1. Realize the Project Proposal and prepare towards final exhibition.
I’ve had to build my piece for the degree show in only two days because I have the responsibility of coordinating the artistic section of a spanish festival called VigoTransforma from 2 to 10 of July. You can check more info here. Many times two events of enormous significance occur at the same time. It is a challenge to make both. I didn´t want to miss the opportunity. I think I’ve taken my best to do both tasks with the greatest possible success. On the other hand, I think the experience of coordinating the artistic section of the festival is a great opportunity to implement aspects I have learned in the Master.
My setup for the Degree show is composed of a head modeled in meshwire that hangs horizontally from an engine attached to the ceiling. Here you can see two sketches. The biggest problem I had was trying to adapt the space to the needs of my installation. My work is very sensitive to light. The space should be as dark as possible. There is too much ambient light from video projections. I have tried to minimize this impact with a wall and a screen made of white fabric. I chose white fabric with the intention that the projection of shadows can be seen from both sides of the screen. I’m afraid it will not work as I expected.
The time the LEDs are on or off is controlled by Arduino. You can see the code and some pictures of the device I made. I think the space has been pretty clean despite the number and length of cables that I used (close to 60 m). The operation of the LEDs is very simple. The transition from one to another is through a Fade in and Fade out. I find it very interesting. This “presence” and “absence” of light expands the piece in the space dividing the projections in differents areas. It´s the first time that I made a projection on the ground. The piece is characterized by its slow movement which imparts a feeling of great calm. You can check this video of a previous installation at Bunker. More info about this exhibition on the following links: 1 – 2
It should be noted that the ceiling is concrete and it was very complicated to make holes . The space where we exhibit can be as important as the art work. It is very curious as we are very conscious of using audio headphones to avoid interference with other art works around. In the case of video projections we don´t show the same concern. I think that if we use headphones for the sound we should be care how the light affects to the other artworks too. There is too much light pollution in the space. It is quite normal when in the same room there are 11 video projectors turn on at the same time.
2. Present a resolved body of creative practice that has evidenced the systematic enhancement of your knowledge and understanding.
The Unit 2 essay has helped me to clarify my achievements during the last two years. I have opened a new path for my work making my own grids. The fact I used Arduino does that the possibilities be better. All the time these devices releases new versions and support forums are very successful. It is a very active community. In my next projects I surely will continue using it, not only to control the lights but also to move engines, sensors and so on. On the other hand, producing my own grid has made the scale of my work be larger. I have stopped relying on industrial grids to create my own. This makes the scale can be bigger and it generates multiple and new possibilities.
I have been immersed in trying to find the largest number of possibilities with the grids related to its construction and shaped by hand. I have researched the context of mesh in art (1 – 2 -3). I also have experienced various ways to create manually grids that I found easy to manipulate. Definitely I am interested in the traditional aspect of the creation through lofi technologies. Some of these experiments, the results were more negative than positive, but this process is far from being a waste of time it helped me to achieve something similar to what I imagined at the begining. The last meshwire I’ve made is characterized by its flexibility. Perhaps it is too heavy but it is very easy to model. I would also like to emphasize the collection of works with shadows in which I am interested (although the post is old I’ve updated it every time I found something interesting).
After participating in the openFrameworks workshop in V&A I started to test the possibility of creating an installation that would be designed to show a multiple portrait of the viewer. I made some test (you can see it on the following links: 1 – 2). I realized a few test following this idea.
In this period of research and experimentation I check other possibilities that I can continue in the future. I wanted to build a home made video projector of small dimensions. In Internet I found several ways how to do it. I´ve tried with my mp3 screen but it wasn´t work well. My main idea was use opencv, a c++ library to detect the faces of spectators, capture it and project ramdom faces of them onto a big face converted in a kind of screen in 3d. I was working with Leon trying to made it work in my pc but with little success (windows vista give me a lot of problems when I try to do something outside its normal working. In general, it´s a constant problem!). I should be improve my programming skill with code in c++ (a very long journey that I will be more insistent when I finish the MA. We could say that it has been a first contact). I took some books from the library but I need more time to achieve the required level. I’ve got in touch with some people from London that was in the course and we started to do some test together. I left the idea to present this project for my Degree show because would be very complicated to install in the dark room. I need more space and two zones with different lights: one to capture the faces and one for the projection.
I am interested in the relationship between digital creation in 3d and its representation in an analogue form. In this sense, the work of my classmate Tim Pickup was an interesting discovery. His work is on the use of digital processes in order to create physical objects. My work had a similar connotation but the process was the opposite: I am interested in building analogue projections that simulated digital processes. It was very interesting to work with him and to see how he used 3d software to perform his pieces. Maybe I could use the same technique in a future work. This technique consists of dividing a 3d object in different slices. Projecting each slice in a surface and cut all the different parts. Finally, unify all assembling them with the shape of the original. In my case this process would help to create more complex grids.
I think the collective work of my classmates has been very positive at the end. I would like to thank all of them for this great effort. The final result of the prints postcards and the catalog has been very good. I have had trouble choosing mine. I edited the video for the Show reel of MADA 2010.
I believe that the use of blogs in education is a very useful tool. In general, access to information is very simple. Everything presented here has helped me to create my methodology work. I think the fact that we can view the blogs of our classmates is very interesting because that incites to improve.
WordPress is not my favorite tool because the use of tags at the end of each post is linked to all users and is difficult to find what interest to you. Obviously this is because the user account is free. In spite of it I consider to WordPress one of the referring and driving forces of the blogging that exploited in 2005.
3. Analyze and reflect coherently upon your own practice and others through your presentation at the programmed symposium forming a synthesis of your practice-based research.
I think the Symposium was one of the most important sections of the Master. It implies that we must present our work in public. We need to talk about our work when our work usually speaks about us. For my presentation I chose to edit a video to explain my relationship with the sculpture, the use of light and shadow. I wanted to present my devotion to the representation of the human body by linking it with the concept that I had presented in my essay (linked to the first one). The video editing really helped me to clarify my ideas and to create a clearer concept of my work. I tried to give a romantic aspect to the importance of using fire and its evolution into electricity.
I chose to make a video because I thought it would be easier to explain my project than speak in public with my poor English. The feedback of my colleagues was very interesting and enriching.
The video I edited for our Symposium helped me to create a historical context of Art works where the lights and shadows have a vital importance. I tried to do a historical review that begins with our capacity to do fire (as one of the first technological processes of human beings) and came to the widespread use of electricity today. These changes affected our relation with the space. This ability completely changed our presence in the world. The candlelight lengthened the duration of the day. Humans beats the darkness and with it many of our myths. It is known that light has always had a special importance in Art. Some of the artists I used as reference are Christian Boltanski, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Shigeo Fukuda, Daniel Canogar among others. All they maintain a common link related to the use of light and shadow. You can see more info in the References category.
4. Summarize your overall progress and formulate a constructive plan for continuing Personal and Professional Development.
I think this project has many possibilities. I recently tested to make rudimentary animations modeling mesh wire and using stop motion technique. You can check a Video very short.
During these two years I improved my skills with the use of hardware and software.
Hardware: For my final project I used the Opensource hardware Arduino to create different atmospheres of light with LEDs. During the workshops with Leon Baker we used the Arduino to control motors, sensors, etc. For sure these are practical issues that I might apply in my future works.
Software: I improved my skills experimenting with programming code. Some of the programming environments I have used are Pure Data, Processing and openFrameworks. Performing openFrameworks during the V & A Museum was very interesting, especially to get in touch with programming developers. During MA course I have also designed web pages that helped me to experiment with different languages such as Spip, html, css and jquery.
At a theoretical level, I feel more secure and with very clear ideas of what I do.
In the future I’m going to participate in an exhibition in Santiago de Compostela in September and another in Madrid in October (both in Spain). I will continue working on the investigation initiated during the MA.
I received an offer to publish a book with an english publisher for my work Cement eclipses. I will work hard to get the best possible result.
Filed under: madigitalarts, practical project, Proposal, References
