google docs

i'm not totally sold on google documents. i think it's useful if you've already got a document that you want to share or are working on with a group. using this service to create a document from scratch seems beside the point unless you're doing something simple. (here's an old file to illustrate) at the moment google docs feels like it's technology for technology's sake. just because you can update something doesn't always mean that it's going to be better or have more functionality, or that something else doesn't do the job just as well.

23 things - fredbaby

i've put a photo of my cat fredbaby on the wiki and mentioned him in an earlier post, but here are a couple of other photos i like. the first is of fred and one of my scottish cousins, jill at mum and dad's, where fredbaby now resides.

you tube

reading rainbow "at the library"



after having a look around, i settled on this animation. it's from a kid's show 'reading rainbow'. it's really far more about the joys of reading and the places books can take you, than it is about libraries. most you tube postings mentioning libraries are either excerpts from television shows (very good muppet show one and i love the one with cookie monster) or are introductions to library services.

love is all



this one used to scare me when i was a kid, but i was also fascinated by it. it was something that the abc used to play between shows. love is all, by roger glover (and the butterfly ball) i could have the details wrong, but this is what it said on the you tube page.

further google investigation reveals roger glover was in deep purple. 'the butterfly ball' is the name of the album. 'love is all' is the name of the song. find more biographical details here

google maps

here's the empire state building


View Larger Map

and a map of venice


View Larger Map

i love the abstraction of looking at maps from a distance.

final studio piece

a couple of images of my final studio piece.

23 things catch up: rss feeds, igoogle and other things

I’ve used both bloglines and google reader to subscribe to some feeds. I've also subscribed to a couple of 23 things blogs. Until now, I’ve always tended to use bookmarks and go to a site directly. the trick seems to be not subscribing to too many things.

I've had a personalised page with igoogle for a while now. After subscribing to google reader I put a gadget for it on the page. I also have a clock, weather for melbourne, glasgow and new york, and headlines from the age, ny times and the bbc on the page. i know i don't really need the clock, but it looks good. last but not least, I have a box for my gmail account.

Podcasting...

Recently I obtained an ipod, so I’ve been keeping an eye out for sites that offer podcasting. Thanks to Kim’s blog entry, I’ve also discovered the ABC’s range of vodcasting. Enough Rope and the cook and the chef have been subscribed to. Also, podcasts from radio national; late night live and Exhibit A have gotten a guernsey in itunes. I downloaded the 2 episodes of not quite art that i missed and watched them. The range of material aunty offers online is remarkable, especially material from Radio National

MOMA or the Museum of Modern Art in New York has a range of seminars and lectures available for podcasting. If you’re going to New York, you can download gallery tours for specific current exhibitions.

Alternatively, have a look at available museum podcasts here

grad show exhibition invitation

Please come to my grad show opening! it would be great to see you there! details are on the invitation, but also as follows:

Eckersley's open space gallery
97 Franklin Street (between Swanston and Elizabeth Streets)
Melbourne

Opening: Thursday 15th November
Time: 6pm - 8pm

This should be a great show. Everybody's been doing some fabulous work.

23 things - catch up time

I have been leaving a few comments here and there on other blogs.
I've signed up to library thing. my list is here. a bit short at the moment, but it could grow. my grandfather used to keep a record of all the books he read. he also used to make a couple of notes about the book; what it was about and what he thought of it. every now and then i've wondered about making a list of all the books i have at home. this could help. it's also a way of keeping track of books i've read. it's a matter of whether or not i want to spend the $10 or $25 US dollars (i presume) and if i felt like spending the time on it. at the moment it seems like an optional extra.

23 things - image generators

I haven’t been too enthused with the image generators.

I liked the idea of adding text to bob dylan’s subterranean homesick blues, but I couldn’t think of something witty or ironic to say. Maybe I should have said “check out the guy at the end of the clip, it’s allen ginsberg.”

I found a site where you can create your own mondrian ‘painting’.

However I’ve decided to go with a site that I came across a couple of years ago. This site helps you write your own artist statement, something that I need to do for one of my subjects at uni. Perhaps I could use the following.

Work of Post-Art in the Age of Artificial Reproduction

The flux creates, the chaos permeates. In the synaptic artifice, art objects are calculations of the iterations of the flux -- a flux that uses the chaos as a zeitgeist to deconstruct ideas, patterns, and emotions. With the synergy of the electronic environment, the flux is conceiving a point where it will be free from the chaos to realize immersions into the machinations of the delphic artifice. Work of Post-Art in the Age of Artificial Reproduction contains 10 minimal java engines (also refered to as "clipper chips") that enable the user to make material audio/visual compositions.

measuring chains, constructing realities
putting into place forms
a matrix of illusion and disillusion
a strange attracting force
so that a seduced reality will be able to spontaneously feed on it

---

jo gillespie's work investigates the nuances of pixels through the use of slow motion and close-ups which emphasize the Artificial nature of digital media. gillespie explores abstract and kinetic scenery as motifs to describe the idea of infinite artifice. Using aesthetic loops, non-linear narratives, and allegorical images as patterns, gillespie creates meditative environments which suggest the expansion of space...

generate your own artist statement here

more wall piece progress

acrylic and projection on wall. 2007

More on the latest piece. The start of it is here. The colour is closer to the real thing in the image above, than in the earlier post. I've now traced around the projection with white pencil.

art quote of the day

Work is self-expression. We must not think of self expression as something we may do or something we may not do. Self-expression is inevitable. In your work, in the way that you do your work and in the results of your work your self is expressed. Behind and before self expression is a developing awareness in the mind that effects the work. This developing awareness I will also call "the work": There is the work in our minds, the work in our hands and the work as a result.

Agnes Martin

Martin, Agnes 1992, 'On the perfection underlying life', in Writings, Winterthur, Kunstmuseum Winterthur

This is something I read in first year at Uni, (nearly three years ago) and have been coming back to ever since. It resonates for me and says a lot about process. Agnes Martin's writing on art is philosophical, often meditative and of a more mystical leaning, rather than being academic.

The essay was written with specific application to art, however it's interesting to think of these words in relation to 23 things and the discussion revolving around Tom and Dana's observations on anonymous blogging. The self will be expressed, even though no name is attached.

You can see some of Agnes Martin's work here and here.

If you're in Melbourne, go along to the NGV International and see the Guggenheim Collection. There are a couple of excellent Agnes Martin's there, though the position they have been hung in is flawed. The glass used in the framing picks up the colours of the painting hung diagonally opposite, and interferes with the works. It's on until 7th October.

more wall documentation

This has been painted over now with orange and blue paint. Cadmium orange on the right and ultramarine blue on the left, mixed with a bit of white. I bought three pencils on Friday, produced by three different manufacturers, all labeled ultramarine and the colour was different for all of them. one was substantially darker. The same observation can be made when buying paint.

I still have ongoing issues with documentation. the image above looks good when opened into the larger format, but here it looks average.

I have signed up with flickr and joined the painting group, though I haven't added any images to the group yet.

ahoy me hearties

avast ye land lubbers! arrr! today be "international talk like a pirate day" in today's honour me blog entry be wrrritten in pirrate speak. maybe you'll find some trrrreasure buried deep in t' pages o' me blog!

trrranslate your pages heeerrre me hearties.

or heeerrre

here be pictures o' some pirates...

picture was found buried heeerrre
X marks t' spot forrr this picturrre


this picture was found buried heerrre

23 things: part the first

This is my first Swinburne 23 things post. 23 things is a program designed to facilitate learning about web technologies,especially those being used by students just entering uni. I look at some of the technologies that the sessions explore (flickr, blogs, i have an i google page, google maps), but haven't actively used or created pages for things like flickr until now. It should be fun and also useful. I have a two-fold interest in learning about all of these things: (perhaps even threefold) firstly, it will be good for work, secondly, it will be good in terms of exploring art and how I can use web technologies with my art and thirdly, it will be fun. For example, did you know that the following people have myspace pages?
Mia Dyson
Gillian Welch
Neil Young

I can also use it for a bit of promotion...
find out about the RMIT 3rd year painting students art auction on Wed 19th September at the Lounge here

pearly lines

wall piece 4 (detail)
pencil and acrylic on wall, 2007
297mm x 420mm (A3 size or thereabouts)

this piece sits in the middle of the corridor wall at uni (not swinburne). I used an iridescent pearl paint, by golden paints. this year i have started to use some of the acrylic paints that golden produce. the paint goes a long way, even when mixed with other colours because it has more pigment in it. it does cost a little bit more too.

With artists materials, i guess you do end up paying for quality. it's a choice that has implications not only for the immediate presentation of the work but for the future. Buying a decent blue paint now means that it hasn't faded in 5 years time. i like buying good paper. a good piece of paper can transform a piece of art. a bad piece of paper can make work look slapdash and awful. it's also a question of what one can afford too, though i am increasingly choosing to go with quality over the price. It's a good thing i haven't had to pay for the wall!

a work in progress

acrylic and pencil on wall. dimensions variable. This is the first part of a piece of work. the colour should look a bit more orange, with the pencil drawn out in red and green. the next step is to paint the wall blue. it would have been done a couple of weeks ago, excepting the cold i managed to contract, which morphed into flu and a frustrating ear infection.

process

putting a piece on the wall takes time and involves certain steps.

1. using a map as a basis, i paint a line with acrylic on an A5 size piece of paper. i do around 50 of these at a time. red mark is an example of one of these small paintings.
2. next i photocopy the image on to an overhead transparency, enlarging it to A4 size. i'll also enlarge the image, photocopying it onto A3 sized paper. this means that i can trace the image off and make works on paper too.
3. with the transparency, i then project the mark on to the wall. with some i took photos of the projection, and that's the work. with other pieces, i then trace around the projection, making marks and lines on the wall. on a bigger, longer corridor wall, i select different overheads and the piece builds and morphs down the wall.

wall piece three detail #2

from the archive part 3

digital image, 2007
from the photo in 'from the archive part 2' and altered with photoshop.

wall work musings

wall piece #3 detail 2007, pencil on wall

one of the issues i am having to deal with in working on the wall surrounds documentation. the last three pieces i have done on the wall have been in pencil, using a thin line. the work is discreet and subtle. standing at one end of the wall (it's at least 8 metres long, if not more) i am unable to see the work at the other end of the wall. the work becomes experiential. but it also raises a big question, how do i document the work. photos i have taken illustrate the problem. if the work is hard for the eye to see, how difficult will it be for a camera?

the above photo is of the most recent wall work. i've found that i need to take photos of details and sections. even then, with the position of the corridor i'm working in, taking a decent photo is tricky. i need to think about a couple of things, firstly the lighting, and secondly, it might be good for me to talk to someone who knows a bit more about photography. i'm not happy with the photos i'm taking at the moment.

the other reason documentation is important is because the work is temporary and site specific. a photograph will be the only means by which some people get to see the artwork. it will also end up being the only record i have of the work, so it's improtant to work some of this stuff out now.

wall piece #3 part one

pencil on wall, detail August 2007
a very small section of line, part of a whole, drawn on the wall.

from the archive part 2

photograph, 2006

A set of wire boxes i built, stacked together then photographed. The photo was taken on my Canon eos 300 after i got my act together and replaced the battery. the digital slr is on my wish list.

documentation

red pencil on tracing paper on paper 2007 (detail)

fredbaby

hmm. a somewhat self-indulgent post, i'll admit.

from the archive part 1

acrylic on paper, detail 2006

moma and richard serra

MOMA is having a retrospective for the sculptor, richard serra and has put together a nice little page for the occasion.

i do appreciate it when major galleries make their collections available online. (the moma's is here.)
there's no substitute for seeing the real thing though. the subtleties and texture of most artworks can't be captured in a photo. i had no idea of what the surface of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was like until i saw it on the gallery wall, yet it is one of the key paintings of the 20th century. i like to be able to look at a painting and see the brushstrokes.

projection

Wall projection April 2007

red mark

acrylic on paper

wall piece (detail001)

red pencil on wall, May / June 2007

one has to start somewhere

...and I'm starting here. (the beginning, a very good place to begin.)

more to follow.