Virtual Pigment: Blog

A diversion into print

jeff brown — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 03:14:41 +0000

small version of "Stereo Pair"

I got to Family Business gallery early enough on Fri. March 30th to drop off a print of “Stereo Pair” for the Small Small World show. Mad props to Hennessy Youngman/Jayson Musson for curating an open show. Makes for my first Chelsea Gallery credit. Yowzah.

Jack Hanley, David Zwirner & Bitforms galleries

jeff brown — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:56:29 +0000

I went up to NYC yesterday, primarily to see Aris Moore at Jack Hanley and Doug Wheeler at David Zwirner. Both were worth the trip, although there was a line at the Doug Wheeler exhibit (about 1.5 hours). Aris’ work looked great on the wall, very happy that she got a well-deserved NY show. Hopefully, first of many: Aris at Jack Hanley (in TriBeCa)
The Doug Wheeler piece was other-worldy; a strong contrast to the other show at David Zwirner Gallery by Adel Abdessemed. The most overwhelming piece is not quite visible on the web site, maybe to lessen the outcry over a work of litterally hundreds of taxidermied animals.
Nearby, at Bitforms, I wandered into Volume by Zimoun Bitforms Gallery. Playful, and a little scary, it was the perfect complement to the Wheeler show: kind of an anti-Wheeler space, but in a very good way. Zimoun’s smaller works upstairs are visually and kinetically fascinationg, and left me with a “why didn’t I think of that” moment. A good day.

Thesis progress

jeff brown — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:03:47 +0000

Inviting everyone to place my work (or me) on the graph as you see fit… though this is not interactive (not yet, anyway):

from the original: Masahiro Mori’s 1970 article in Energy.

Extremely Public Acts of Privacy

jeff brown — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 02:31:01 +0000

About a week ago I attended part 3 of “Extremely Public Acts of Privacy” by New Paradise Labs. Part 1 was an online project; part 2 (which I missed) was a “walking tour” with some apparently dark overtones. Part 3 was the conclusion of the story, about a woman who becomes seduced, literally and figuratively, by the online presence of another woman, and becomes mad in the process. As Part 3 unfolds, we become aware that the online persona is an embodiment of the digital “being” that promises us everything, and resists our disconnection. An ambitious and well-realized project; I hope New Paradise has more in store for us in Philly. And I’m sorry I’m a bit late in discovering them.

New Paradise Laboratories

The prescient Mr. Mumford

jeff brown — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:41:05 +0000

Lewis Mumford, in his 1966 book The Myth of the Machine: Technics and Human Development–

Secret knowledge is the key to any system of total control. Until printing was invented, the written word remained largely a class monopoly. Today the language of higher mathematics plus computerism has restored both the secrecy and the monopoly, with a consequent resumption of totalitarian control.

Progress on new animation…

jeff brown — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:42:47 +0000

I have a working draft of a new piece, “Download”; it’s on the home page. (you may have to clear your cache if you have recently visited)

reaching with the September paper

jeff brown — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 13:22:34 +0000

The first academic paper of each semester is typically related to the Critical Theory classes of the term. My advisor (Jan Avgikos) did not require us to follow this convention, but I thought I would try anyway… and so took a stab at relating colonialist/imperialist practices with the mega-companies of the Web (Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.). [a copy is posted on the "Papers" page]

Weekend departure

jeff brown — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:42:16 +0000

I completed Nostalgia Invaders this weekend, for submission to PECO’s “Art in the Air” project. Not directly related to my main body of work, you can see it here. If selected, it will be displayed on the “crown lights” of the Phila. Electric Co. building (a 3-story high wraparound color matrix display atop the ~20 story building). We’ll see.

Interactivity

jeff brown — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 13:04:30 +0000

I’m also building a virtual typewriter, and while doing the modeling I’ve been struck by the _substance_ of it. It’s a 1940′s Remington, and there are few parts that are not metal. Substantial metal with heft: you push the carriage back and forth and it feels so damn present. It got me thinking more about virtuality and simulation: even with haptic devices, 3D goggles, etc.– simulations are a far cry from the actual. And yes, we all know that. Yet I think the contemporary digital project would like us to forget that fact; I see adverts of a daddy “kissing” his little girl goodnight via a videophone, as if that makes up for the fact that he’s a corporate wage slave forced to travel to another sales meeting and suck up to management in order to keep his dwindling health benefits.

But I digress (?) I bought the typewriter on a whim last month. Having it and working with it induces a nostalgia for real things. You can see how it works, for goodness sake. If the keys jam*, it’s obvious what’s wrong. It has more “toolness” than a digital device; it is closer to a screwdriver than a word processor. Yet despite this, it is easier to imagine a novel or screenplay created on a 1940s Remington than a PC with Word2010. Maybe I’m just showing my age, or cultural conditioning from watching 20th century cinema.

*The QWERTY keyboard owes its layout to the problem of keys jamming: it was designed to put common letters and letter combinations away from the “home row” of keys, to make it more difficult to type rapidly. A wonderful metaphor for the problem of “lock in,” whereby a standard, misguided as it may end up being, becomes a standard by sheer dint of inertia and numbers. After which point it’s too late to change. (see Jaron Lanier’s You are Not a Gadget)

Drinking bird – early model

jeff brown — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:06:48 +0000

An early-stage model of one of my current projects: