User:Anna John again
1.
How and Why? 1. I painted twenty separate pieces of paper with vermillion gouache and scanned each of the paintings into the computer using a hi-resolution flatbed photo scanner. Through trial and error, I have found that the higher the quality of the scanner, the more sensitive it is to the varying light and opacity of the painted paper and its textural qualities. When these subtleties are edited together in the sequence, an illusion of movement is created from differing intensities and elements within this ongoing single frame of colour. I have been long interested in the early experimental films of Len Lye and Harry Smith in their approach to treating film and light as material itself, and developing their techniques outside of narrative or content, purely exploring the abstract and also films inseparability from rhythm and time. I also desired to blur the line between digital and analogue, in the labour intensive analogue technique of manually preparing the material to be processed and re-articulated digitally.
2.
The slowly rotating object both drags and resists the small contact microphone object which can in effect create a rhythm of its own - as the contact mic scrapes and bounces off the object in this push and pull relationship it holds with the spinning ceramic cone. As the mic travels along the same trajectory against/along the objects surface and is subjected to the same force from the object, thus the the sound plays out like a loop. Thus the sculpture as a whole
What:
1.
It is a video loop. The loop itself is just a couple of seconds, however the short loop has been repeated in this edit such that the video runs for three minutes and twenty-two seconds precisely. The video comprises of single shots, which span .02 of second. Each shot is a scan of a single piece of paper that has been painted a particular colour, and in the instance in question, the colour is vermillion. Each piece of paper that has been scanned has been painted with gouache, with varying amounts of water added and taken from the palette; this random flow of the colour from piece to piece can be detected in the fast succession of frames in the video. Differing densities of colour and brushstroke give the video a sense of movement, as does the white border down the side of each scan. The movement appears to wash over the screen, as the border seems to vibrate.
2.
It is a kinetic sculpture. Three main components are involved. The first is the wooden structure which comprises of a found potters hand-building turntable or wheel, that basically involves a rotating square platform mounted on three legs. This object has been attached to a thick circular piece of wood, which has been painted black. At the base of the axis of the platform, a small motor has been attached. The axle of the motor, when powered up, forces the platform to spin in an anti-clockwise direction. Atop the platform sits a roughly built, conically shaped ceramic object. It turns with the platforms motion. Suspended from the ceiling, above the rotating object, is a contact microphone with a domestic sewing needle soldered to it. Its positioned so that it scrapes along the surface of the ceramic object. The contact microphone is plugged into a small 15 watt amplifier which is mounted on the top of the gallery wall, out of sight – although the line of the microphone lead alludes to its presence, as does the sound of the scraping and bouncing of the needle along the objects surface. This line is also reflected in the wiring that is attached to the aforementioned motor, which lies along the surface of the gallery to the nearest available power outlet.
3.
It is a sculpture that stands at approximately 163 cm high. The two materials used are scrap metal and raku clay. Its basic structure could be described as a supportive stand and an object. The supportive stand is made entirely of scrap metal; its base a flat, rectangular metal plate of about 25x45cm, and extending up from its base two legs which rise up into the clay object at their ends. The legs are different shapes but both made from metal rods. The ‘back’ leg is a singular rod that is approximately 6cm in diameter. The front leg is an A-shaped combination of lengths, beginning as two separate entities from the base plate, meeting inside the sculpture at the top. The crossbar connects the two separate rods at a height of 45cm. The mean height of the legs would be around 148 cm high. The ceramic object at the top is an interpretation of a bull, with openings where its legs would be, it has a short tail, and a small perforation beneath the tail, and finally its head resembles a net-like drape or hood, which is adorned by a flat disc at the peak of the net-like rendition of its head. The body is rough and mostly white in its glaze with burn marks and some small cracks, and the head is a oxidised surface that moves through glassy shades of red, blue, silver and a dull gold.