Make a work that moves from one place to another

"Make a work that moves from one place to another."



Artist Research:
Wolfgang Tillmans
Tilleke Schwarz.


For this task I focused on the idea of movement, and what moves from one place to another - water, wind, time...

I particularly liked the work of Wolfgang Tillmans and how his photographs really capture movement.  This gave me inspiration to try a few photographs using water and inkjet dyes.  I felt some were more successful than others - the magenta ones worked particularly well.

I tried to project these as large as possible to one of the studios to see if they changed perspective and whether they created more 3D sculptural feel towards them.

I then took sections of these images and created vector drawings using adobe illustrator, and converted them into a short flash video.

After projecting my ink images onto the studio wall, and from discussion at my group crit, I liked how the projections became life size and took on a more sculptural feel.  I thought I should develop this further, and started thinking along the lines of sculptural installation - using fabrics as a another way to capture this frozen moment of time.   

I looked at several sculpture artists for inspiration:

Helmick & Schechter

Nike Savvas
Eva Hesse

I made a few samples to see whether they would be effective, and whether they captured the idea of freezing a moment in time.

Attempt 1:

Attempt 2: Fabrics have been dipped in plaster mix to make them rigid.  I did not think that this looked as effective - I like how the fabric moves with the cube and have a sense of floating.

Attempt 3:  Invisible thread moves your eye to the fabrics inside.  

Attempt 4:  When the frame is moved/handled/angled, the fabrics form slightly different folds/shapes almost like a kaleidoscope effect.

Attempt 5:

For my final sculpture I adapted a few ideas from my test pieces.  I wanted an interactive installation that reflected the photos I had taken - a cube which, when moved, would slightly alter that 'frozen moment in time'.  Unfortunately the final cube fell apart into 12 pieces 2 days before the deadline during the photo session, as a result I did not get as many photos as I intended.  In an attempt to re-create the cube the final product is not as neatly finished as I would have liked, however I have learnt that I would have to work on my skills & choice of materials to have an end product that could be picked up and interacted with.  

(2 days to go:)

Final Sculpture:

Eva Hesse

"Don't ask what it means, or what it refers to.  Don't ask what the work is, rather see what the work does." Eva Hesse

As my work was developing for the project 'Make a work that moves from one place to another' I started to create a few designs for a piece that could be sculptural based on the photographs I had taken of the Ink.  My initial design was very similar to work by Eva Hesse.  I was interested in how some of her sculptural work has a very fluid feel to it similar to mine.  Her work was a mixture of handcrafted and machine made - geometric shapes and soft curves.

Nike Savvas

This installation 'Atomic - full of love, full of wonder' is made from thousands of suspended balls, creating an optical effect and was the artists way of portraying that atoms are the fundamental structural unit of all things.

Helmick & Schechter

I was fascinated by these installations - how they are made up of tiny objects which transform to a bigger picture.

Tilleke Schwarz

Tilleke Schwarz.

A textile artist who stitches 'maps' of modern day life.  She includes anything that moves or amazes her in a way that represents graffiti. I like how these seem to move across the canvas and each work tells a story.

Wolfgang Tillmans

Wolfgang Tillmans - Photographer and artist.

One of the most influential photographers of the 90's, and the winner of the Turner prize in 2000.
Some of his recent work is very abstract, displaying an array of beautiful colours created from a process in the dark-room using light sensitive paper.  I thought this series of work in particular captured a great sense of movement.