January 10, 2010
Decode: Digital Design Sensations
The origins of the V&A lie in a collection of artifacts, the purpose of which was to inspire ideas and to be used as models to be copied by aspiring designers and artists, and that pretty much is how I use the V&A and would recommend others to use it. It is not, as it is sometimes thought to be, an art gallery.
I think this statement goes some way to explain the disappointment that some have felt about Decode. If you are looking for the art gallery experience then you will not find it in this show. What you will find is inspiration and something worth copying as a starting point for your own explorations.
This is the beginning, and just the beginning, of something that could be very exciting and may even become art, or in ten years time it may have sunk without trace. There are lots of experiences to be had at this show, randomly created computer images, experiences generated by the web and displayed in novel form for you, and lovely things that you can interact with, or at least get the feeling you can interact with.
None are subtle, finessed or beautiful and this I believe is due to the physical nature of the digital media. I am thinking of the infrastructure, cables, screens, server farms and disc drives as opposed to a few hairs of a sable brush. At this stage of its development, only interesting things can evolve; it will be much later on when beautiful things can be made. When that is possible, artists will emerge who can manipulate the medium at their will.
Due to the current state of development it is not really possible to single out the individuals involved and make sensible comments about their work, so I am going to confine myself to talking about the things that I thought ‘worked best’.
Mehmet Akten Body Paint
This is painting without getting messy or having to wash your brushes; moving in front of the wall - which is in fact your canvas - makes painting happen. The way you move, the direction, speed, distance of your body, your limbs or just your hands, creates different colours and paint effects.
What is it? Well, it isn’t painting, digital or otherwise, but it is a lot of fun, especially when more than one person uses it at the same time. Here again, without getting messy, you can hurl paint at the other person, so there is great interaction.
Hege Aaby and Matt Rice –Dandelion
Sennep, (Hege Aaby and Matt Rice) joined with Yoke (Jakob Mandøe, Jesper Harding, Lars Jessen and Steffen Winther) to produce this piece which in my view was one of the more elegant and well rounded works in the show.
The idea is a fun one in itself – blow the seeds away with a hair dryer – the hair dryer is a physical thing you can pick up and wave around – and watch them scatter on the screen in front of you.
It reminds me of a game we played as children, blowing away the seeds to see what time it was, which was before kids had timepieces, analog or digital.
Troika - Digital Zoetrope
This is a ‘zoetrope’ (digital) commissioned by ‘onedotzero’ and that in itself needs some explanation. Onedotzero is (and I quote) ‘a contemporary, digital arts organisation with a remit to promote innovation across all forms of moving image and motion arts’ (everything ‘committed’ and ‘passionate’).
And a Zoetrope (and I have to quote again, and this time from Wikipedia) is "a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures. The term zoetrope is from the Greek words zoe, ‘life’, and tropos, ‘turn’. It may be taken to mean ‘wheel of life'". You know those things that when you spin them, and look through a slit, give the illusion of still images moving? They work rather well.
The commission was a work on the theme of city states. The thought being that life is lived at different speeds, and by influencing the speed at which the zoetrope turns the names of different cities and activities emerge. It works.
Ross Phillips – Video Grid / The Replenishing Body
Ross Phillips is Creative Technical Director at SHOWstudio, an ad agency focused on the fashion industry, and his interactive piece gives punters the chance to see themselves on screen and they love it. A video camera facing the audience allows visitors to record themselves for a few seconds before seeing their efforts played back on the screen within a matrix of 25 other recorded images. The subject has no control over where and when their piece will appear, and it is this random aspect which creates a jumble of images and makes the piece visually interesting.
People love to be on camera, and the matrix makes them even less inhibited as they know it is not going to be full screen. Their screen life is a short one as new clips are made and loaded, replacing earlier efforts.
Ross Phillips understands most people’s desire to show off on camera and has exploited that to the full.
WOW - Light Rain
Wowlab.net is worth visiting to put this work in context. Wow is a commercial studio and used to working within constraints. Initially the work looks like a gentler version of body paint but it isn’t. It uses interaction in a similar way, but it helps the participant by setting their actions within a context as if they are working within a brief.
This is achieved by creating base scenarios like rain, still water and fireworks and allowing the participant to react with those images. For example, in ‘still water’, gentle waves can be generated by making a stroking gesture in front of the screen in the vicinity of the water surface represented by a flat line on screen.
Fabrica - VENETIAN MIRROR
VENETIAN MIRROR- is in itself an attractive, fairytale object that you might find in a turreted castle. Its appearance puts you in the right frame of mind to relax your grip on reality, and that is what it does so successfully. There are no screens, keyboards or wires visible to spoil that illusion and its construction, of high quality Venetian glass, is reassuring.
When you sit in front of this magical mirror in your fantasy world you become a creature from that realm – a vampire – and your reflection is absent from the mirror. Slowly, your ghostly image appears, and if you move in front of the mirror the image appears as swirling mist coalescing into your feint reflection.
Fabrica - EXQUISITE CLOCK
The clock is comprised of 6 stripped down naked monitors (2 for hours, 2 for minutes and 2 for seconds), flipping images as the seconds pass with all sorts of gubbins hanging out the back. I thought it was uncompromising yet beautiful.
I did not feel that I needed to know that the images, that are to be read as numbers (a fork as a 1 for example) had been submitted via the web by people from all corners of the globe. That in itself is an interesting idea, but at the same time you would expect that to be the case, and that expectation is another interesting idea.
Fabrica is Benetton’s communications research centre in Treviso, Italy. Those involved in creating these projects are - Andy Cameron, Sam Baron, Oriol Ferrer Mesià, Joao Wilbert and Goncalo Campos.
Daan Roosegaarde - Dune 2007
This installation is a walk-through that reacts with light and movement to the passer-by. To me it felt like walking through a reed bed, as these reed-like objects rustle and light up. It was a very naturalistic experience, although you may not get that impression from my description.
The experience was helped by its tactile nature; as you brushed your hands against the ‘reeds’, they reacted to you.
I am sure this is what Daan intended, and I hope that one day we can see more of his work in the urban environment, particularly in places that cannot sustain plant life such as underpasses; perhaps we will see them beside the tracks of the underground, lighting up and swooshing as the train passes.
February 10, 2010
As a practising designer and artist with many years’ experience, I feel qualified to say that I do actually know a lot about art, and I certainly know what I like. As far as I am concerned, if something falls into the category of ‘design’ rather than ‘art’, then it has to satisfy certain basic criteria, even if it strays into the new area of ‘design art’.
When I look at a designed object, the first question I ask myself is, ‘Do I want one of these?’, and if the answer is ‘Yes’, then I ask the question, ‘ Would I pay good money for this?’.
Let me explain ‘Do I want one?’ first. The piece in question has to be more than just an object of desire, regardless of how cool or sensual it might appear. It has to have a resonance, a timbre and a significance beyond its functionality. For me, this is more than simply ‘wanting’.
‘Would I pay good money for this?’ is the second hurdle. As I am browsing, I am not thinking whether or not I can afford the price tag. Instead, I am considering whether I feel it represents value, be it simply in aesthetic terms or in the quality of the materials and manufacture, in other words, is it fit for purpose?
December 10, 2009
Altermodern
Altermodern at Tate Britain was a triennial that brought together twenty eight young artists in a great show. Lizzie Carey-Thomas, the curator, is to be congratulated as this really works as a group show and at the same time gives each of the artists a platform. How refreshing it is for curators these days not to feel the need to overwhelm their visitors but to inspire them – Altermodern left me with the feeling that I wanted to find out more.
Nicolas Bourriaud and Lizzie Carey-Thomas had a singular advantage in having a wonderful space to work with, and they used it very well. It is on a human scale, intimate, surprising and free-flowing. The Tate Britain space encouraged zigzagging, which is essential for an exhibition of this complexity. It allows the viewer to circulate and peek at the more challenging pieces, spin round the show and then stop here and there before surprising a 'challenging piece' with their presence.
January 10, 2010
Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones
On a lighter note, if you have the time a visit to ‘Hats: An Anthology’, Stephen Jones’ exhibition at the V&A is well worth it. This is a delightful exhibition, manageable in scale, humorous and broad in its scope and you can get round in 45 minutes! There were several things that I really liked about it, in particular that Stephen Jones felt he could include a piece form his graduation show (1979) and that it does what an exhibition should do in my view, inspire you rather than flatten you, as some recent stuff I have seen does.
| Julia Lohmann |
| Fabrica |
| Jeroen Verhoeven |
| Joep van Lieshout |
| Joris Laarman |
| Luc Merx |
| Niels van Eijk and Miriam van der Lubbe |
| Sebastian Brajkovic |
| Stephen Richards |
| Tord Boontje |
| Wieki Somers |
| WOW |
| Troika |
| 100% Design |
| Designersblock |
| Maison et Objet |
| Origin |
| Tent London |
| The Dock |
| Top Drawer |
| YSH |
Artists Index
Exhibition Review
June 6, 2006
If you only know a little about me it should come as no surprise that I think in pictures and having spent my time so far as a conceiver and visualiser of ideas, then painting, photography and generally making marks on surfaces is my natural medium.
As a synaesthete, I find that landscapes, interior spaces and natural forms can change into abstract, ambiguous and tantalizing shapes, similar to the process I use for solving problems for clients.
It is also refreshing to explore all the digital tools now available to creatives and it is no coincidence that these voyages of exploration often result in helping to take clients in new directions and to try new techniques.
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