The more I look

The more I look at this the more intriguing it is, yes it is a fairly low resolution 3D scan of one of my Memories of Moore sculptures, regenerated within a digital realm, but something about its translation has become organic and almost human. The textures of the brick have become smooth and flesh like and the surface of the desk looks like snow or is it ash?

The question now is should I reinterpret this as a painting? Or should I even do a reinterpretation of it? what will a painting of it add to the mix? So many questions and no real answers. Or should I det the scan to a point where I can print it and see what happens.

It really is all very tantalising

In some ways it reminds me of the exhibition I saw yesterday (28.10.20) at the Castlefield gallery in Manchester, as part of a site visit with Salford University MA. The exhibition was called Soft Bodies the opening paragraphs of the exhibition hand out are rather interesting.

” Soft Body dynamics is a field of computer- generated graphics which creates simulations of soft materials such as muscle, fat, hair, vegetation and fabric. The increasing availability of this kind of software has given artists new tools to make work; manipulating ‘ digital clay’ in limitless space. These 3D digital works are. however primarily experienced via the flat surface of the screen, as still or moving images. This may prompt questions about the contribution these works make to how we experience, understand and imagine our bodies. Do these smooth surfaces ultimately leave us feeling distance and disembodied- and. is that necessarily a bad thing?

This exhibition places works made with these digital technologies alongside photography, painting, drawing, and prints in. order to consider the shared limits and potential of these mediums. In particular the ability to call for worlds beyond their two-dimensional surfaces. with figurative and abstract, actual and virtual content, soft bodies explores how these works might conform our experience of being in a body, with its own insides and outs, boundaries and internal worlds. In places the exhibition points towards experiences of the body beyond everyday language, considering the. speculative. potential of these works to inform a comprehension of the body in relation to the politics, technology, the image, gender, race, sexuality and the future.” Quotes from the soft bodies exhibition handout, Castlefield Gallery, 16th of September 2020 – 1 November 2020.

Whilst viewing the exhibition I may have looked rather blasé, but I was taking everything in I was intrigued by the paintings that were on display how the amorphous bodies blended from one into another melting away in to the landscape ( the art of Xiuching Tsay), or how something that looked like a digital photo was actually a photorealistic painting of a digitally formed object (the art of Robin Megannity).

So how could I take this digitally flat three-dimensional image and turn it into something tangible and maybe even visceral? I expect in many ways I have to research this process some more to finally realise its full potential.

At times I feel like I am racing along jumping from one medium to the next but not really settling on the one do I now want to be throwing this in to the mix?