In my first few posts I would like to talk about some artwork I have done, what it means to me and how I did it. This first piece I will share is a video that was featured as a part of an installation called "Oil and Water". It was a collaborative installation with the artist Eric Ayotte and Richard Oliver Wilson(http://richardoliverwilson.com). It was installed inside the ruins of a tobacco warehouse (which has since been renovated into the new St. Ann's Warehouse venue) directly beneath the Brooklyn Bridge as part of the DUMBO Art Festival. It was projected onto three eight foot by ten foot free standing screens.
I normally feel like I don't like to say too much about what my creations mean to me especially while they are on display or in the process of being created. I feel this way because I like to let people have their experience with it and let them create their own meaning. With this said, I do usually have intentions set when I sit down to work on a project but I also intend for any piece I create to transcend my intentions as people interact with it. Since this piece happened around 7 years ago I think I am in the clear as far as sharing what it meant to me while creating it and what it means to me now.
Have a look (try to watch it in the highest definition your bandwidth will allow)...
Oil & Water from et.per.se.and on Vimeo.
The most obvious feature of this piece is the rapid and constantly changing pattern of squares and rectangles. This rapidly changing pattern was created by a cellular automaton modeling program.A friend of mine and a brilliant visionary painter,named Eric Ayotte (http://ericayotte.com) was using these same patterns in paintings he had been making at the time. He introduced me to his technique and I took the influence and ran with it in a different way.
The piece was projected onto 3 free standing 8 ft. by 10 ft. screens. Along in front of a giant mechanical bubble machine created by Richard Oliver Wilson.
A view through the arches of the Tobacco Warehouse
How it was done?
Hard to say...it was a fiddly process and the images I chose to use had a vague meaning to me at the time. I chose the source videos mainly based on aesthetics and some kind of vague resonance they had for me. One source is a scene from a Japanese movie that I could not read the name of. The other was a famous 1960's Italian exploitative shockumentary, called "Mondo Cane" and another was a strange web find of a strange occult video about Herod's temple with some strange man in a grey business suit sitting on an Egyptian golden throne. The original source videos were edited and effected in After Effects. The first version of the video was replicated twice. Then each of those copies were effected differently but the timing was left in tact. Then the cellular automata patterns were automated and rendered into a seemingly randomly generating static of black and white squares. The effected videos were then transposed over either the black or white squares, agin using after effects.
The soundtrack was made with a sample of the Muslim call to prayer that I had bought from a vintage record street vendor in downtown Brooklyn. I took a small sample from the record slowed it down and stretched it until it became a drone. I also have a recording of automotive traffic, which I thought would blend into the sounds of the Brooklyn Bridge that loomed over the location of the installation. The rest of the sound composition was made with my collection of synths, drum machines. It all was assembled with Ableton Live.
Meaning?
The meaning has changed for me through out the process and over time. Most of the imagery is around water, boats, fishing, and power struggle between masculine/feminine , primitive/modern, humanity/animal, humanity/nature etc. Much of my work occurs with in the context of modern media and its effects on the mental environment. There is a exponentially increasing pace of information and no matter how high the definition becomes the clarity is washed out by the pace. The pace, limitless versions of "facts", endless options, immediacy and availability creates an inevitable static which becomes a veil that is only slightly transparent yet defined by distraction. At the same time, we all know the information is all there and available. Through this the stratification of power and perspectives on what power is becomes shattered into bits of a fractal when divisions are divided over and over. In this environment, tribalism, racism, sexism, classism, all these divisions are amplified and broken distortions that represent one path to resort to out of desperation to identify oneself in the outside world. The other option is to be brave and develop an inward vision and knowledge of self that is so solid, so strong that it can face the static drone and see the truth for what it is, finding the beauty of reflection with in the chaos.
Any questions and comments are appreciated.
Mahalo,
Derrick Sach Dharam Singh Mulira Barnicoat