“Tide comes in, tide goes out” (2018-2019)
My work crosses the disciplines of design, sculpture, sound and installation and so far I have explored the relationship between new and old materials and the use of new technologies. The aim is to create innovative forms of sculpture, and sound installations in conversation with the urban landscapes of cities, and their human and non-human environment.
“Tide comes in, tide goes out”, is a sound installation that translates the continuous up and down movement of the tides around the docks in Liverpool into sound. This is achieved through the use of an Arduino encoded with the data of the tide table in Liverpool.
The vibrations that the devise creates, relies on the pataphysical idea of a piano played by the ocean coming and going; an ocean capable to resonate into our enclosed spaces and enter both our daily and imaginary life. Indeed, each time a note is played it can create a poetic connection between the listener and the sea into an incessant communion of breathing life in and out.
This is a work that intends to remind the public of the interconnection and interdependence between the human and the non-human environments in an attempt to encourage sensitivity toward the causality upon which our life depends.
A special thanks goes to DoES Liverpool team for offering their space and time and especially to Liam Comerford and Zarino Zappia for their passion and support in encoding the Arduino.
Seeing, its replication and disruption by us and machines, and erasure to nothingness suggest that we are potentially becoming shipwrecked in reality. All of this may be happening in an environment that is increasingly occupied by our limiting protocols which may lead to a reality or realities where self-erasure, accidental or inadvertent deviations towards societal homogeneity and our increasing participation in these processes may enable such processes. Our technological devices and social bureaucracies may encourage us onwards into active and passive relationships with meaning-making, selfhood and the possible objectification of identity, whilst also enabling an active and willing replication and consumption of ourselves as images.
Scratch on a Retina. Displaced Bright Light, Dust intends to allow the seeing of the unseen or unseeable; or a place we may touch but not freely observe. It comprises of a shelving unit holding an edition of vectorised, laser engraved images of dust and scratches on clear acrylic discs. These mimic but exaggerate and then subvert an optician's lenses. Peephole viewing masks and a film projection accompany them. Viewers may intervene, using the masks to perhaps become actors with agency who consume, whilst also being consumed.
My practice mostly originates in the habitual collection of objects, and this work bring that behaviour in through the bones that I have collected off the beach. The understanding of the cyclical nature of the world and a desire to intervene in and build with, organic forms is show as usual. The natural world, mortality and the cyclical nature of the world appear as central themes within my work but the collected objects, arrangement and meticulously researched narratives are used in order to heighten the sensorial awareness of the spaces in which they are shown.
In this work oil paint, resin, acrylic ink, wax, bones, responsibly sourced cicadas and ribbon allow a story to be told and I am able to speak without censorship.
With this work I speak of a hard moment in my life that through the work I choose to allow myself to remember in a happier way.
Institute of Art and Technology