Katinka Matson: flatbed scanner imaging

Posted by hil

Katinka Matson makes stunning images of flowers and other natural objects, using a flatbed scanner and other new technologies:

“The process involves scanning flowers and other natural objects on an open-top scanner from underneath the objects with a slo-moving sensor. This technique allows for unusual opportunities to explore new ideas involving light, time, and rhythm.

It is a radically new digital aesthetic involving both new hardware (the scanner and the inkjet printer), and software (Adobe Photoshop), that allows for a new naturalism fusing nature and technology.

Without the distortion of the lens, highly detailed resolution is uniform throughout the image, regardless of the size of the printable media. The lighting effects from the sliding sensor beneath the object, coupled with overhead effects involving lighting and movement, result in a 3-D-like imaging of intense sharpness and detail. Images created by scanning direct-to-CCD cut away layers, and go to a deeper place in us than our ordinary seeing and vision. “

There are three archived galleries of her images: “Five Flowers”; “Forty Flowers”; “Twelve Flowers”.

Snowflakes and Paper Cutting

Posted by hil

Make-a-Flake is a cool flash application that enables you to make snowflake patterns like the ones we cut out of paper when we were kids. They have a gallery of the beautiful patterns that visitors to the site have made, and you can add your own.

Playing with the snowflake maker reminded me of the work of Béatrice Coron. I particularly like her vast but finely-detailed city scapes, such as Innercity; ExCentriCity; and Chicago. Also, SagaCity, the cutting edge is a photographic account of Cororn’s installation at the Chicago Center for Book & Paper Arts in 2003.

Its interesting to see the other directions in which Coron’s book art goes. For instance, she has recently make a 9 foot high stainless steel cut out sculpture called ‘Working in the Same Direction’ to represent the first merger of the Fire Department and Emergency Medical Services in New York City, in which the design of two panels is like an open book preserving ‘the independence of the two separate entities sharing a common goal’. I also like the idea of the two weathervanes — a fireman and an emergency medical worker that ‘move with the wind, watching in all directions’.

Here are a few other papercutting links that I have been interested in:
Diana Bryan’s Shadowtown
Gerlof Smit,in particular his Delicate cuttings.
ChinaVista
Sun Erlin: A Cut Above
A Chinese Zodiac

Another Howard statue update

Posted by hil

As I mentioned previously, Greg Taylor’s satirical John Howard statue was to have a showing at the National Folk Festival. The Green Left Weekly Online has a report and picture of the statue standing festooned amid a Field of Hearts that were made in support of refugees.

According to Art Almanac, Maitland Regional Gallery is showing Taylor’s statue from May 7 to June 7 in its first officially sanctioned exhibition.

Elmgreen & Dragset’s ‘Dying’ Sparrow

Posted by hil

An exhibition by two Scandanavian artists, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, is causing a bit of a stir at London’s Tate Modern gallery this month. In an otherwise empty new gallery space 25 metres by 7 metres, a sparrow is trapped between the panes of a double-glazed window, apparently dying. The sparrow is, however, animatronic. It cost &pound12,000 and was made by Crawley Creatures, the company best known for the creatures in the BBC’s/ABC’s Walking with Dinosaurs series. The artists make a connection with the general demise of sparrows and that of London’s working class, though other interpretations have been made.

A selection of reviews
30 second video of the animatronic sparrow
Pictures 1, 2

The picture here is a woodcut from an early (1820 or so) chapbook, An Elegy on the Death and Burial of Cock Robin (York: J. Kendrew), reproduced in The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book, by Iona and Peter Opie, (ISBN: 0 19 869112 2).

Who killed Cock robin?
I, said the Sparrow,
With my bow and arrow,
I killed Cock Robin.

Maybe he can’t afford to be so jaunty any more.

Australian Puppeteer Magazine call for reviews

Posted by hil

The Australian Puppeteer Magazine looks at national, international and historical puppetry news and events, reviews, and philosophical and technical discussions. You can recieve your copy by joining UNIMA Australia. The Winter edition of the magazine is due out soon, and the editor invites those of you who have attended recent puppetry performances to review them for the magazine. Please forward reviews to the editor. The deadline is June 10th, 2004.

touchy-feely

Posted by hil

Here’s an unusual concept: Kirsten Johnson’s touchy-feely galleries of oil paintings of sock puppets, each one expressing a different emotion. They remind me of emoticons.

‘The Lost Thing’ : Jigsaw Theatre Company Call for Actor/Puppeteers

Posted by hil

Jigsaw Theatre Company, a Canberra-based, professional theatre company for young audiences established in 1974, is calling for 2 male actor puppeteers for their upcoming production of ‘The Lost Thing’. Based on the book by Shaun Tan, ‘The Lost Thing’ is premiering at the National Gallery of Australia, and is being developed with festival touring in mind.

Contact : Greg Lissaman (Artistic Director)
Tel: 02 62939900
Email: jigsawartistic@ozemail.com.au
Dates : Rehearsals: 6 Sept – 2 Oct 2004; Season: 5-9 Oct 2004
City : Canberra
Salary : $720/week + superannuation and holiday loading
Auditions : By arrangement with the Artistic Director
To express interest in these roles, please email headshots and bios to jigsawartistic@ozemail.com.au.

Liquid rubber and other moulding and casting resources

Posted by hil

I’ve come across some interesting sites to do with making in the last few days.

Smooth-On: These people produce liquid rubbers and plastics for artists and industry: silicone rubbers, urethane rubbers, liquid plastics, foams and so on. They offer detailed product and technical information, and their How to step-by-step turorials on various ways of moulding and casting look great.

Rowe Trading Company: The Australian distributers for Smooth-On, based in Adelaide. I notice that Rowe are also distributers for Bondmaster adhesives. Most of us who make foam puppets are used to using Gel Grip, or a similar type of contact glue to join foam pieces. Its smelly, you have to take care with the fumes, and it takes a few minutes to go tacky before you can press the two surfaces together. Bondmaster produces a much friendlier two-part glue which consists of a pinkish dab-on liquid, and a spray-on catalyst. It bonds foam immediately, has no smell to speak of, and is easier to get into deep places, and onto fabric. In a few circumstances though, say when seams are under pressure, I still opt to use Gel Grip. And the last I heard, Bondmaster is hard to buy except in industrial quantities.

Barnes Products: I’ve heard good things about this Sydney moulding and casting supplier. Their catalogue is online, and they have a range of videos and books on moulding and casting.

Activa products: Activa make an interesting air-dry casting compound called LI-QUA-CHÉ, which is a recycled paper fibre polymer based compound. Its looks like clay slip, and dries to a hard durable glossy satin finish.

Anita Sinclair’s book ‘The Puppetry Handbook’

Posted by hil

Anita Sinclair’s book The Puppetry Handbook is a really useful comprehensive resource for anyone involved with making puppets. It has detailed coverage (including many drawings) of the main techniques, processes and materials that are used for building all kinds of puppets, and also gives consideration as to which sort of puppet to build for different circumstances. It also has good advice on all kinds of puppetry performances and teaching puppet making. A friend of mine was showing me a new edition that she had recently ordered. Its now spiral bound and slightly larger (about an A4 size) than my old copy, both good changes I think.