_perth institute of contemporary art, 2014
_southern cross university, 2013
Concerns revolving around data loss and the loss &/or compression of quality for the human sensorium (ie smell, taste, touch, hearing, sight), were instigators in the development ‘senseless‘. Nostalgic memory and emotions are stimulated by the senses…and digital technology does little to stimulate the senses other than offering a simulation of what was. It offers nothing to the primary senses of touch and smell, and more often than not offers a steralised &/or compressed version of sight and sound.
Referencing the data books of the ‘f-book’ series, only the separated facial sensory organs of foundling_Ø_002 are portrayed. Layered over 6 printing runs, the images moved from being embedded with digital code, to the data being erased via the addition of a white digital ground. This process, along with the final incorporation of a subtle wood-grained texture, references the traditional notion of erasure or information (data) loss over time. But this form of data loss is actually the addition of nostalgic information pertaining to the life of the object as seen in the objects patina, and not a loss in quality or sensory triggers that is inherit in digital data loss or compression.
_process
please note…as the Golden digital ground or InkAid pre coats are not stable when layering prints, it is imperative to seal of each printed layer with a (good quality) picture varnish before reapplying your Golden digital grounds or InkAid pre coats. The white matte pre coat (Golden or InkAid) is stable but becomes semi-transparent when layered with another ground or water.
A companion series to the themes in ‘senseless’ and also ‘pi’, the foundlings in ‘forced’, comment upon my methodological process and provide another take on data compression &/or loss. Technically executed similar to ‘senseless’, in aiming to instill a patina of process and creation, coupled with the compression of information that occurs in the translation of the analog to the digital, only the structure of the digital pixel is available for this translation to occur…a forcing of information into this small non-existent medium, in where the foundlings now view the world only via this small square window, while all the other data/information {the patina of creating & process, their cropped facial features, their clothing and background} is presented on differing textural layers and remain lost &/or discarded around the vessel which is the digital pixel.
_process
please note…as the Golden digital ground or InkAid pre coats are not stable when layering prints, it is imperative to seal of each printed layer with a (good quality) picture varnish before reapplying your Golden digital grounds or InkAid pre coats. The white matte pre coat (Golden or InkAid) is stable but becomes semi-transparent when layered with another ground or water.
Mirroring and providing a literal translation of the disembodiment of the body and head (mind) of the ‘AM_N boxes’, the foundlings in ‘disembodiment’ have further explored the notion via the dramatic use of chiaroscuro &/or erasure of information to highlight the separation of either the mind or the body from each other. The encompassing use of black with subtle to strong variations in density and patina (matte to gloss…sorry hard to capture photographically) fills the darkened void of the removed entity (face, body or background), which is comprised of the digital code of that image for (possible) future re-embodiment (i.e. it is possible to enter the code and re-create the image). Focusing my use of the white matte digital ground on the separated face or body provides the emersion of the foundling (i.e. the flat matte finish sinks back into the page visually) as they confront the viewer in seeking to be re-membered.
Built up over 8 layers, the notion of re-storying the images via erasure and by addition (reprinting the same image over and over) resembles the process of memory itself, in where we do not remember our initial memory of something, but create a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory of a memory…all of which once again counters the static memory of the digital.
_process
please note…as the Golden digital ground or InkAid pre coats are not stable when layering prints, it is imperative to seal of each printed layer with a (good quality) picture varnish before reapplying your Golden digital grounds or InkAid pre coats. The white matte pre coat (Golden or InkAid) is stable but becomes semi-transparent when layered with another ground or water.
Seeking to evoke the inscription of the digital medium by hand creating pixelated face sections of the selected foundlings, I discovered that you can access the code of an image by opening the image into ‘TextEdit’ (Apple’s text editing program). The quantity of data generated for each image (An average A4 image @ 300ppi generates approx. 500pg pdf file as a jpeg, a tiff approx. 15,000pg) coupled with the pixelated face of the unidentified foundlings, indirectly alludes to the social concern with data collection (Eg. “FaceBook inadvertently exposed the private information of 6 million users when Facebook’s previously unknown shadow profiles accidentally merged with user accounts in data history record requests” zdnet, 23-6-13).
Comprising in total 10 individual foundlings with 36 books per foundling, the intensive process of hand binding the books became a process of metaphor in binding the past to the present. By the code of the image becoming ‘in-the-visible’, which in theory could be inputted into a computer and encoded to produce the whole image, the books, presented in handmade wooden data files, develop the notion of being a future hand crafted digital archive. Thus it paradoxically raises the question, what will the future archive look like (personal or national) if their isn’t an object &/or will we be able to read or understand it (eg digital storage devices…I personally own floppy discs that I cannot retrieve the data from).
The metaphoric extension of the binding thread could either allude to the notions that hair continues to grow after we die; the interconnected network of the digital environment; or McNeil’s cobwebbed studio. During installation (please refer below or to ‘traces’ & ‘hatched 2014’ installations) sets of books will be available for viewers to reconstruct as images by trial and error, which encompasses notion of play and discovery (ie akin to childhoodism), or via the x-y axis coding system on the back of each book. Viewing the work in this way, the resulting installation aims to play upon the notion of them being, yes an archive of the future, but an interactive, hands on accessible archive…
_naming protocol
example…
_process
_installation
kurtis adamson 