Dirty Digital: A Bridging the
Gap experiment
Background
I have kindly been invited by sculptor and reader in Fine
Art at Loughborough University,
John Atkin to participate in the Bridging the Gap project; a research endeavour that seeks to unite the expertise and creative ideas of a diverse range of disciplines at the university.
John Atkin to participate in the Bridging the Gap project; a research endeavour that seeks to unite the expertise and creative ideas of a diverse range of disciplines at the university.
The Interdisciplinary Design Team (IDT), that includes
staff from fine art, design and technology, manufacturing engineering,
chemistry, material science and other departments are
trying to address how strategies may be designed to bridge the gaps between
accepted norms of research culture. In so doing, they seek to address how
research in one specialist research department can have a sustained impact on a
separate department? And amongst other questions, how can this feed the
grassroots culture of learning & teaching and foster a synthesised approach
to the Arts & Sciences?
The research is funded by the EPSRC to support people-based activities centred on novel approaches
to cross-disciplinary interaction and collaboration.
Aims
The aim of my Dirty Digital project is to explore
the sculptural interface between the digital and analogue, and to ascertain the
consequences of repeatedly passing geometry from one realm to another. This
will naturally entail a multi-disciplinary approach uniting areas including
ceramics, fine art, animation, design and technology, manufacturing engineering
and if viable, chemistry and material science.
A secondary aim is to undermine the tendency of virtually
generated form to be slick and what might be described as ‘perfect’: in other
words, to get some digital dirt under the fingernails.
Stage One – A starting point
To make a series of almost anti-sculptures with ‘undefined’
geometry, or at least, geometry that in its production has not been subject to
excessive control, subject instead to the whims of chance and happenstance. The
intent is to apply the sculptural equivalent of the lead guitarist’s distortion
pedal; with a good starting point being the unctuous joys of expanding foam.
Splodge art to digital
Produced
in a series of ‘squirts’, each form has been built up sequentially, playing
with and distorting the viscous foam as its skin sets, at which point it can be
manipulated into geometry that moves in 3D space. The latter being a possibility
not open when first squirted onto the ground. Pouring water from a height and
hand slapping being further means of distorting the setting foam.
Splurge function not available in Maya
Next Stage
1: Studies splattered in wax or plaster, with casual surface
definition.
2. Studies composed from layers of plywood (itself made up
of strata – thus visually linked to layered RP production).
For more information on the activites of the Bridging the Gap team see:
www.facebook.com/
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