Midterm Presentation - Nature, Technology, and Life

By, Francis J Eyth IV:

Preface

When producing and evaluating my own artwork, as well as others, I tend to use this methodology, Phenomenal Methodology of Art Criticism, please feel free to read it as I think we all should in ATEC in order to have a potentially substantiated method for critique.
I may summarize this article within the next few days and as I become more familiar with it's method, as I am not sure if the link is fully accessible to the public.
       (Also,vocal performance, the audio, visual and,  temporal movements, are parts of my piece I am currently planning to execute by combining one of my current audio-video synthesizer works with projection mapping my objects to create a thematic installation around these works that takes place over a duration of time.) 


        So, Material Performativity. This is the overarching theme of our digital fabrication course, and I must admit, I am quite pleased as to how the various materials involved within my project have converged with it's meaning. From Onyx's hard, and powerful, coal-like appearance, which helps my work represent the eternity and infinite nature of our planet or creation's vastness, combined with the symbolism of fossil fuels and the affects their overuse this has for our planet. The Onyx's represents carbon, a by-product of all combustion.    

As you can see for yourself, the black coal-like luminescence gives the piece quite a dense weight, similar to elemental make-up of various fossil fuels.

Coal is a by-product of decomposition of plants and life matter, i.e., remains of dead and long extinct lifeforms such as dinosaurs, and while it provides us direct energy today in various forms through it's combustion, fossil fuel consumption leads to a permanent detriment as all these elements have specified atomic weights, and according to the law of conservation of mass, can never be replaced once they are destroyed. This leads us to a further problem we are causing for our mother-earth, thus complicating and leveraging the planet's nurturing power.

Thematic casts centering around coal, stone, and flesh.

 

Polished Cherry Wood

And Diamond 

Tints

Reds, pinks, and flesh tones are strong components of my works therefore I invested in the UV Resistant Red Tint to ensure convincing and more effective tones in order to have greater control and variety for this important part of this works material expression.

     Also, the UV Red takes less tint to push the 325 Clear to a deep and completely non-transparent shade of red, making it more economical for excessive, experimentation, exploration, and artistic discovery. 

Franciscusaurus Von Rex

Von-Rex's tint coat of his brush-on mold. 

Von-Rex represents creation, it's power, and grandness, as well as, the ability of our planet to grant life or terminate it. His name comes from his source of creation as he is the inner dinosaur species specific to myself, sort of an extinct trans-formative symbol of my individual artistic development.

As mentioned in the title, my project's concept is broadly centered around nature (mother-earth), technology, and life itself. This makes a statement, more specifically about planet's amazing ability to harbor life, and how we are often distracted from this profoundness that is highly self-evident in nature, due to our own human societal and technological constructs.  

 Adding paint and various stains and finishes to my works allows various layers of meaning to emerge through how these specific materials perform their signification. 

For example the contrast between the finite softness of life, represented by the pinkish flesh tone, with the hard metallic, and implied permanence of the metal and coal, represented by the various layers of Onyx, works together to make a point that neither of these things are permanent and much like a forest must be properly maintained in order to proliferate. This is underscored by the base itself which has been finished to represent a cross-section of a tree trunk or other type of wood surface. Also, the lines on the cast, caused from the way I finished my 3D print to create the mold, provide another visual layer, especially when combined with the wood stain, to signify and indicate the number of years and passage of time shown by the rings in a tree trunk.


      

KeyShot Rendering of Von-Rex

To move away from conceptual matters for a moment, I want to focus on the experimentation involved with this particular casting of my relief. 

For this piece I tried my hardest to push the Onyx to purple by adding a whole lot of Purple So-Strong Tint. This seemingly made no difference until I moved into the finishing stages with my works. When I sanded the edges I gladly discovered that the onyx buffed/sanded purple due to adding so much Purple So-Strong Tint. This helps the overall composition for this individual work. The synergistic interplay between the various flesh tones and the, buffed, unsaturated, stone-like purple details makes this piece noteworthy.