I’ve
been slowly progressing with different strands of my work this week,
considering the canvas prints as well as the data that I’m slowly gathering on
my hard drive. On top of this I went to a really interesting artist
talk/informal evening of video screenings and played the final chapter of Life
is Strange, which was incredibly thought provoking.
In
terms of work, I’ve been creating a range of images made up of screengrabs taken
from my own computer and have even ordered one image to be printed onto a
canvas that was 100cm x 50cm, which is exceedingly alien to me. The piece will
be delivered tomorrow and, if successful, I will be ordering more in order to
create a collection of canvas works. The use of canvas has now changed from
simply wanting to create a material thing and mocking painting in general to
becoming a metaphor for the content of each image. The references within the
pictures are all very ‘of the moment’ and in order to understand what’s occurring
within them one has to be viewing them when they were created. This built in obsolescence
is interesting to me, and is a theme that comes up within my USB work as well,
and in this case it’s considering the famous quote by Paul Delaroche in 1839 ‘from
today, painting is dead’. Both the images and the canvas are marked as obsolete
as soon as I click the ‘order’ button on ‘my-picture.co.uk’. The transformation
of the image from the new to the old is also intriguing to me and is something
that has been occurring for many years now. The advent of screens will soon
wipe that out however, if one were to side with most 1980s sci-fi.
The
term ‘screenshotism’ (a phrase coined by the
artist ‘Øs Crunc’) encompasses the canvas works beautifully, the many ‘windows’
making up one whole image. The JPEGs that I’ve been fabricating have slowly
transformed from being a simple screenshot of Google to an eclectic range of
images, where each ‘window’ discusses a new idea that contributes to the
overwhelming theme of surveillance and the death of a ‘pure’ internet. This is
the image that’s been printed onto canvas:
As
you can see, there are a few things occurring within this (to quote Hito
Steyerl) ‘poor’ JPEG. The first thing to note is that the background image is ‘Bliss’
which was taken in 1996 and is the default Windows XP wallpaper. Although the
hill was a beautiful utopian space back in the 90s it is now home to
grapevines, a metaphor for how the internet has been slowly corrupted and
distorted since 2001, the year that the operating system was released as well
as when the 9/11 attacks occurred in the United States, which acted as a kick-start
to the overwhelming surveillance that occurs in today’s society. Every aspect
of the image has been carefully considered, from the multiple tabs to the use
of Wikipedia.
This
is the second image that I created, which started to become a little more
complicated, with an abundance of windows being open. Again, each window opens
up a new train of thought contributing to the overarching theme. With both
images I’ll draw your attention to the date, which is a variation on the 2050
date. According to Dr Pearson people will be able to connect their brains
directly to computers by this point, theoretically becoming immortal, which is
obviously an intriguing thought, one that is brought up in video games and
films a lot. One in particular – Deus Ex – springs to mind, where one plays as
a nanotech-augmented operative, tasked with overthrowing an illuminati
government in 2052. I really like how these pieces are progressing and the multiple
meanings that are embedded within them. I hope that the canvas print is a
success so that I can create more.
In
other news, I’ve been carefully considering how I’m going to display the data
that I’ve been amassing, with help from Google Sketchup. I began the process by
considering what I actually wanted from the sculpture that I was going to
immerse the stick within and started to research USB towers, which then led me
to data towers and cell towers. The aesthetics of these structures and what
they actually enable people to do was the main inspiration for my initial designs,
where the laptops that connected to the USBs would create a cell tower-esque
look.
As
I continued to experiment though, I slowly began to change direction and
returned to my love for the Monolith from 2001, which is eternally intriguing
to me and conforms to the simple aesthetic that I had been pursuing with my
earlier designs. I also began to be interested by the relationship that the
(now multiple) USBs would be having with each other, and how the different
screens of the laptops would be having a dialogue with one another if each USB
was being connected to at once. The material for these ‘micro monoliths’ (three
in total further referencing the three Monoliths in 2001) is something else
that I’ve been considering. At first I envisioned them to be pure concrete, as I
love the concrete plinth, but I slowly moved away from that, as it was revealed
to me that I could use blocks that – at first – look like usual cement blocks
but in reality are flammable and used in fires. The potential for a thing to
happen really interested me, and I feel that that is reflected in the data that
I’m collecting. Some of it may be harmful to others, in terms of embarrassing pictures
or ‘confidential’ documents, but it’s not overtly being displayed, one has to
dig deep into the files to discover these things. This duplicity really
interests me and I hope to experiment in the real world during the coming week
with the actual blocks, rather than simply through the virtual program. The use
of brick also made me consider the famous relational artist Rirkrit Tiravanija
and his brick making factory that was occurring in the 2015 Venice Biennale.
Obviously the use of a construction material has certain connotations that (I
feel) work well with the idea of amassing data within the virtual structure of
the USB stick that’s been embedded within a brick.
Laila
and I have also been in discussion this week and have laid out a kind of plan
for the work that we’re going to create together, so that we can actually start
making things rather than simply discussing what we want to create. At the
moment it all sounds really exciting, I just need to actually start creating on
my computer, which I hope to start doing during the week ahead. I also helped
Laila set up her own website this week: http://www.lailamajid.com/.
It’s still a work-in-progress however, so bare that in mind.
Oh
and I continue to document the lighter ‘jacking’.
I
had my third Utopia seminar on Monday, which began with a short clip from Star
Trek: The Next Generation, one of the few ‘positive’ utopias that is portrayed
in the media. Nearly every other film/book envisions that the world turns into
a dusty wasteland when capitalism dies, an incredibly overt form of propaganda.
We were then taken through the differences between a Utopia and a Dystopia with
multiple literary and film references, finishing up with an episode from the
beloved Twilight Zone which looked at a dystopia where people who had no use
anymore were deemed ‘obsolete’ and put to death. Unfortunately that was my last
Utopia seminar, as tomorrow morning there is a talk being hosted at Chelsea
being given by Dan Ward and Francis Brady (the two people who ran my workshops
last week) titled ‘What is post-digital art?’ The unfortunate thing is that the
two events clash, and I’m a lot more inclined to go to a talk discussing digital
art than a seminar on Utopia. Both are great but only one can prevail.
I
didn’t have my other seminar this week that focuses on politics and art, as it
was postponed and relocated to the end of this coming week, so that on Friday I
will have two seminars back to back. This will be an extremely absorbing day I’m
sure.
The
offsite shows were also discussed further this week, with many exciting spaces
being brought up as well as what links our work together in our exhibition group,
a general underlying theme. I’m looking forward to how it develops into
something more in the coming weeks.
I’ve
also been travelling on a lot of night buses recently and have been thinking
about how one gets to know a space and how your views of a location traverse
and distort the more you understand its intricacies. The wonder that I once had
for London and have mentioned before in this blog is slowly dying. To revert
back to a time when my brother and I would play on an Etch A Sketch whilst
being in awe of the lights coming from the mass of buildings as our car slowly
glided into London would be a compelling intervention to how I see things now.
Getting back into that head space would be bliss for a time…
During
the week I went to a really enticing evening at Toynbee Studios that was being
hosted by the artists Larry Achiampong and David Blandy. They showed a number
of artist films that influenced and inspired them which culminated in Finding
Fanon 2, a collaborative film created by the two of them that uses the Grand
Theft Auto 5 in-game video editor. I love the film and enjoyed the discussion that
occurred afterwards which was centred on the connotations of using the video
game as a medium to create work, something that I have considered in past work
and continue to think about.
I
only went to one exhibition this week, which was at Vilma Gold. Julia Wachtel
had some work being shown, which I’d kind of already seen at the Saatchi, large
scale paintings with juxtaposing images. I’m not entirely opposed to these. Genoveva
Filipovic also had work on show, full of little details that would seem
unconscious if it weren’t in a gallery space. I really liked her work and all
the different connotations that were being brought up.
The
really annoying thing that happened this week was the revelation that both myself
and Laila had gotten into San Francisco for Erasmus, but the university there
was in fact not even taking anyone from Chelsea this year. So I was left with
my ‘backup’ choice which was a university in Holland near Amsterdam. I declined
however, as I would prefer to stay in London.
I
also got to go around the Palace of Westminster on a sort-of tour. It was a
mixture of dullness and interestingness rolled into one. An intriguing point
was brought up that focused on the amount of ‘experts’ (200 (ish) in total) on
hand for the various Lords to call upon if they needed information on one thing
or another. Such a large amount of knowledge just a phone call away, on in the
case of the internet, a simple click.
I’ve
watched a variety of films this week, focusing more on the documentary side of
things in relation to the internet and all that it has to offer. The first on
the list was Deep Web, exploring the depths of the internet and highlighting
that only a small amount of the deep web is the dark web. We Steal Secrets: The
Story of WikiLeaks was another exciting one, and the fourth or fifth film that
I’ve watched that’s focused on Julian Assange, which makes it even more evident
how important he is in the grand scheme of things. Atari: Game Over was also
enticing, deconstructing the legend of the buried E.T. video game and exploring
Atari as a company. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline continues to come up a lot
in the documentaries about video games that I’ve been watching. It’s a book
that I read a few years ago, which focuses on the residents of a world that
live out their existence in a virtual universe called the OASIS. I feel that it’s
becoming increasingly relevant to the themes that I’m looking at within my own
work, virtual realities and the like. The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin was another
exciting one that was definitely worth watching, alongside We Live in Public
which was incredibly disturbing at times, well, a lot of the time. It definitely
reminded me of The Circle and how distressing that was to read towards the end,
as well as The Prisoner with its overt surveillance and confinement. The idea
that ‘big brother’ is the collective conscience rather than a sole person is
one that was brought up a lot. 2010 is another film that I watched, which
really didn’t live up to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Outland was an enjoyable
experience; you can’t really go wrong with Sean Connery and his beautiful voice.
The Birds, a film that I am embarrassed to say I hadn’t seen until this week,
was incredible. The playground scene in particular was quite awesome and a
definite favourite of mine. I also watched Rock the Kasbah, which was just
weird, part of it was terribly racist and another part was very sincere. As the
credits roll it’s revealed that the film is dedicated to a real person and that
the film is based on a true story. Just too weird. Détective was another weird
one that was hard to understand and that I find hard to talk about. The final
film was Blade Runner at the IMAX, which was incredible as usual.
On
top of watching these films, I also played episode 5 of Life is Strange, which
is something I’ve been looking forward to for a while now. It was quite a
beautiful end to the series but failed to fully take into account all of the decisions
that you made in the first four episodes, which is a problem that many story
driven games encounter, like Mass Effect 3 or any of Telltale’s games. The lack
of gameplay was another disappointing aspect to the episode, with the first 30
minutes or so basically being an extended cut scene. Playing it also brought me
back into the mind-set that I was in when I played it last, during the summer
holidays last year, a transitional time for me in terms of moving away from
home, etc. It was an interesting reflective moment which made the finale even
more poignant than it already was. The long bus journey back to my room at 4:30
in the morning gave me a chance to further reflect on the events that had just
taken place in front of my eyes, eventually coming to the conclusion that the
game epitomises what I love about video games and the potential that the medium
has. The last thing to note is the hilarious scene in an art gallery, where you
can walk past groups of people discussing the ‘art’ on the walls.
I’m
also slowly making my way through Jason Rohrer’s various video game worlds that
he’s created, all of which are inspiring and thought provoking in their own
subtle ways.
Oh
and I also found out this week that someone had written about my work in their
blog here: http://www.gamescenes.org/2016/01/game-art-bob-bicknell-knights-endless-confinement-2015.html
which was an exciting revelation.
Plus,
I finished Love, which had a slightly stressful ending and then proceeded to
watch the first two episodes of Better Call Saul from season 2, which were very
good.
In
the next week I want to continue to create the canvas images, analysing the
print that’s arriving tomorrow to see whether or not I need to order from a
different website, etc. I also want to start experimenting in real life with
the layout of the data blocks as well as gaining more and more data from
different individuals. On top of this I intend to start actual work on the
collaboration with Laila, so that we have something to show for the thoughts
that we’ve been thinking about.
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