Day One: Painting One

The supplies finally came in last week so I guess it's about time I started. I probably won't post any finished works up here, but I thought I should post a work-in-progress picture of some sort to prove I didn't use the grant money to buy gummies. And yes...I did blur out the rest of the sketch on the canvas. Swag.

POLYSCAPE

POLYSCAPE prototype, assembled and suspended in the studio.

Assembling each hexagonal flower.
Six 3D pentagons, get linked together with aluminum jump rings by hand, very time consuming!

Layout of tessellation test

Growing poly stacks fresh out of the injection molder!

Adjusting pressure and temperature settings, a little better but not quite right!

Firsts attempts of injecting the mold, not so successful.

Battenfield Injection Molding Machine:
with my aluminum mold in the mud base! Ready to mold!

Part 1 of 2 part mold... just CNCed to gleaming perfection! *

Running the 4 hour long HAAS (CNC) program to mill out part 1 of the mold.
Lots and lots of coolant! Cleaning this up is a nightmare! One smells like coolant for at least 24 hrs after!

Ran the Hass program on a piece of Modulan, a dense pink foam, very east to machine.
A good way to test your code and make sure there are no errors in the CNC milling process.

Bridging the gap between design and manufacturing: PROTOTYPING
Wax pour (green) and FDM 3D print (white) from CAD files to test scale and shape. Its nice to be able to touch something you've created only in virtual space!

Solidworks: CAD mold bottom

Solidworks: CAD mold top

Solidworks: CAD pentagon design



POLYSCAPE proposal image!

Choreography is movin' right along

[Photo Credit: The fantastic fox, Mr. Ben Cline]

It's going exceptionally well! Which is very exciting. See [!].

I have lost, however, the video component to the project.
The conversation I am having with the sculpture is taking up all of my time, and it doesn't feel all that close to being done.
Rather than open up a much more complicated and confusing dialogue (adding the questions of time, image, layering, and meta layering that video provides in it's affordances), I am going to focus on the very tangible conversation I am having between myself, the materials, and the forces of nature acting on all of us.

In working, I've entered a flow state for longer than I have experienced before, giving the work a sort of inevitability the feels right right right. It's also very clear to me when this is not happening, and I have to constantly remind myself that it need not be frustrating when I am not sure what to do next.

When I listen to the different forces, the Thing To Do almost always shows itself. I can see it when I get my monkey mind out the way.

I am currently thinking about how and where to display the piece in addition to visioneARTh, which is additionally exciting.

Project Update March: Interactive Fluorescein Installation --> Seek

NEW DESIGN!

This month, I received the shipments for many of the electromechanical and optical components of the piece. I was particularly thrilled that the

waterproof strand of 250 UV lights were segment-able, allowing for a much easier install. Among the great news is that each of the component lights operates at 6-12V which makes a fully Arduino-controlled installation feasible. :)

So, current status.

Lights have been constructed

. (64 lights) Photo to be posted soon.

Decided to use a Max/MSP to Arduino firmware for easy interfacing and control of lights for prototyping.

Tested infrared and pressure sensors. (Work great!!!)

Developed a MAX external that will allow me to program animation frames given triggers (sensors)

What remains:

Construct light array. Decide on animations. Program sequences to triggers.

MAX PATCH

Prototyping the Diver

Week 6 of the quarter came fast. I have prototyped a unit of the piece and gotten it to work more or less the way I want it to- lots of room for playing with little details but most of the heavy design work is done. These photos show the rough prototype- lots of duct tape etc but it served its purpose of giving me an idea of what the forces involved in this piece will be and what it will look like.


There will be 10 of these sections in total, connected end on end and suspended from a large, 10' tall by 20' long triangular frame, and the collective mechanism will be driven by a small motor. I am currently in all-out production mode, having fabricated most of the components to make the birds and soon to move on to making the individual crank shafts and gears for each bird section. Lots to be done but I think I can get it done in time for the spring show. Definitely love losing track of time and self in the shop designing and fabricating this sculpture.

Dead Towns: Looking at different display options

I’ve got the first draft of my story written. I’m going to get it proof-read this week to make sure everything is clear and not too disjointed (seeing how the story appears in 100-word snippets rather than a continuous chunk). I’m quite excited, because I think the story explores several themes where ghost towns can function as a metaphor or at least as a suitable setting: namely as desolate, isolated, nowhere towns.

I’m having a bit of trouble conceptualising how I’m going to showcase my project, though. I could have it as a display, but that might make the work sterile (if easier to read). I could also go with the original idea and have it be set up in a section of the living room, and the story presented in a journal or some kind of scrapbook, a storytelling method that feels more “lived in” – but only one person can read the scrapbook at a time (ie. Could be impractical).

Here are some ideas that I have:




The main question I have is: if it’s so deliberately on display, does it detract from the whole “lived in” experience that I want the living room to be, and does that even matter?

Der Zauberberg: Sketches and First Block

How to vizualize a 1,000 page novel in twelve images? I spent December and the first part of January trying to figure that out. Right away, a dozen or so crucial scenes popped to mind. But then when I started sketching, I quickly realized I didn't want to portray "scenes" in the typical book illustration fashion, for which I have neither the technical competence (of drawing inanimate objects) nor the interest. But I was definitely not interested in the opposite-- some kind of interpretive flight of fancy where I draw a pile of crap to express my own personal feelings about the novel. I still wanted to represent identifiable characters, experiences, and ideas that Mann put into the novel, but in a more iconic portrait-heavy way that suits my own aesthetic inclinations and abilities. After selecting source material from old photos, books, and the google image machine, I came up with twelve images plus a 'frontispiece' to make up a series of thirteen woodcuts. At this point I have ten more or less workable sketches, two rough idea-based ones, and one carved woodblock. Hoping to carve one a week and print one a week from here on out.

Here's a pictorial log, from early brainstorm debris to carved and printed block:

My tentative list: a baker's dozen of prints

crude sketches

Rejected!

Peeperkorn sketch-- face is wrong

So I slapped a new one on.

study for Naphta--based on Georg Lukacs

Naphta sketch with cake-- a little too Lou Reed-like.

Final Naphta sketch

Rough doodle for Settembrini

Italian writer Giovanni Verga--looks just how I imagine Settembrini

Final Settembrini sketch

My friend Simon. I think his Germanic high cheekbones and sober gaze will work well for Joachim.

Final sketch for Joachim--on his death bed (must add gold coins over eyes)

Frontispiece/Title print-- I found my image for the protagonist Hans Castorp in a 1912 recital program of a Norwegian Men's Singing Society, which performed in SF at the Swedish-American Hall (oddly enough, where I got married). Bought the program at an antique store, but now it's gone missing, so I can't scan it to show you.

This old timer, a prominent German citizen of 19th-century Indiana, is just as I picture Hans's grandfather, Hans Lorenz Castorp.

Mazzini, the natural grandfather image of the liberal humanist Settembrini.

Sketch for the Two Grandfathers-- living genealogical tree.

Naptha's suicide at the Duel

Dueling pistols-- reminds me of the end of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler: "There she goes, playing with those damn pistols again!"

Hans and Dr. Behrens in the X-ray room--- my somewhat fabricated though factually-based imagining of a pre-war X-ray machine. The novel takes place in a Swiss sanatorium from 1907-1914, so I want at least one image to portray the medical environment.

source image for the dining hall. I think this is somewhere in Wyoming.

Final sketch for Walpurgis Nacht

rough sketch for the Lindenbaum chapter- the bare linden tree coming out of the record player as a symbol for the morbid Romanticism Hans has to overcome.

rough sketch for Hans's catarrh- fueled fever dream of Mdme Chauchat as a lusty personification of life.

I'm using bygone supermodel Tatiana Patiz as my model for Chauchat. She has what Mann describes as Chauchat's "Khirghiz eyes"

another rough sketch for Hans dreaming Chauchat as lusty life. Here she looks way too much like a stilted version of the bikini model she's drawn from.

photo of real Swiss sanatorium patients taking the rest cure outdoors.

final sketch for 'the horizontal'-- the rest cure.

the carved and inked wood block after the first test print.

First test print of the block. Reasonably satisfied.

Stay tuned for more...