seem to touch and join and make a shape in themselves / the negative space.

Some artists I found inspiring and that worked in similar ways to do with linearity were David Smith and Eva Rothschild. After seeing David Smith’s Agricola IX (1952) in the lecture this week, I researched Smith further and found similarities between his work Star Cage (1950) and my intentions for Task 1. 

The welded steel structure of Star Cage incorporates sharply angled linear elements, also joined at odd angles, and yet the work appears organic – effortlessly leading the viewer’s eye through the linear arrangement. In a similar fashion to mine, Smith’s work does not have a clear frontal view, and the viewer, encouraged to walk around the sculpture, is met with shifting patterns of positive and negative space, in a seemingly “unstable dynamism”. In an outdoor installation, these spaces reveal their setting within and through the artwork, strongly connecting them to the site.

Similarly, I found Eva Rothschild’s work doing further researching after seeing her work Ohhh yeah! and Knock Knock in lecture this week. I especially found her 2009 work Little Ghost relevant to my practice. The churning movement which is created by the tangled tubular forms and the depth created through use of subtle colour, drawing the viewer into the work, is intriguing and affective.  The simple, abstract lines, folding and refolding, moving through a three-dimensional space “echo forms found throughout her work”.

I find it significant that Rothschild hangs this work from the ceiling, rather than positions it on the floor. While this practice of “exploiting sometimes ignored areas of the gallery space” is a recurrent element in Rothschild’s practice, I feel this decision implies a suggestion of unattainability, cerebral content, or a higher purpose.

Rothschild sees herself as a “material-based sculptor” and as such thinks about a material’s “properties, possibilities and longevity”.  Rothschild addresses this concern by casting in “transient” materials, to “make something explicit about the contradictions between the idea of the disposable and the material reality of these objects”. This purposeful use of materials created specifically to be disposed of, in order to highlight their environmental impact, is also an element of Rothschild’s practice that inspires me.