I wanted to explore the hands typing further so I capture some more footage this time with a borrowed typewriter.

I’m still working on processing the footage with Studio Artist as it a time consuming process to iterate through different processes. In order to really see how the motion will look with the process applied I am finding that I need to render out at least 5 seconds, with many of the heavier processes this takes multiple minutes on my laptop. As I start to add further versions I will post these as well.

I did not initially have a clear starting point for this project when trying to draw inspiration for the idea of bodies in motion, I have often been more interested in the built environment and an absence of people. Building on my experience of the Concrete sound project I wanted to develop a response to DADA that challenged my existing working practices whilst still acknowledging my previous interests.

The gallery visit to the Herbert had some interesting work by Anselm Kiefer, an artist who’s work I have previously drawn inspiration from when considering identity in relation to bigger questions. But I didn’t find that inspiration on this occasion.

I felt that in the concrete project I hadn’t taken the site into consideration enough, so went to see the building that would be the canvas.

A canvas

Tableau I, by Piet Mondriaan

I have been interested in repetition and abstraction in art for a long time and Mondriaan was my gateway drug. Although I later became fascinated by the purity of the abstraction in Mondriaan’s work when I initially encountered it it was the way I felt it represented the world around me; panes of glass, scaffolding, concrete, billboards that resonated with me. The geometric grid of the canvas building evoked that relationship, and propelled me towards…

La femme et l’enfant (Mother and Child) (Léger, 1922)

Fernand Léger’s mechanical treatment of human figures the same as their made surroundings with a smooth surface gave me an interesting link back to the ideas of the human body at work discussed in the DADA brief.

With the rise of office based work much has been made of the health and physical implications of sitting and typing for long stretches. As I thought about this idea there seemed to be some sort of absurd idea of running off to the gym after sitting all day to do the physical labor that mechanisation has removed the need for us to do. Absurd machines; Duchamp.

I have been exploring a range of processes to try and visually explore this link.

In this test I was attempting to flatten the image by building the human and machine elements from the same basic components. To flat.

Same basic principal, I think the saturated colours help, potentially too much movement in the mechanical element draws the eye away from the hands.  I like the principal, I’m going to shoot a more developed version of the footage using a more interesting keyboard.

Last week we were introduced to Studio Artist as part of the launch of the DADA project.

I had shot some footage of a swing in motion in anticipation of this project and initially tried this out with a few of the presets in Studio Artist to explore what was possible, from the names of the settings it is difficult to know what you are going to get and even from a still frame it is difficult to see how the process is going to look in motion.

This test of the Neon Present was one of the more successful, thematically I like the combination of the mechanical swing and the human pushing it but I think this idea can be developed further. I also want to experiment with the negative space  create greater focus on the movement.