Some more on my consoles
I realized after I wrote the first article about these machines that I left out a lot of context and reason, the stuff people probably want to know more about. What i want to say about my work comes out in spasms, especially this close to the creation of the work. …So much I’m still understanding and integrating, finding words for.
A great portion of each of these is improvisational, the moment and feeling carrying me on and through the design. I don’t want to overthink things, its easy for my mind to see one possibility, then another, and another, until I’m lost in trying to chose vs just doing. I put things where I put them because they look and feel right. The intention, the outcome, no more than, interest and occupy the mind, my mind. As said in the previous article, in large part these have come about as a different sort of relief valve for my energies and as a way to occupy them (during creation and afterwards during viewing).
A chunk of the design comes from the canvas layout, square has been what I’ve used most, and there’s something about that shape, well, I would say any shape canvas, that really influences the shapes and forms that go inside it and how they’re arranged. How large dials, gauges, containers, etc, can get.
Another interesting design limitation I’ve given myself for these is an 8 frame limit. Whatever needs to move needs to do it in that period of time. That may not hold true for future pieces as I evolve the idea and things get more complex…as already I’m thinking about some dope additions and ideas that build on that limitation. That means whatever moving thing I design, it’s gotta have a cool and smooth movement within that range.
As for why my energies are coalescing into this form, I honestly cannot really say. I know where these ideas evolving from within my own works, and recently I’ve begun to understand where the original inspiration for these came from…movies like Aliens with those sexy sci-fi buttons and lights, James Bond and all those consoles villains used to launch stuff, a childhood of CRT tvs remotes and car phones…the tactility and appearance, seems it stuck in my mind.
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I showed some of these to my coffee shop friends and the general reaction was, cool, but…why? Not like a photograph, a painting of something, a thing to be easily understood and defined, even an abstract painting of which most people now have a decent understanding, something outside the norm. It exists for its own existence, pull what you want from it. Be engaged, create meaning, it’s there, and it’s not.
As I said, these are mostly improvisational at this point and new characters and stuff pop out as they will. There’s a lot of action going on at the subconscious level of my creativity and the more I try and focus the more unfocused it becomes, but the more I trust it, the clearer things become, even if I can’t explain them at the moment. I can prepare for the creation, but don’t really plan it. Why fish? Why a stick figure? Why now a, wait, can’t reveal that yet. All bits and pieces that have been floating around my mind waiting to be collected and placed into an idea, to form a page in a larger story.
I hope this continues the path toward understanding some of my work, as writing about it has helped me. So much about what I create is about the moment for me…the moment I’m in, the moment I create, the moments I hope for, and fear, lol. This series, what I want to try and do with it, so many things always riding on such a slim sliver of hope…but that’s fortunately/unfortunately, live. This cutting edge of a bear market, the world condition, my countries economic shape, my economic shape, cuts off fat one painful slice after another, leaving behind…a lean mean machine, or, …?