The Mock Box (Image Essay Week 3)

So I have had a rocky start getting back into the mach 5 pace of things.  My year started out with the Lockn Festival in Arrington Virginia followed by illness.  I have committed a lot of time towards editing down 1215 photos to 223 over four solid days of shows (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4).  Along with that I have been writing reviews when I can for each day of the festival.  My photos and reviews are being posted on Out of the Blue Magazine.  I have also photographed and written a review for the Umphrey’s McGee and The Werks show at Express live  (formerly LC Pavilion and Promowest) last week which is being posted as well.  Click the links and check it out.

Juggling that with school, teaching, and working in Battelle, has made time management a key to getting anything done towards thesis in less than 21 academic weeks. The trouble has been focus.  When I can’t get moving I just get my hands busy.  This time I built stretchers and stretched 7 canvases.

The canvases turned out great, I just don’t know what I really want to do with them. I started an experiment that is pretty interesting but over the head of researching more about phenomenon I’m not sure a canvas is the right direction.  Anyways, I started to revisit my “shopping carts” and decided that I needed to make a shadow painting.

There are some interesting things happening with this work but this year I am trying to focus my attention on space as object rather than objects in space.  Two way glass is way cool and I think it has amazing potential for my goals of creating a giant box that one can enter and walk around.  This box will interact with changing light to create multiple experiences.  This little mock up is way cool.

Below are a few process shots.

The magic happens when you change the light.

When you add light to the inside a mirrored universe is revealed.

There are so many things to refine with the design of this box.  Right now it is really crude. I have to develope a better way of cutting the plexiglass or at least finishing the rough table saw cut to something smooth and polished.  The reason for the refinement is so I can achieve a fiber optic effect inside the glass with a string of led under the edge of the glass as well as outside and inside the box.  There will be three groups of lights in total, inside , outside, and inside the glass.  In the end I will create a choreography with the lights that will display different visual effects.  These effects will slowly and quickly transition through variations of light that range from total darkness to total brightness and many variations in between with instances of light that with jolt the viewer with a flash of kaleidoscopic universe.  I’ll have to code all that.  I’ll also have to build a model of a space that can be manipulated to house my environment much like Turell, Irwin, , Wheeler, and Bell manipulated museum and gallery spaces throughout their careers.  I see the end of the tunnel but it is ambitiously long.  I have to focus on creating art that is orchestrated with space and light.  Right now I feel incredibly comfortably tucked in with conversation of the 1970’s California phenomenon artists mentioned among others.  These people are brilliant and it is intimidating.

I also combine some older work in a new installation that utilizes shadows created with Zed panels and shopping carts.  The converse nicely with one another.

And Carmen and I went to Picasso and the CMoA.  I love that the show had a focus on his use of the harlequin.  I thought a lot about Jordan Kantor's lecture last year.  He talked about how Picasso used the harlequin as an “excuse” to manipulate modernism and to insert a little humor.  The use of the harlequin allowed him to be progressive and outlandish in the eyes of others because it was ok for the harlequin to crack a joke.  I stood in front of the “Harlequin Musician” for a long time and laughed.

Carmen also dressed up.

September 19th:

But wait there’s more, just not that many pictures.  I would show pictures of my most recent work but that would only ruin my critique.  I am aiming to here genuine uninfluenced responses to my work.  I will tell you this though.  The installation that I am presenting for critique is an attempt to affect the visual perceptions of the viewer.  It is also an attempt to strip down my work and trim the fat.  If I showed the parts and pieces people would start to connect the dots and the experience of the viewer would be lost upon entering the space.  It’s like watching a preview for next week’s episode of “The Walking Dead” on AMC.  They say way too much.

I’m going to post a follow up later on with a more serious selection of installation views and process images.

Oh and I started working on code for the “Mock Box”.  Right now I have it set up to pulse a blue white light slowely.