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Serendipity-Doo-Dah

Jake BrownLeave a comment

Collage is a more complicated process than people give it credit for, with one of my biggest issues being each cutout can only be used once. This was something I wanted to address when I started delving into collage last year, eventually constructing a method of non destructive collage. This would allow me to reuse cutouts, and produce multiples of each collage.

Tools:

  • Books to cut up
  • Cutting tool (box cutter, scalpel, scissors)
  • Cutting Mat
  • Scanner
  • 1 piece foam board (a3 or a4 depending on scanner size)
  • 1 sheet acetate firm (same size as foam board)
  • 1 piece thin hard cardboard (Slightly large that foam board)
  • Masking tape

Method:

  1. Collect: My process for this was mainly to trawl through second hand shops, looking for anything with a lot of pictures. As I started to produce more work through, I began to understand what works better for me. Comic books and any artist books containing picture inserts were top of the list, while still leaving room in the budget for anything I thought could be interesting later. This year I purchased bulk comics from gumtree, which I think is probably the best way to build up a collection fast and for cheap.
  2. Plan: Cutting images out can take a long time, I usually like to sit down in front of the tv, put something on I can half pay attention too, and start browsing through my haul. I like to look through everything first, so I can prioritize what images I want to focus on. Paying attention to the back of any page you’re cutting out, I’ve made the mistake too many times of destroying a great images while cutting out an okay one.
  3. Cut: There are a lot of tools you can use to cut, but personally I enjoy using a box cutter the most. Scissors are great for long straight lines but don’t handle detail well, and while a scalpel might sound the best for this, often the blade is too flexible to remain steady. Don’t panic over perfection either, it’s always better to cut too loose than to tight at first, as you can always trim down.
  4. Construct: Place you acetate flush on your foam board, with two small tabs of tape, connect the two together on one edge, creating a hinge that lets you raise and lower the acetate. We’re going to assemble our collage on top the foam board, and use the acetate as a flap to hold everything in place.
  5. Assemble: It’s important to remember with this method you get unlimited tries to get the collage looking right. After assembling lower the acetate flap, be careful as it can get quite staticky, which can lift the cutouts out of place. There is a bit of fidgeting with things that goes on to get things perfect, having a knitting needle or something similar to move cutouts around without lifting the acetate up too much is helpful.
  6. Scan: Place your hard cardboard over the acetate, sandwiching the work between the cardboard and foam. Now is the tricky part, we want to flip everything upside down, place it face down on the scanner bed, and slowly pull out the cardboard. This has given me the best results in keeping my work looking correct while flipping. Preview the scan so you can make sure everything is looking good, much like photography sometimes it’s wise to save the shot anyway even if you’re not %100 happy. When you’re scanning the final images, you want to scan as higher resolution as possible, I would recommend a minimum of 600, but personally like to shoot for 1200. This gives you the most flexibility with scaling and cropping your final works.
  7. Process: This part is highly dependent on how much digital intervention you want to have with your work. My first step is to get the image to look as much like the original cutouts as possible, as the scanning process lightens up a lot of the darker areas. From here you can either get it print ready, or adjust the colors however you want. Personally I enjoy simply trying to replicate the original cutouts as close as possible.
  8. Print: Using an Inkjet printer will give you the best results. Hopefully you’ve maintained a high resolution on your files, to give the best possible quality in your print. The choice of matte or gloss paper is up to you, I find the matter better represents the collage qualities, and accentuates the overlaps in paper without the interference of gloss.

“Drink Coca-Cola”

Drink Coca-Cola 2022, Jake Christian Brown, Collage, Photographic Print, Edition of 10

I made this work for a recent art auction with the RMIT print student union Open Bite. It’s a great example of the kinds of images I’m looking for, and the benefits of non destructive collage.

Comic books, especially those from the 80s and 90s are a goldmine for overly dramatic, and high mindedly ideological pieces of text. Divorced from there ‘comical’ context, the words can have new meaning. Where they once referred to a villainous plan to spread plague, they now can speak to addiction and withdrawal. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t to say comics take themselves too seriously, in fact I love that something so silly can contain these complex themes. Instead its about elevating the words, to a form that they might be given more time and respect.

The woman that takes up most of the frame is Ellen Terry, painted by George Fredric Watts in 1864. Over Terry’s mouth is an image of a young woman smoking a cigarette, taken from the New 52 run of green arrow. These kind of serendipitous pairings of images that align perfectly feel too powerful to ignore. In this case, the implication of the pairing speaks to the representation of women through the last 200 years of art. I have no choice but to except this reading as a part of the work, and the inevitable implication of my male gaze in the process. Beyond this though, the meaning I choose to build around the pairing of images, uses a duality of identity to speak to the complex nature of addiction.

Finally the background image, taken from a 90’s batman comic book, is as the title might suggest, an advertisement for Coca-Cola. Balance and composition is as important in collage as any other medium, though as you lack as much control in collage, getting it right can be difficult. Something that helps the smaller pieces stand out is large flat areas of color, and the vibrant Coke red does that for us here. Coca-Cola is a product many see as addictive, with a high sugar and caffeine content. It’s presence in the work sets a baseline experience of addiction, as most can understand consuming sweets until you’re sick. This contextualizes how the viewer can start to think about the structure of smoking, drinking, and other addictive habits.

“Old 52”

Old 52 2022, Jake Christian Brown, Collage, Photographic Print, Edition of 30

Old 52 is a simpler work than Drink Coca-Cola, in concept and form. At it’s most base level, it functions as an example of that serendipitous connecting of two images. Some of the images used in these were cut out over a year ago, and only finding a partner after sitting dormant in my binder, waiting for another image to click with.

The stoic image of Le Condottiere is overlayed with an intense visage, a pious man having his hand removed, at his own request. How we represent violence and the men who perpetrate it, is often in conflict with reality. Men who wage war presented as devout, disconnected from the wars they’ve waged, and lives they’ve ended. Unlike Drink Coca-Cola, there is no narrative built around the intertwined images. The subject has no voice, no inner monologue, only screams and the Rum-Rum-Ruuumm of some abhorrent device.

Vicissitude

I have a lot more tattoos than most people expect, I lived with my current housemate for around 2 years before they realized I had a complete(ish) back piece. There’s a stereotypical question that seems to be on everyone’s lips when they see a tattoo, “What’s that mean?” I get it less these days, but it’s something I had to think about when I was in my tattoo getting prime.

Here’s what I settled on, and it’s the same answer for pretty much every tattoo.

I pick images that look good, and fit. More than that though, each tattoo caries emotional weight, I remember what my life was like at the time, and how I felt the months following each. What I mean to say is that a tattoo for me acts as a landmark in my life, to measure my mistakes, triumphs, and relationships along the way.

Art can be kind of the same. You make something new, only for it’s completion to coincide with a life altering event, creating a unbreakable link between art and life. Old 52 is one of those, an uncomfortable, sad, and confusing landmark.

If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that life actually is hell online

Jake BrownLeave a comment

My proposal for this project was originally for paste ups or stickers with QR codes that would lead to a post on this blog, going in depth into an issue of online life. The posts were meant to be a kind of soft academic essay helping people understand the pros and cons of interacting and existing in digital spaces. This would of been super positive and helpful for people I think.

So of course I decided instead to make a site full of faux intellectual sarcastic shitposts designed to confuse and frustrate people.

These two images are what started the website off, both based on some recent tweets of mine. Twitter is a lot of things, but the side I like is full of writers and comedians all trying to make the most acerbic, witty, and compact piece of wordplay they can. It lends itself to making extreme claims with little to back it up, see “Being Cringe is a Revolutionary Action,” I could write a whole essay on the way cringe operates online and in our culture, but the internet isn’t built for nuance.

It was an understanding that the internet doesn’t respond to nuance well that pushed my work into it’s eventual form. In the preceding project I created an image with a QR code leading to the short story “Stop, Thief!”, though this originally was not meant to be a short story. I intended to convey an idea I had been researching, comparing the internets infrastructure to Foucault’s writings on the panopticon in relation to social control. This seemed all good and well in the academic surroundings of RMIT, in my studio listening to other artists talk like artists do, but once I was at home, in front of my computer, facing the incomprehensible mass of the internet, a well worded argument just didn’t feel appropriate. Instead what came out was a story.

With this story I wanted to evoke the feelings of existing under a watchful eye, how we tread the line between the real world and online. This work can also be found on the website.

More than that though, I felt an emotion driven story was actually a better vehicle for conveying meaning. It’s one thing to tell people they’re being watched, and another to empathize with the feeling of being watched.

Um actually Frankenstein was the web master!

So the website!

www.lifeshell.online

Before I got into the setup of the website and that whole process, I guess there is the question of why not use this site? Mostly a desire to recreate a certain aesthetic, that late nineties web 1.0 feel of a janky site covered in ancient gifs and artifact laden jpegs. I wanted the site to feel like a precursor to Myspace, the kind of site you would never open in the modern day for fear of viruses (do viruses still get people? I hear a lot less about them?). Anyway.

Firstly I had to find a name that wasn’t taken, I would love to trot out a huge list of potential names, but they’re all lost to my internet history. It pays not to get too attached to a URL before you know it’s available, as getting exactly what you want can be expensive. Though one of the first names I remember wanting was PFDhell.com, with an idea that I would host PDF articles online as a sort of open press online art journal. I felt this would narrow the scope of what I could do with the site though, so eventually I found http://www.lifeshell.online was available and bought it! Moments after though, having looked at it for a moment more, I realized it could be read as “life’s hell online” but also “life shell online.” While this did spin me out for a moment, I began to understand this as a perfect metaphor for the duality of the internet. Equal parts tool for communication and community, and hate and bigotry, at times a shell to protect, and other times absolute hell.

After securing the URL I started playing around with the included website builder, I personally feel like this was a bit of a misstep and will be something I rectify after this project is assessed. Ideally I would be a building the website on Dreamweaver to allow more flexibility. You could argue though that this tool helps bring that janky quality I’ve been looking for? Regardless, it had the ability to place images, text and video, and with built in responsive design, I was all set.

I decided the layout would be a central hub with images that could be clicked on, bringing the user to a new page which held a discrete artwork.

To meme is human

Memes and meme culture are a huge part of the internet, and so a big part of this project. But saying you’re talking about memes is like saying you’re talking about sport, almost too vague and large a subject for anything you say to have substance.

This project isn’t ‘about’ memes, but they’re part of the DNA of internet culture, so inevitably the work will be compared to them. The memes above are some examples of the specific style of meme I’m interested in right now, a combination of the absurd, cursed, vintage look popularized by gen z, and a joy of words more common on millennial twitter. These memes remix digital imagery, creating a sense of internet lineage which dates back to pre internet objects and characters that translated well into online culture. (I made one of the memes above, can you tell which one?)

While I wanted to use this meme aesthetic, I wanted the words to take center stage, with the imagery playing a supporting role. Originally I was building all the assets for the site myself, only deviating when using stock images, or iconic images in digital history, such as the windows rolling hills desktop background.

First images from http://www.lifeshell.online

A meme refers to an image that is spread culturally and grows along the way, while a shitpost is a low effort but unique post designed to upset or enrage. By these definitions my images are not memes, they are definitely more akin to shitposts, but with the level of effort put in you can’t really even call them that. They’re also not really meant to enrage in a deliberate sense, I think it’s just that if I’m emulating the internet, there is an inherent sarcasm and annoyance.

This is not my beautiful wifi?

So this was the first iteration of the website, the one that I showed at my first peer review. The work was accessed through QR codes on stickers placed around a gallery space. Behind the QR image on these are faces generated from the site www.thispersondoesnotexist.com which generates human faces using AI. None of these people exist, they are all an AIs understanding on what a human looks like, sometimes they get it wrong, but most f the time the image are hauntingly real.

I used as many free online resources as I could to create this website, I saw it as an extension of a collage practice. Below I have a list of some of the resources used, though not all the assets used from these sites made it through to the final work. They are:

Reactions to the work ranged from interest to feeling attacked. People took issue with the use of clickbait titles and felt personally like i was making fun of them. I was very confused in the moment, a jarring collision of my terminally online life, and real world peoples opinions. Eventually realizing the obvious fact that people actually do click on these clickbait headings, something I had become immune to long ago. After talking to the offended people I explained my intent wasn’t to insult the people who click on them, but rather to critique manipulative language on the internet. At least I hope that’s what I said, it was all a bit of a blur.

Another critique was that people were unfamiliar with the language, especially when it came to cringe. While most are familiar with The Office and cringe humor, I think the word has taken on new life in recent years online. Cringe is for some a status to avoid like the plague, and for others a badge of honor marking them as someone who refuses to bend to the status quo. The statement I make that it is revolutionary is a nod to the later, though upon further thinking I do have some caveats, but I’m worried letting nuance into the work might undermine it?

I also found that the younger students (and a few clued in ones) could figure out very quickly what I was doing. Obviously there is a generational gap that I’m straddling here, between the terminally online youth of today, and people who had dial up internet.

After all this feedback I decided a few things, mainly that I was right and everything I was doing was perfect. Honestly though I’ve never had a work be this divisive, and so I really feel that I should just see it through, trying to make it more of what it already is. Aesthetically I did make a change toward a more gif based layout, taking old archived gifs from gifcities.org and layering them in the page. This came from a thought I had about this piece being made from the internet, not just in terms of unique language and discourse, but it’s visual legacy too.

Finished work *SPOILERS*

Below are some images from the finished website, though I would highly recommend you visit the site as there are several animated components. The four images here are fairly self explanatory, and speak to the idea of deluxe tweets, in taking an idea and expanding it out into an aesthetic display.

The pages below are a little more involved. Some speak to AI on the internet, and how It will potentially impact our lives. While another talks about online surveillance, and the panopticon, one of the last links to my initial proposal.

This was an expansion of the previous project, taking what I had wrote and translating it into a video. I took the words and passed them through Anchor.FM giving me a spoken version, I added this with a filter and some stock footage to try and create an ominous feeling for the story. Looking back on this, It feels almost like I was the AI, taking a source concept and cobbling together imagery freely available online.

Using the Inferkit Demo and Emojify.net I was able to create this monstrosity of a page. I began by feeding the AI a few lines about how I felt AI driven articles would affect the online landscape, eventually letting the AI take over. I removed a lot of what I wrote, leaving mostly words from the AI themself, I then ran this through Emojify.net to create a contrast of dire messaging and comical overuse of emojis.

The latest piece added to the site and maybe my favorite, I again used Inferkit, giving it the first two lines. The AI then went on to write about it’s reality, this is not me pointing to AI becoming sentient, I think this is not really a problem. The real problem, is in its open use and distribution, the mass amplification of hateful speech, unchecked and indistinguishable from real humans. This drains most hope out of me for a future where the internet is anything but a desolate wasteland of AI generated content.

I also updated the stickers, while I did really think the aesthetic of the QR code covering the whole face looked very nice and was interesting visually. It did not do a great job of pulling the viewer through into the digital world, that is it wasn’t enticing enough. So with my final stickers, I placed the QR code over the mouth, and placed auto generated clickbait headlines suing the keyword “internet” above the eyes. This was an attempt to draw a viewer in and entice them to view the website (shameless).

Installation (funny must watch lol lmao final part 1)

The work is done and set up for assessment!

I really feel like I’m toeing a line with this one. I think it’s so funny to install a tiny sticker, on a dirty wall, crammed behind a door. Obviously I want my work to shine, but the work is meant to be humorous, so having a humorous installation makes sense? Though I worry that my classmates will think I’m taking the piss, or not being respectful to the year. But I’m always worrying, and no one has said anything to me yet, so I’m just gonna let that one simmer for a bit.

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I’m really happy with how this project turned out. What has really stood out to me is the ease with which I can create and set something permanent up online. I feel like the next step for me is to create a collaborative online journal for artists who consider themselves online artists, and those who operate in the digital space.

Beyond

The day before the installation was due, a video was released call Bored Ape Nazi Club. This video isn’t super accessible to none online people, and even then has a lot of super specific references in it. But the gist of it is that the Bored Ape Yacht Club is run by a group of crypto-fascist who use nazi dog whistles to troll people on a global scale. You can find a more digestible version of this information on this site www.gordongoner.com.

I bring this up because it introduced me to an artist Ryder Ripps, he is the one who compiled most of this information. He is probably the most terminally online artist I have ever seen, and while I’m still looking into him, the way he operates as an artist is insane. His work spans several sites and platforms, styles and formats, everything mixing and merging into a chaotic online presence. His ability to identify hateful content, dissect it, and leverage his popularity into coverage is arguably the prototype for the modern internet activist artist.

Some websites that I like

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Cool 3D World

I’ve written about Cool 3D World before, but never specifically about their website. This site has to be one of the most annoying user experiences of all time, and honestly I applaud it for that. Every link that might be useful is constantly hurtling across the page, while a grotesque figure peers out at you from behind a moues responsive layer of viscous liquid.

The complete disdain this group has for people who enjoy what they make is a constant source of inspiration for me.

Wolfman Museum

Similarly I’ve talked about The Wolfman Museum before, and in that case specifically about their website. While for my project The Halls of Galleria the interest was in the the gallery’s structure, my interest in regards to www.lifeshell.online I’m more interested in the convoluted, secretive layout. I love that the site has hidden locations that are hard to reach unless you’re intimately familiar with the site.

Again in the modern world this rejection of usability might seem hostile, but in the early days of the internet were challenges that produced a sense of being in the know.

Xanthe Dobbie

Xanthe Dobbie is a Melbourne based artist whose GIF and video work revolves around the expression of queer culture. The site has a similar structure to mine, but functions more as a portfolio. Each link is accompanied by a GIF, some whose origin dates back to very early internet culture, such as the dancing baby. This method of using older files from the internet serves as both a form of archiving, but also a reclaiming of the materials as aesthetically and culturally important.

Texture Generator

A GitHub texture generation tool, this site uses #math to generate some pretty absurd looking textures. Through the combining of several preset equations and a tweaking of values, you can often direct the site to make some really beautiful tiling images.

GitHub has been my favorite source of strange tools to help build my websites because it’s full of nerds (compliment) just giving away gems for free!

DALL·E mini

Obviously AI has it’s limits, and this prompt was just too far beyond what is imaginable by AI at this point in time. Funnily enough, this project worked relatively well up until google released news of it’s own proprietary AI that generates images. Upon people realizing they weren’t on the list to try Imagen, they must have stumbled across the best free alternative which is the DALL-E mini, hammering it with requests for least favorite political candidates smooching each other.

Essay: Modern Tech, Fine Art and an Online Practice

Jake BrownLeave a comment

Post pandemic the idea of maintaining an online feels like a third limb of my art practice, but one i’m becoming quite fond of!

This essay addresses how my practice has come to revolve around digital worlds and social media, both in aesthetic and methodology. Claiming Instagram posts and reddit threads as critical components of a practice seems mad, but as the lines between digital and real blur, determining the value in digital space is important.

How have modern technologies changed the way we create and experience art?

When I began studying fine art at RMIT 5 years ago, one of the rules that almost every teacher repeated when it came to referencing artists, is that it couldn’t be through Instagram. An artist needed to be talked about by a journal or a gallery, or at the very least have their own website, with several teachers saying “anyone can be an artist on Instagram”. This struck me as a strange contrast to the line of thought taught at art schools, that we are all artists by virtue of our practice, that somehow now that we had applied, paid and been approved by an institution, we are granted credibility. Since starting I have seen a softening of this opinion, with the pandemic pushing many to re-evaluate their stance on online forums, and newer artists ascend through art institutions into positions of power, bringing with them more modern ideas of what constitutes an artist and art practice. My goal with this essay isn’t praise instagram as an app or meta as a company, instead I want to look at the way that art’s value is transmuted through its transition into digital online space, how art displayed online interacts with the environment it is displayed in, and how digital work finds its value. Throughout this essay I will be talking about my physical artwork and my online presence as equal facets of my practice.

Where you encounter art has always had an impact on its value, monetarily, conceptually, and socially. Prior to the inception of the internet and social media, anyone interested in art would need to be informed about the art world. Knowing where the galleries are, who runs them, and being involved in networks and groups that discuss art. This dynamic meant the balance of power was in the hands of people who curated art spaces. With the introduction of social media sites like instagram, audiences began to gain more power, as they became the lens through which outside parties would experience these spaces (MacDowall et al. 2021). I felt my practice needed to reflect this shift in power, growing my own audience online as a form of presenting my work, and subverting the traditional gallery structure.

In 2021 I began using holographic paper, this paper refracts light and creates a rainbow effect across the surface. For my series Reflektor I would collect collage elements and scan them at high quality, then screen print them onto the holographic paper. Thematically the work referred to the processes of looking and being looked at, enforced through materiality, imagery, and through the process of documenting and sharing the process of creation online. Each image featured figures looking at each other, away from each other, and inwards through introspection. The reflective material surface acts as a distorted mirror, the viewer’s gaze is pulled past the figures at their own refracted reflection. The act of sharing and documenting work gives the viewer, If they choose to follow along, a chance to engage in an empathetic experience of creation, as they watch and interact with me while I bring the piece to fruition. Images that elicit empathy have been shown to draw the highest rates of engagement, a study of the most successful artwork posts on instagram confirmed ‘the audience feels that they are the artist’s friends and participate in the artist’s life and creation’ (Kang, Chen & Kang 2019). This empathy driven interaction creates a dynamic where artworks success is driven by an empathetic relationship to the audience. This becomes the central source of value in the work, instead of its conceptual grounding.

To frame the online interaction between creator and audience as a purely constructive display of empathy would neglect the potential complexities of such a one directional, or parasocial relationship. Parasocial relationships are not something that is unique to the internet, and in fact have been a part of the conversation surrounding media personalities since the 1950s. Horton and Wohl (1956) examined the phenomenon of actors addressing an audience via TV or radio, outlining how this interaction creates an illusion of familiarity for the viewer, through emotive language and framing devices, coining it a parasotional interaction. This was later expanded into the concept of a parasocial relationship, which is a more adequate description of the lengths and depths of these relationships, and has only become more relevant with the introduction of social media’s ability to let the viewers reach out to the persona en masse (Riles & Adams 2021). While building a following on various media platforms and experimenting with how I would present myself online, there are techniques and tactics that have been more successful and fulfilling to my practice. Framing devices in TV and radio would be factors such as, is the persona facing the audience and addressing them directly, is emotive language being used to connect with the audience, or is rhetoric employed to garner empathy (Horton & Wohl 1956). These framing devices still exist in an online environment, but in my personal practice I hope to centre the artwork as the central figure with which the audience relates, this means how I frame my work online Is different and garners different responses. Commonly the most useful tool is presenting artwork in a physical context, this could be showing the artwork in the studio, helping to convey the artist experience. Presenting the work in a gallery space conveys a more commercial or professional element to the interaction. This framing is useful as it connects the artwork with a physical space in the real world, helping to maintain the artworks aura through a connection to materiality. The artist’s presence in the presentation of the work is still also important, this can be through an image showing the artist with the artwork, or the voice of the artist accompanying a video. In my own practice these two facets are realised through constant video documentation of the creation process, compiling these slices into videos paired with personal voice over in an aim to connect the artwork with myself as the artist. Kaźmierczak (2021) contends that while documentation of performance is innately facile and fictitious, embracing this as an inevitability lets us realise an effective archiving of artworks. While Kaźmierczak was referring to performance art, In the age of social media artists can now choose to perform their practice online, with the documentation being synonymous with a performance.

Walter Benjamin (1936) coined the term “aura” in relation to artworks, he thought the reproduction of art through mechanical processes destroyed an essentialness, and its links to tradition and materiality. His definition also refers to a sense of distance, an ability to connect with the object, likening it to our ability to connect with elements of the natural world. The contemporary conversation surrounding an artworks aura is still in some instances to mechanical reproduction, though this is dampened by the legitimisation of printmaking and photography as viable and valuable art practices. Instead it is the digital realm that suffers the brunt of this conversation. With the benefit of hindsight these distinctions between what does and does not have an aura seems to be a difference between the known and the unknown, a warmth and respect for what is known, and a feeling of distance from that which seems alien to us. As someone who grew up with access to all types of technology at my fingertips, I can attest to the feelings of familiarity and warmth for digital spaces. Specifically the web 1.0 websites of the late 90s and early 2000s, the specific design sensibilities or lack thereof, and the boutique nature of hundreds of handmade sites. These facets came together in a feeling of community, with each page governing itself, and creating a unique experience. I could attempt an argument that through the transition into web 2.0 and the centralisation of the internet by several tech companies, a sense of aura was lost, but it would be a discredit to future generations who will undoubtedly find their own sense of aura among the world left to them. Amorim & Teixeira (2020) argue that instead of losing an aura through transition into the online world, a new aura is created, but is separate from the aura of the material artwork. This seems a fairer assessment of the functions of these transitions, that any medium given time to be understood and embraced can form an auratic connection with an audience. Neither of these readings give credit to work made within the purposed auraless new medium, Benjamin refers to print and photographic mediums almost exclusively as reproductive tools and not generative. Amorim & Teixeria consider the digitals role only to represent physical artworks when they otherwise cannot be reached. Artists such as Molly Soda centre their practice around the experience of the digital world, simultaneously critiquing and embracing the ways in which an individual is compelled to be a representative for their own image or brand. Soda’s work is born and exists online, and is generally exhibited thusly, though it has been exhibited through printed screenshots and video installations, I would argue this creates a loss of the digital works aura. Proulx (2016) details how youth who have grown up with social media show heightened drive to perform, seemingly from an intense awareness of how they are perceived, which has led to prolific use of the self image as a tool of empowerment. The portrayal of the artwork is most in touch with its aura in the context of the social media site, this context of space means the viewer connects and associates the messages with their own personal experience.

My work Halls of Galaria (2021) is an online interactive experience using the blogging platform WordPress. The work consisted of several pages of images, text, and navigation options the viewer can use to move through several branching paths. This project was live the entire time it was being worked on, so as people returned, new wings of the fictional Galleria would open. I wanted the creation and installation of the work to at all times be moving, this project was aesthetically and functionally inspired by web 1.0 design, text based adventures, and the online art gallery wolfman museum. However a particular incident with an album release by Kanye West is what inspired the fluidity, after releasing his album Pablo, Kanye kept changing tracks while the album was still hosted online. I felt this act of modifying an already released work was a perfect reflection on how new technologies had changed the traditionally immutable relationship between artist and artwork. Halls of Galleria exists on, and could only be properly experienced through the medium of the internet. I believe the aura of the work is created through a friction of web 1.0 and 2.0 technologies, as well as the novelty of discovering a unique space on the internet that serves no explicit commercial or social purpose beyond entertainment.

Polaine (2005, p. 1) talks about the established conservitive art galleries’ lack of interest in interactive media, stating that it is diametrically opposed to the interests of the fine art institutions desire to be a grounds for the display of divine art objects. Interactive media can be seen as lowbrow and populist due to its accessibility, and ease of digital replication, this view disregards the unique individual experiences that can be had in an interactive space. This denial of an emerging practice feels in line with the eb and flow of the art world, as we see conceptual art is now ubiquitous, where a century ago it wasn’t. I believe we are coming to a nexus soon with interactive art, Polaine’s paper was written in 2005, in the 15 years since interactive art installations have become more embraced. Often seen in the form of pop up experiences backed by the conceptual work of an artist such as RANDOM INTERNATIONAL’s Rain Room or Nick Ennis’s Imaginaria. Though these adult playroom style interactive works have found commercial and critical success, there is still a lag for work in the digital realm finding its place in the greater fine art world. Video games would be the obvious champion of this interactive art space, though are also shunned by the fine art world due to a perceived tackiness, and commercial focus. Smuts (2005) positions video games as a sister medium to the moving image, but with an element of performance with the player participating in the creation of an experience. While Halls of Galleria is not a video game, it aesthetically and functionally borrows tools from the medium. The focus of the work is the user experience, to create a playground online that pushes back to the largely homogenised experience of the online environment we find today. There is no reason that the work could not be documented or otherwise captured and placed in a gallery setting. I believe this would destroy the work’s aura, in cutting it off from the internet and the viewer’s ability to share and explore in their own time, an organic functionality is lost.

The internet, modern computing power and new social forums have all fundamentally changed the way we view and create art, the real discussion is to what degree. Some will vehemently reject the internet’s influence at all levels of involvement, while some embrace it to the exclusion of all other mediums. Digital work, often maligned for a lack of aura, I contend is too new for anyone to assert that as an absolute fact, as how we connect with art is a reflection of the time we live in. Interactivity is slowly being embraced throughout the fine art world, but might be too ephemeral for it to become the speculative asset big fine art demands. My practice lives in these worlds, using the internet and the digital as a medium to foster community, conversation, and creativity.

References

Kang, X, Chen, W & Kang, J 2019, ‘Art in the Age of Social Media: Interaction Behaviour Analysis of Instagram Art Accounts’, Informatics, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 52.

MacDowall, L, & Budge, K 2021, ‘Art after Instagram : Art Spaces, Audiences, Aesthetics’, Taylor & Francis Group.

Polaine, A 2005, ‘Lowbrow, High Art: Why Big Fine Art doesn’t understand interactivity’, In The First International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology.

Smuts, A 2005, ‘Are video games art?’, Contemporary Aesthetics, vol. 3, no. 6.

Riles, J.M, and Adams, K 2021, ‘Me, myself, and my mediated ties: Parasocial experiences as an ego-driven process’ Media Psychology, vol. 24, pp. 792-813.

Brown, N 2019, ‘Autonomy : The Social Ontology of Art under Capitalism’, Duke University Press, Durham.

Proulx, M 2016, ‘Protocol and Performativity: Queer selfies and the coding of online identity’, Performance Research, vol. 21, pp.114-118.

Amorim, J.P, and Teixeira, L.M.L 2021, ‘Art in the Digital during and after Covid: Aura and Apparatus of Online Exhibitions’, Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, vol. 12, pp.1-8.

Benjamin, W 1935, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

Kaźmierczak, M 2021, ‘The Contingency and Fiction of Performance Art Documentation: Theory and Practice’, Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, vol. 40, pp.188-197.

There’s layers to it

Jake BrownLeave a comment

This semester I decided to venture outside of the printmaking studio and try my hand at painting again. I took the class Expanded Field Painting, which turned out to be a class about everything but painting. So it was at the same time not what I wanted, and what I was already doing.

For the first assignment we had a group project, and I got to work with Stephanie Jook and Anita Kwong, two incredibly talented artists. For the first time of any group project I have been a part of, the forming of the idea, and the setting in motion of the plan was incredibly simple. Through the crudest of drawings we designed an installation, we would have one team member painting on Perspex on one side of the room, and this would be filmed and projected onto the other side of the room. This projection would hit a paper lined wall, where another team member would draw in response to what was being projected. Initially there was talk of having this be a live performance, but as we tried to detangle our individual schedules, we realized we would only get one chance to practice. This meant we decided instead to record the process through various angles, and then present the documentation as a resolved work.

Below is what I would consider the resolved work, half documentation and half interpretation of process.

and here is some more direct documentation

We first wanted to paint onto perspex, recording this and projecting it onto the other wall. We tried this a few times and it did work well, unfortunately since we were recording from the back of the perspex, so all the paint stacked on top of other paint, and after the first layer nothing new would be seen. Later on in the project we began taping paper to the wall, recording that and projecting it. This changed the dynamic in a few ways, mainly that both sides were equal using the same mediums, and the position and scale of the human drawing changed. This also meant we got to keep some of the drawings after the fact, as we regularly cleaned the perspex.

The two below are my drawings from the session, we didn’t plan what to do when we started, so what we got was very freeform.

The first of these works was me drawing on the projected wall, responding to the movements of the projected light, the work is much more organic and less structured. The second drawing is much more structured and in line with my regular drawings, as there was little outside influence to change how I work.

I then tried to recreate the concepts of the project in a digital space, this can be seen here on my website. To further bring this in line with my current themes of bridging the gap between the digital and real, of course I had to make some QR code stickers!

The image is a combination of the two works I made during the project, and come together to form a pleasing image. It’s satisfying that these images work together even though that was never the intention. On the page itself, scaled on the background is an animated image of the front layer fading in and out. I like that this feels like a YTMND page, and has been something that I’ve been reminded of frequently while making pages on www.lifeshell.online.

That about wraps up the project, but I’ll leave you with some more of the documentation. Lately I’ve felt that documentation of process is more important than the resolved work. While the project is being documented it is still alive, in completing the work we kill and dress it for presentation. This is partly why my work with websites has been so different, the work never dies.

If you’re interested in seeing more you can find me at your local bodega!

Cheers,
Jake

Live, Laugh, Ponder Orb

Jake BrownLeave a comment

Traditional printmaking techniques require a lot of equipment, and even the more kitchen table friendly approaches require a decent amount of space. During lockdown my bedroom was probably 2.5 x 3 meters, which isn’t the smallest room, but with my queens sized bed, left just enough room for a desk, and a tv unit. So over lockdown, to keep my practice alive, I decided to step back into painting. With the little space remaining in my room I set up me easel, a camera, and started streaming.

There are still some videos up online from that period, you can see one here!

This was something I had wanted to do for a while, to start streaming my practice online. For a while it was fulfilling, eventually though the reality of regularly streaming became stressful. To put yourself on display while creating is incredibly vulnerable, and I am a person who does not do well with being observed. Strange then that I had this desire to be a streamer, I often wonder why I felt that drive, maybe social reasons, or that it felt very cutting edge. I think ultimately the allure of streaming was that it was simple, just set up an easel, a camera, and go. Pretty quickly I came to understand that without connections or a lot of luck, It was going to be a slow grind. Which is fine! But as I wasn’t enjoying the process, and with the crushing nature of the pandemic, I knew it wouldn’t last.

Despite this pessimism, I keep finding myself drawn back into the world of streaming! I tried different setups, methods, and mediums. Creating unique playlists of documentaries to play while I worked on my Halls of Galleria project, playing different styles of music and approaching DJs so I could use their mixes, even recording my lava lamp to make the stream look funkier, and leaning super hard into the viewer interaction side of streaming. After all this I have become pretty comfortable on stream, and my opinions of internet content creation have become a lot less dogmatic.

My twitch stream is still up, and you can see some recent videos on the channel, unfortunately due to music copyright strikes a lot of videos aren’t available.

So this year in my class expanded field painting, I thought it was a perfect opportunity to revisit streaming. The class talked about what defines a painting, and the extent to which we can call something a painting. Initially the answer might seems simple, but there are grey areas, like if you send instructions on how to paint a mural to a gallery, and then someone else paints it on the wall. You could say the painting was made by whoever physically put the paint on the wall, but you could also claim that the idea of the painting is the painting, and the physical presentation is just a representation of the real painting (the instructions). This idea of where is the practice, especially as it pertains to digital representations has been at the center of my research this year, and really since the beginning of lockdown. Many of my works never leave my room, but digital representations of them leave my house and travel all over the world through digital recreations. So what is my practice? the physical artworks or the documentation?

I finished two paintings on stream this semester, both quite different.

This is the first, and I can only really describe it as a slump buster. A lot of what drove this painting was fighting the nerves of facing a blank canvas, of having to plan ahead, and other anxieties that inhibit a practice. The figure was sourced from a game I had been obsessively playing for the last month called Elden Ring, the game has a really nice lighting system, and allows you to create custom models. I thought this idea of using video games screenshots as image references tied into my themes of digital worlds and their effect on art, but also was a great way to bring my hobbies and interests into my art. I really enjoy the muddy yucky green and yellow of the computer, I really wat to revisit this composition but to give the figure more context.

The work was a more literal representation of some of the feelings that festered over lockdown. I found myself abusing gaming as a way to get through it, but this characterization was problematic. Something I worked on through lockdown was not demonizing my actions. As a recovered alcoholic, It’s easy for me to look at all leisure through the lens of an addict. I think over the course of lockdown I managed to create a better relationship with my downtime and my hobbies. I’m not sure if the image speaks to this externally, but this is what I think looking back on it.

The second work I completed was an homage to Botticelli.

My finished work alongside streaming setup
This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is sandro-botticelli-young-man-holding-a-roundel-680x1024-1.jpg
Sandro Botticelli, Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel (circa 1444/5–1510). Courtesy of Sotheby’s.

This painting was the main focus for my work in this class, and was the starting point for a few derivations. But first I’ll talk about the actual painting.

Visually the work is inspired by a series I completed a few years ago called Reflektor, where I screen printed on rainbow reflective adhesive vinyl. Instead of working directly on the vinyl though, with this project I would work around it. To help the vinyl stick to the surface I decided to work on MDF, I thought this would be a flatter more stable surface to help the adhesive stay put. After plotting out the image in pencil, I used an annoying method of tracing on several pieces of paper to get the shape of the face and hands cut out of the vinyl, then with great care adhered the vinyl. In plotting out the work I left some room to deviate from the original, I didn’t want to add in the rondel of the source image, and instead wanted something that spoke to the digital / cosmic aesthetic that the vinyl brought to the image. I decided to use a great squids eye, though some have said it looks like a portable speaker? This was in an attempt to reference the loosely defined cosmic horror genre. I’ve listened to a lot of discourse around what defines work in this genre, and how to place it. Sometimes I think it gets boiled down to big monster scary, with Cthulhu being somewhat of a poster child for the genre, but this great video by HBomberguy helped me reimagine how I thought about it. Instead of something large and externally threatening a subject, I instead contextualize the themes as a familiar made unfamiliar. I want people to see the work and think “I know this, and I understand the components, but the whole is unfamiliar to me.”

Documentation of the process

Similar to Reflektor this work was heavily documented, both through Instagram and streaming on Twitch. I also tried several times to illicit interaction with an audience, going back to replacing the rondel, I actually asked people on Instagram to decide what goes there. While I didn’t use any of their suggestions, it was definitely fun, and was sure to acknowledge that i was going to go my own direction with it.

This time I also wanted to incorporate TikTok, mainly because it being a more popular app means more eyes, but the culture is also more cutting edge at the moment. The app and community it holds hasn’t had time to homogenize or stagnate like Instagram or Facebook have in recent years.

TikTok posted on YouTube in a WordPress post 🥴

This was the first time I had posted something like this, my goals with these TikToks, and what I had come to understand, is what the algorithm rewards are videos that are very immediate and real. I tried to put enough effort into the so they conveyed value, but to also not overthink the execution as there are extreme diminishing returns on effort invested. I wanted to be present with the work, but still alow the work to take the center stage. My approach was to visually only show the painting, but to have y voice present, even if what I’m saying was not important to the content of the painting. To allow the work to engage on it’s own level, and for me to engage on another level, separately but in unison.

That about wraps up the process of painting and documenting, but there’s another portion to this project, and it’s been a theme across my practice this year, and that’s iteration. Specifically through a website built to create HTML based artworks, and through the creation of QR code stickers.

This is the webpage that the QR codes lead too! or check it out below!

I wanted to work with recreating the piece in an online space. I achieved this through a use of transparency, animation, and images created by AI. The transparency and the animation are obvious I feel, to recreate the reflective vinyl. I wanted to achieve an effect that gave a similar feeling but with a low computing cost, I tried at all points to keep image resolution low to aid this. The last factor though, the AI images, was something that I felt could help bring through the ideas of familiar / unfamiliar. The speed at which AI are progressing is astounding, and in many ways are the real life manifestation of a cosmic horror. Something so familiar to us, but so different. We as humans can conjure images in our minds from any prompt, the more talented among us could even render these as images in the real world. But to see a machine do it in a matter of seconds is equal parts impressive and horrifying. The horror for me comes in the errors in computing when the AI tries to understand what a face is and how it works, as the way things are going some would have us put our lives in their hands, and I sure hope at that point the understand what I am.

A static screenshot, if you visit the page it has some slight animation!

That’s about all I have for this project!

If you’ve enjoyed this project you should find me at your local social media thingy!

Cheers,
Jake

How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Emergence of a Neo-Feudalist Digital Oligarchy

Jake BrownLeave a comment

Hi everyone, don’t panic, this is just your run of the mill project breakdown. So put down those pitchforks, pick up that adventurous spirit, and relax, while I tell you all about why I do the things I do.

Leandra via Nostalgia 2022, Inkjet Print

November last year I was able to participate in a show at The Hue and Cry Collective. Located out in Geelong, the show was 55 artists each responding to a chapter from Italo Calvinos Invisible Cities. I was given the city Leandra, a chapter talking about tiny invisible gods arguing over the essence of a place.

Initially I had a lot of bombastic ideas, including altered reality and massive A1 lino cuts. Eventually time and good sense got the better of me and I settled on an A3 linocut. As I planned out my lino image on illustrator, I began to play around with some of the features I hadn’t before. I’ve been interested in learning 3D modelling for a while, and as I was trying to get the perspective for the building accurate I came across Illustrators 3D tool. This feature is very CPU intensive, and would send my laptop into a frenzy trying to render anything even slightly complicated. But the aesthetic it created was very reminiscent of pre rendered Super Nintendo and PS1 backgrounds, giving it an incredibly nostalgic feeling. I used inbuilt and community sourced open use textures, as well as making some of my own, adding to the kitsch feel of the work.

The process is fairly simple on the surface. Creating shapes with the line tool, and then converting them to 3D objects. It’s hard to describe the specific ways in which the process is busted as hell. Basically each shape get’s it own orientation, and then the lighting works off of that orientation? So the game becomes keeping track of what angles you used to orient objects, and using that to create consistent lighting. In a proper 3d program, the orientation and lighting are not linked like this, so yeah it would be much easier in blender or something like that.

but look at it! it’s charming? right?

From Concept to Final Work

My interest as of this last few years has been in the digital world, and how it ties into our life in the flesh dimension. While trying to find a conceptual framework to approach these ideas with, I came across Koskelas paper Cam Era’ — the contemporary urban Panopticon. Koskela outlines a comparison between the panopticon prison structure and urban CCTV surveillance, using Foucault’s analysis of the panopticon as a structure of power as a reference point. It didn’t seem a leap at all to apply this comparison to digital environments. Both in reference to the individuals position of anonymous power, but also in relation to an individuals existence in heavily monitored digital environment.

This friction between simultaneous experiences online was something I felt worth exploring. How we can simultaneously feel so powerful looking through the screen, but also be increasingly vulnerable as data harvesting techniques improve. I wanted to explore this by having a jovial, goofy looking image lead to an in depth analysis of the panoptic nature of the online experience. This would be reached through scanning the code located on the image, which I set up before even beginning to write.

When I began the writing process though, what felt more natural and powerful to me, was to write a story. I felt through a narrative format I could still create that jarring tension between being watched and feeling in control. If you don’t have access to a QR code scanner for some reason, you can click the button below and read the story.

READ THE ACCOMPANYING STORY HERE

I didn’t want to explain every facet of my story, instead leaving breadcrumbs for people to investigate. An attempt to weave environmental storytelling into a text based work, I trust the reader to use the internet to pull apart the messages in the story through independent research.

Both aesthetically and practically I want this work to be the entree for a story. I want to capture the sickeningly naive facade of the digital corporate, using it to present honest, heartfelt and earnest stories. There is a great sense of freedom just saying what I want to say after years of trying to convey ideas through images. I start feeling like I’m 18 again, writing sad poems on Tumblr just for my friends.

References:

  1. Koskela, H 2002, ‘‘Cam Era’ — the contemporary urban Panopticon’, Surveillance and Society, vol. 1, no. 3.
  2. Data Brokers 2022, television program, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, CBS Broadcast Centre, 17 April

STOP, THIEF!

Jake BrownLeave a comment

Ok so first off, what were you doing pointing a camera at my work? What are you some kind of art thief! To prison with you!

Your cell is small, slightly wider at the back, the rough concrete floor reaching out past the metal bars to a meter high railing. Emerging from the pit beyond the rail is an ominous glass structure, your own image shifting on the surface. The obelisk stirs, suddenly every corner of your cell is illuminated. Frozen in place, you wait for the light to dissipate, but the feeling of being observed won’t leave your bones.

Years have passed, your sentence served, rehabilitated and forgiven in the eyes of god and the law.

The cashier at the convenience store rummages for your change, you wave them off

“It’s fine keep it!” you chirp in an overly positive tone, so as not to sound even the slightest bit passive aggressive.

A yellowing Dahua IP 5mp Turret swivels to catch the top of your head as you squeeze through the barely open sliding doors.

There’s a park on your path home, it’s quarter to five, the magic hour. You squint, holding your shopping free hand up to block the light, so you can admire the government sanctioned sculpture erected by [revered local artist]. Two long slender bronze figures, each resting their head on the others shoulder, stand patiently in front of you. Eyes wondering down you notice weeds pushing through the cracks in the brittle base of the structure.

Your eyes follow the cracks on the rough concrete, reaching out to the edge of the path. A pair of sodden sneakers with muddied blue denim spilling over onto them. They belong to a stranger, standing, transfixed on a phone thirty centimeters in front of their face. They tap the screen, bring the phone closer, extend there arms back out, and repeat.

You keep walking home.

A Doorbird D2101KV regards you silently as you pass into the foyer of your apartment building. A neighbour stops you, they’ve just returned from a classic car show. Not wanting to offend, you feign interest.

“Oh that sounds neat, I’ll have to go sometime!”

Adhesive marble vinyl peels from the corners of your kitchen counter. Shopping unpacked, you turn your tv on and volume down, sitting at your desk.

Out of your window you notice a duel pair of Annke Nightcroma NCA500s, they’re set up in front of the hotel opposite your apartment. Framing the front entrance, they provide a total 180 degree field of vision. They’re blissfully unaware of your existance.

You think about that TedTalk, the one that said unproductive people face their desks toward windows, or maybe the later led to the former. You can’t remember.

Your phone recognises you and springs to life with a satisfying click, you open [PREFERRED SOCIAL MEDIA APPLICATION].

Emanuel got engaged.

Adél is having a baby.

[Revered local artist] is having a show.

SAVE EASY WITH TO THE DOLLAR ROUND UP ON [FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS] NEW APP!

Emmett posted a selfie from a party last night.

Fatimah also posted a selfie from a party last night. In the background you see Emmett.

You must have missed Emanuels engagement party last night.

DON’T MISS OUT THIS SUNDAY LAST CHANCE TO CATCH THE INFAMOUS [LOCAL AREA] CLASSIC CAR SHOW!

Michael posted a flat block of colour in solidarity with an issue you’ve been meaning to read up on.

Sara got a new tattoo. You [like/thumbs up/upvote/comment] on the image.

SUPER EXCLUSIVE FLASH DAY AT [ADJECTIVE] [NOUN] TATTOO STUDIO! DON’T MISS OUT!

An old high school friend who’s name you’ve forgotten is giving their new partner a soft open, the caption reads “days with you 😍”

Meme about working in construction and being over 50 posted by your estranged uncle.

Meme you don’t understand, posted by your twelve year old nephew.

GET IN NOW ON THE GROUND FLOOR OF A NEW BLOCKCHAIN BASED MARKET DISRUPTING REVOLUTION!

HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO OWN THE CONCEPT OF THE RIGHTS TO A DIGITAL META OBJECT LOCATED IN YOUR NEW CYBER LOCAL?

SICK AND TIRED OF THE CORNERS OF THE ADHESIVE MARBLE VINYL ON YOUR KITCHEN COUNTERTOP PEELING UP?

A RUMBLING EXISTENTIAL DREAD RISING TO A CRESCENDO OF ENNUI DEEP WITHIN YOUR BONES?

BUY NOW! WHAT IS IT? WHO KNOWS, BUT YOU DON’T WANT TO ASK AND SEEM LIKE A BIG IDIOT NOW DO YOU?

It’s approaching, bed time. Ten thousand bees rumble through your cavernous skull, rubbing their bristly bodies against the inside of your cornea.

You reach down beside your bed, blindly rummaging for a thin cord. With the phone on charge, your morning is safe from introspection.

Neon rectangles dance under your eyelids against a deep dark, as the bees retire for the evening.

Posted from my iPhone

Halls of Inspiration

Jake BrownLeave a comment

I’ve made a post about some of my visual influences for this work, citing pretty well known media as a way to help people understand my intentions. But there is a load of smaller things that have heavily influenced this project, and my thinking on writing and visuals, and how they interact.

It’s a me… Wario?

So around the time I started working on this project a game called WarioWare: Get it Together! came out. From my count it’s the ninth installment in the series, that features Mario’s arch nemesis Wario, and revolves around completing what the developers call “microgames”, these are tine 3-20 second games that are meant to be ran through at a fast pace.

You can see a sample here of some of the microgames. What I really took from this game though was how the visual styles were mashed together so chaotically, but somehow it still works. Moving at break neck pace between cartoon, to photo realistic, to 3d rendered, but never loosing sense of the visual aesthetic the game aims for.

In the same realm as this is Katamari Damacy which I played recently, this has a more consistent art style, but this strange way of repeating the same objects in tight clusters around the map. It’s a really unique aesthetic, it really understands that even more than a visual experience, its a tactile experience. The soundtrack consists of high energy jazz fusion arcane magic that is chaotic, but oh so catchy.

Todd Dillard

Todd Dillard is a poet who I know mainly through twitter. I decided a while ago that the only people I would follow on twitter are those I know personally, or people who post at least 80% jokes. Todd is the later, he post mainly witty comments on the state of lit twitter, the poetry industry, and what it’s like to be sad AND funny.

One poem in particular that he posted recently really spoke to what I hope to achieve with my work. Mixing together meta references, bizarre humor and a sense of melancholy.

The way Todd leads the reader in this poem is really interesting to me, I feel like when I read a new line it’s like Todd is waiting for me, and he’s describing my journey to me. He has a fantastic economy of words, saying a lot with just enough.

Mos Def as Ford Prefect was outstanding

On the subject of literature I should talk about The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Recently I read this to my partner, and it was interesting to read out loud at a slower pace. I would actually say this is how the book was meant to be read. You really get an appreciation for the absurdity when you’re sitting on a porch, in full view of passers by, spouting pure nonsense.

After finishing the book, I half remember having a conversation about the point of the book. I explained that I’d heard there were sequels, but that it wasn’t really about that I don’t think. Hitchhikers guide is odd when compared to modern media, finishing the book isn’t the point, reading the chapters in order isn’t the point, it’s a meditation on joy, it’s a meal you don’t want to finish, nor one you should.

The Narcissist’s Guide to Himself

I want my work to feel like the Gobstopers we used to buy at the local milk bar when I was 10. We would collect our change and ride two blocks through the dry Townsville heat, collecting our treats, and heading to the nearby hill. We would spend hours trying to work through these sugary monstrosities, taking breaks to play our favorite game “ride down a really steep hill and try not to die”.

I’ve lost the point I was trying to make here, It’s almost 2am and this is the last piece of writing for my 2nd year of a fine art bachelor. This last six months has been intense, wonderful, sad and just truly heartbreaking. I’m so filled with emotions they seem to have all balanced out, I think I might have worked myself up so much that I’ve come full circle to some sort of Zen state?

In conclusion I rented a domain with my own name, paid for WordPress, and have written around 10000 words almost exclusively about myself.

the end.

Enter the Halls of Galeria

Jake BrownLeave a comment
ENTER THIS WAY > 🚪

This project has been an interesting one, you can go back and read the proposal here, and my early development here if you like. But I will be doing a quick summary of my inspiration and initial methods when building this project up here, so if you’re a bit lazy like I am, I got you.

This project was born of necessity in some ways. This semester has been like no other, I deferred school during the 2020 lockdown, so this was my first experience with total online schooling. While later on in the semester we would get some access to the studios back, for the most part I approached this semester and this project assuming I wouldn’t be back in the studios before the submission date. My plan was to create something totally online, an engaging experience, and something that could be built upon for years to come.

The PrInternet

During the conceptualizing of this project, I tried to think about how a completely online art practice could uphold similar principles to traditional printmaking . A few principles stand out in particular, in reproduction, accessibility, and versatility.

Reproduction is easy to comprehend, if you frame your original digital work as the matrix, an arrangement of information that describes your image, much like a lino block describes your image. Each your website or hosted spaces becomes your press, for taking your original matrix and multiplying it as many times as it is called upon. Finally the end viewers screen becomes the paper the image is ‘printed’ on, each time a new instance is shown on a unique screen.

Accessibility was one of the aspects that originally drew me to print, while you can obviously create thirteen layer reduction woodcuts and run them through a three thousand dollar press with the finest inks and papers, you could just as easily cut some lino at home with cheap tools and hand print them on printer paper. I remember as a young man running a tumblr page, posting MSPaint drawings of my silly jokes that ended up reaching thousands of people, with work on the internet time invested and quality is not always what brings attention, it’s having a keen sense of the ever changing digital zeitgeist. This accessibility also applies to how prints are accessed, where paintings are usually unique objects, a print can be repeated almost indefinitely, meaning it is an artform for the masses, something the internet does almost too well.

Finally versatility, in the adobe suite alone there are dozens of programs we can use to make work, for this project alone I’ve used several programs, and taking the work online the amount of options can be dizzying. In the before times, I was a big fan of screen-printing and fine art digital prints, but have also enjoyed using lino, wood blocks and copper to create work. I think letting the work dictate the medium is the most enjoyable way to work, rather that tunnel visioning on a single medium, and I don’t think this project could be done any other way.

This all might seem like a stretch, or maybe even a bit trite, but I really think framing my work this way has helped me see the value in online digital work. A common hurdle in making work I think is not so much justifying it to an audience, but justifying the effort and time commitment to yourself.

Galeria Born

Originally I was planning for this project to be a lampoon of cooperate art styles, the site even takes its name from the term Alegria, an art style companies often employ to make themselves seem more human and less like dystopian nightmare factories. But as is often the case, anger fades, you see flaws in your approach, and the project shifts. By the time I started working on the project, very little of this original inspiration remained, I no longer wanted to give my time and energy to talking about these obviously shitty companies and their practices. I wanted to make something that would reflect me and the world I live in, I wanted to make all those weird artworks I thought wouldn’t be acceptable in a fine art setting, to create without a sense of ego, or expectation.

So what’s left after you take out this lampooning? Basically an empty world ready to be filled! I started working without any real plan for how I was going to present my work online, except for the vague intent to have it function as a website. I started building each room as a single image, trying to account for the fact that I might want to revisit them. I did this by keeping my layer structure as clean as possible, something I think I only mastered with my latest work. Keeping everything separate and self contained allows me to rearrange items in the room, and even come back to this original linework file and add more items.

After the line work is done, I then move on to coloring. I’ve been using my own photos and free stock images as sources for my textures. It’s a nice throw back to working with collage, but also an art style that I find really appealing, like a kind of digital kitsch. The first way I started doing this was through illustrator itself, there are tools to combine the entire image and use a paint bucket with tilled textures. This is a really convenient way of working, but with my earlier rooms file layout, it became messy and unmanageable. I decided to take the finished linework into photoshop and finish it there, this is an environment more suited for this non-graphic work, but it does have the downside of being rasterized and therefore you really need to be sure on the layout before you commit.

These close ups give a better impression of how the textures interact with the linework, the project essentially becomes a coloring book for me to play around with, creating mask layers for each object and then testing several textures until I’m happy. Sometimes, as with the fern and books, adding straight up photographic images to the scene, creating a weird contrast between graphic and reality.

After having created several rooms, it became time to start putting the whole website together. From the start I had envisioned sort of a monkey island style point and click adventure, though very rudimentary, it was nothing I couldn’t learn. As I began looking into hosting a website and building something from scratch, I realized the time and financial investment would be just far too much. Luckily, I already had this WordPress site!

I decided to transition from a point and click to more of a text based adventure with accompanying images, videos and gifs. After deciding this as the avenue I wanted to go down, creating the layout only took a matter of hours, creating descriptions links and connections between the images, to give the impression of venturing through a strange world. Upon arranging the three main images I had made, I realized there was a lot of room for variations. For some pages I added zoomed in portions so people could get a closer look at certain items that are too small to see, especially on mobile. For the library shelf I used a whole stock image with slight variations to represent my writing, and for the hive I decided to quickly make some gifs as a fun little way to expand the world.

Not only is using WordPress easier, It’s also more accessible and recognizable. It already scales for mobile, works on every browser, is recognizable as a trustworthy site. I’m already trying to direct traffic there (here) to my blog, so win win! All in all it feels like an elegant solution, and allows me to test out this format/medium before committing hundreds of dollars in hosting fees.

Terminally Online

Like a lot of people who spend a lot of time online, I have many complaints. I never expected to be a legitimate “back in my day” person, but when it comes to the internet, I was really just at the right age when it’s culture was being formed. In my late teens, thousands of bespoke websites catered too all kinds of weird and wacky things, you spent less time on centralized social media sites, and more time hopping from link to link on recommendations. In some ways, even though there were a lot less people using it, it felt a lot bigger. I know though that this is really just looking back at it with rose tinted glasses, it was also a horrible place that fostered some really terrible ideas, and if not for some good IRL experiences and people, I might have fallen down into some dark corners of the web.

Part of this project for me is bringing back that feeling of stumbling across something unique online, an organic experience not perfected or refined, but something as close to handmade as you can in a digital landscape. Another equally important part is my obsession with that scene in Jurassic park where the girl is hacking the dinosaur mainframe through that bizarre 3d interface.

Streaming has been part of this project from the point I began actually making the rooms, though I did all the busy work of connecting the pages offline. Below I’m going to post a video of my most recent stream, you can skip through and get the vibe, the whole stream is 3 hours with a handful of breaks, some light conversation and a bit of me being flustered when someone called me handsome.

Creating work with an audience is something I’ve talked about in previous posts, but since then I’ve had some more populated streams, and have been able to talk to strangers while working. I’ve found it is not only really comforting, but also increases the amount of time I’m able to stream and the speed at which I make work. It really is like a simulation of the studio environment, albeit one narcissistically revolving around me. I can absolutely see how some people would dislike having people pull apart their work, give advice on how something should look, or talking about unrelated topics as a distraction. For me it’s the perfect environment for my mind to let get into that flow state of creating.

Do blog posts have conclusions?

I’ve said in other posts that I don’t really like to describe a lot of my thoughts behind the imagery in my work, I think once you do you kind of ‘solve’ it for people, and it becomes less interesting. What I will say, is some of the content is very silly, and some of it very serious, but I’m not going to tell you which is which. This project is a reflection of my life, and I hope to build on it for years to come.

In conclusion I did it, I finished a semester during the largest, strictest lockdown in the world, and I didn’t go insane 🥚