Erin | Final Project Process (draft)

My previous work has contained themes of order and disorder and more recently has begun edging towards the space between presence and non-presence. Translucency, layers, mark-making, language or rather some denial or discomfort with it (especially in terms of the ineffable as being the failure of words to adequately express experience). My processes often require a careful attention to my materials and remaining responsive to accidents and happenstance while attempting to elicit form. It is a dialogue. Sometimes I feel the way I'm working is a bit like walking through a fog. I know the general direction I should be headed, but I'm waiting to see what emerges as I work.

At the moment a number of studies in my studio include things very responsive to the air currents of the room, one is a very light piece of Japanese gampi ("silk tissue") and the other is actual silk. I'm fascinated by the way they seem to breathe in here. They are seductive analog sensors.

This video of the silkworms I raised this past spring is something I think of in terms of translucency and markmaking among other ideas. 

I want to access a sense of atmosphere. How quiet can I make the work and still say something? I want to make work that visually whispers. 

One of my ideas was to create a drawing that harnessed the visually breathing in some work I made over the summer that move in response to the air currents in the room. I considered how two paper layers might move against and away from the bottom layer to reveal or obscure the image on the back layer. 


a more perfect blue from Erin Curry on Vimeo.

I like the way this reveals the unseen air currents, while the composition of the drawings change as the layers contact and separate. It would be interesting to exert more control and make the shifts more pronounced. This could be accomplished through the placement of RC fans below the drawings to move them. Or perhaps having a electric current complete when the layers contact one another in particular points. 

Then, I thought I'd like to make something that closed (a page that folded or a bag/crushed paper) or shied away using flexinol to shape my material. The image that kept coming to mind was sensitive briar which was a plant I played with as a kid. How might our relationship to text or other information change as is shied away from us? Or revealed itself when we are still?

[ I also considered and rejected a frame loom weaving that as the shuttle carrying the weft came in contact with the warp threads, sound from the farm the sheep were raised would play. or perhaps a loom made with a beehive frame would use the sound of the hive and a textile mill to talk about industry, but that's language I'm familiar with and it seems a little too direct to me right now. I'm more interested in developing a vocabulary that speaks to the ideas about presence and absence mentioned earlier]

This clip is of a study made on sanded acrylic sheet with graphite. I'm envisioning a work that emerges. 

Now that I write it, I'm clearly influenced by the silkworm, though I didn't consciously realize it until now. I'm intrigued by the way the build up of the drawing builds a physical presence through opacity and the material of graphite, while obscuring the view behind it, in essence, revealing presence while creating mystery.

The relationship of how a drawing machine like this might work best is something I need to consider more carefully, on one hand perhaps these marks can be made by a machine that makes them in darkness and when someone approaches it lights up from within and stops like chattering birds startled to silence. On the other hand, a work that is made only when the viewer is present speaks to how presence and attention can make a something minute meaningful. 

Otherwise I'm creating small analog compasses in my studio using a piece of cork, magnet and sewing needle in a cup of water. how can these small gestures speak to finding one's orientation in making, in the world?

What if the turning of the compass needle was the switch to activate the work? 

Or perhaps better, if the petri dish were extended on a lazy susan-like table and the device was oriented along the needle to activate the switch how might that change our relationship to something revealed?

Katerie pointed out this link about DIY transducers. Of course these are attractive. 
 http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/2011/01/diy-transducers.php#.UKKV_YXo9Xs 

interesting link about spider silk studies done at FSU. 
http://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductors/materials/spider-silk-weaves-new-path-for-electronics
" Working with silk from the same type of spider the FSU team used, he found that it transferred heat even better than such excellent conductors as aluminum and iron and that the conductivity improved as the silk was stretched. He measured a conductivity of 416 watts per meter-kelvin, compared with 401 W/m-K for copper. That property may lead to better heat sinks for microelectronics."

It has high thermal conductivity properties while silkmoth silk has very low conductivity. 


Meanwhile I'm looking forward to experimenting with the flexinol I ordered. 

link dump:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7jjqXh7bB4
http://letsmakerobots.com/node/23086
http://hlt.media.mit.edu/?p=1448

http://robotany.blogspot.com/2006/04/using-flexinol-wire.html

http://web.media.mit.edu/~marcelo/paper/index.html -pulp computing

http://hlt.media.mit.edu/?p=1370 

Salt and Vinegar Etching

Use Vaseline as a resist and a bath of salt and vinegar to etch away the copper from copper fabric to make circuits and sensors.

Thinking about machines and poetic spaces came across Evan Holm's work which seems like something closer to what I'm looking for.

Submerged Turntable from Brian Lilla on Vimeo.
| Drawing Machine #1 | Evan Holm from Evan Holm on Vimeo.

I particularly enjoy the sense of fantasy about these pieces which taps into the elements of the hybridization of natural materials and aging technology. As well as the triggering of magical realism and fascination with the magic of real things present in certain works of fiction (Murakami and Gabriel Garcia Marquez come to mind). Thinking too about Ponyo where a variety magical things happen, but perhaps the most delightful moment is when the mother makes ramen for Ponyo and the boy. She carefully mixes everything, covers the meal with the lid and a few minutes later reveals a cooked meal to the delight of Ponyo. How does this moment differ from the delight of the class in making a simple motor with a battery, magnet, and copper wire? How can this be triggered artfully?

Thinking more about some gestures can be a trigger for something else.  I'd like to use the gesture of lighting a candle to trigger a lightsensor which used LEDs to illuminate other areas of the room, or a drawing. The candles would be lit for only a short time (either because the candle would run out or a small fan would blow it out) which would turn off the effect elsewhere.