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Assessment 2: Final Work

Similarly to the poster I previously made, I wanted this work to reflect the ways we challenge what nature is and what it can be, in the various ways that we reshape and modify it. We are constantly trying to control the environment, obsessing over taming it - whether it be for agriculture (use of pesticides and chemicals, genetically modified organisms…), urban development (deforestation, natural source depletion, pollution, chemical run off), or even our own expectations (trends, obsessive gardening, organisation and ‘neatness’) – wanting and manipulating it to become something that it is not, and as a result killing it.

I have explored ideas of ‘fake nature’ and ‘alien nature’ through research as well as my work. It is this completely unnatural version of nature, which we, as humans, continue to construct and reimagine, that I am interested in. I was particularly fascinated with the plans and construction of both the new Google Head Quarters and the Apple Park – two multinational technology companies that aimed to integrate the environment into their new buildings. They both portray the perfect, tame image of nature which we desire – completely sealed in, almost in its own little bubble, completely separate from the rest of the real environment and has been entirely artificially constructed. This is a romantic image of nature, a small oasis or sanctuary created specifically for humans. The irony lies in that in order to achieve this, one must get rid of nature, to build a better one.

I have been inspired by numerous artists and their works, especially Fiona Hall’s Manuhiri (Travellers), 2014-15. I was very interested in the way Hall highlights the sculptural capacities of nature at work on its own materials, as a result of extensive human activity on the environment. The concepts she explores in this work very much resonate with my own, revolving around our impact on the environment, and how it has responded to these changes – here, by creating beautiful, life-like creature sculptures. I admire her ability to observe these changes in nature and being able to curate such an impressive work straight from nature.

Another artist’s work I have very much been influenced by, more from an aesthetic and structural point of view, is Alexander Calder. His mobiles – hanging, moving sculptures, particularly influenced me. I used a very similar approach to his in my own work, attempting to balance out the pieces of driftwood I had, much like he did with his colourful metal panels – delicately hanging off one another, sometimes off centre, creating slow-moving abstract shapes that seem to float mid air. I was fascinated with the way he achieved this, by playing with gravity and balance. I referred to his works Antennae with Red and Blue Dots, c. 1953, Mobile, c. 1932, and Line Yellow, 1961, for inspiration.

This sculpture or ‘mobile’ that I have made, is comprised of multiple pieces of found driftwood, collected from the Upper Colo River, NSW. They are attached to one another with clear fishing line, which has been threaded through the small holes drilled into them and knotted into place. Inspired by Calder’s work, each of the pieces plays a crucial role in the balance of the sculpture – much like in nature, a balance that we have disrupted, and continue to upset. Two long pieces of driftwood are attached to either extremity of the largest one, which supports the entire work. From each of these dangle smaller pieces of diftwood, both horizontally and vertically, diminishing in size as well as weight towards the bottom. The mobile sways and turns gently in the wind, each smaller mobile within it spinning differently. The limited use of materials in this work references Fiona Hall’s Manuhiri (Travellers), 2014-15, from which I drew inspiration, as well as the relationships between humans and the environment, such as the opposition of the natural and the man-made; once the driftwood has completely degraded, all that will remain is the plastic fishing line, used to hold it all together, a metaphor for the way that we deconstruct and reconstruct nature, forcing it to become what we desire it to be.

References

Foreshew, N. (2017). ngayirr (sacred). [Installation]. Sydney, Australia: Museum of Contemporary Art.

Hall, F. (2015). Manuhiri (Travellers). [Installation]. Sydney, Australia: Museum of Contemporary Art.

Gregory, Tim. “Contemporary Creative Practices: Globalisation II: Ecology.” September 11, 2018. https://moodle.telt.unsw.edu.au/pluginfile.php/3636001/mod_resource/content/1/Week%207%202018.pdf.

“Who Is Alexander Calder?” TATE. Accessed September 16, 2018. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/alexander-calder-848/who-is-alexander-calder.

Calder, A. (c. 1932). Mobile. [Sculpture]. London, England: TATE Modern.

Calder, A. (c. 1953). Antennae with Red and Blue Dots. [Sculpture]. London, England: TATE Modern.

Calder, A. (1961). Lone Yellow. [Sculpture]. San Francisco, United States: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Painlevé, J. (1927). Le Grand Cirque Calder. [Video]. Youtube.

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Assessment 2 Development 

Photos of the work in progress from different angles, showing various pieces of driftwood that seem to float mid air, as odd shapes, or with the sun light hitting them, emphasising their uniqueness. 

I thought this whole process of balancing and trial and error in doing so was extremely therapeutic, and at times a little frustrating, but to me also reflects ideas about nature, in relation to its own balance - which we have completely unsettled. As well as this, it explores all the ideas I have been thinking about, such as ‘fake nature’, ‘alien nature’ and “taming nature’, which I think are evident in the work. 

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Assessment 2 Research: Alexander Calder

Antennae with Red and Blue Dots, c. 1953

Mobile, c. 1932

Line Yellow, 1961

Alexander Calder is widely considered to be one of the most important American sculptors of the 20th century. He redefined sculpture by introducing the element of movement, though performances of his mechanical Calder's Circus and later with motorized works, and, finally, with hanging works called ‘mobiles’, which he is best known for. These whimsical abstract sculptures powered by motors or air current embraced chance in their aesthetic, relying on the forces of gravity and balance. 

Distinctive features of Calder’s mobiles I am interested in: 

Thin wire structure supporting all the different components or panels, very discreet and minimalist 

Variety of shapes and sizes, some colour but not always 

Wire and panels hung off centre - play on balance and use of counterweights

Gentle movement of the sculpture as a whole, slowly turning in circles, smaller parts moving in their own way 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/alexander-calder-848

https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/alexander-calder

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Assessment 2 Development

I laid out all the pieces of driftwood and cleaned them using a large paintbrush to brush away any leftover dirt or sand. I then roughly organised them into sizes and shapes. This gave me an idea of how I would piece them together later, and got me thinking about how their different shapes and sizes would fit together.

I decided to use a single branch to start the sculpture - I didn’t have a piece of drift wood long or strong enough for this, so I had to find a branch in the bush near my house. I chose a few so that I would have options in terms of size and colour (I wanted one that didn’t look like it was fresh off the tree and would blend in with the driftwood.) I cut it to a smaller size and found its middle by balancing it on my finger.

I hung it up on my front porch by screwing a hook into its middle and started attaching the longer pieces of driftwood to either end of it. I did this by drilling small holes into the pieces of driftwood, where I would tie it to fishing line, and attached one piece to another. I kept adding, removing and swapping pieces until I could achieve balance - when the horizontal pieces lay completely horizontal. I also referred to images of Alexander Calder’s work, to observe how he dealt with these issues of balance.

I had no determined idea of how it would look exactly due to the complexity of the balance required to achieve this, so I simply added and took away from it, trying different combinations of driftwood pieces. I tried to use the longer straighter ones towards the top, so that I could hang smaller ones from them , gradually decreasing them in size towards the bottom as best I could, to achieve some sort of uniformity. This became difficult towards the end when I started running out of driftwood and was limited in my options.

Once I had finished composing the sculpture and had made the final adjustments, I cut all the stray bits of fishing line that hung everywhere.

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Assessment 2 Development

I decided to discard my previous ideas that looked at the production of fruit and vegetable in the retail industry and focus on notions of ‘fake nature’ and our attempts at taming what cannot be tamed. 

In these rough sketches I have started to look at different ways of presenting and arranging the pieces of driftwood I collected so that hey can hang as a mobile sculpture. I have drawn them to visualise these ideas and how they would work. I want this work to be an extension or a development of assessment 1, for which I created a ‘poster’ made entirely of various leaves and other plants: 

Use of natural materials, collected myself 

No longer using leaves (temporary, will die within a few days)

Use of driftwood (will eventually biodegrade)

Minimal man-made materials 

Hanging or mobile sculpture

Invisible thread holding everything together

Ideas to focus on: 

“Fake nature” - no longer organic and natural, but rather our own interpretation and reconstruction of it; wanting and manipulating it to become something that it is not, and as a result killing it or create unreasonable and unreal versions of it

“Nature as alien” - something that doesn’t exist on earth anymore, something we must protect and look after in order to preserve it - serious environmental issues as a result of our own actions 

“Taming the environment” - various ways that we exploit and reshape or modify it; agriculture (use of pesticides and chemicals, genetically modified organisms…), urban development (deforestation, natural source depletion, pollution), or even our individual expectations (trends, obsessive gardening, organisation and  ‘neatness’)

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After finding these pieces of driftwood and thinking about putting it all together with the other materials I had looked at using - more plant materials, leaves, sticks, branches, flowers, organic produce such as lemons, oranges, capsicums, cucumbers, pears and sweet potatoes, as well as plastic waste - I’ve realised that this seems like a lot to include all in the same work, and I’m struggling to find a way of bringing it all together. Here is a rough idea I came up with, which I think would be a little too chaotic or messy. 

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Materials: Drift Wood 

I really enjoyed working with natural materials for assessment 1, and I wanted to continue using them for assessment 2 - not only leaves and plants this time, but a combination of other materials perhaps, contrasting man made and natural. I came across this bag of drift wood I had collected some time ago, in the Upper Colo RIver, which I thought would be ideal for this project. The pieces of wood are all unique, varying in sizes, patina, colour, shape and type. Some look much more worn down than others, having been carried down the river for quite some time, while others are fresher fallen branches, some burnt. I love that these are all different and have a story of their own. I really want to use these in my work and emphasise their uniqueness as well as comment on environmental issues that I have previously looked at, such as our recreation or reconstruction of the natural work, as well as its degradation, resulting in these extensive amounts of wood ending up in rivers - much like Fiona Hall does in her Manuhiri (Travellers) installation. 

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Fake Nature

Assessment 2 Research 

The assumption is that “nature” is neutral, that there is a balance or perfect state of nature that need to be sustained. “Manmade” represents speed, progress, change something “unnatural.” This opposition separates humans from their environment. 

Google Headquarters

Designed by Thomas Heatherwick and Bjarke Ingels, 2015

These plans for the new Google headquarters are exactly what I am interested in for this assessment: they portray the perfect ‘tame’ image of nature - it is sealed in, completely separate from the rest of the environment and has been (or will be) artificially constructed. This romantic image of nature is created specifically for humans.

Apple Park, Apple Headquarters

Designed by Norman Foster

Portrays nature as alien - something that doesn’t exist on earth anymore. The circular building structure that encloses the park resembles a UFO or spaceship and ‘protects’ nature. The construction of the park entailed the destruction of the already existing nature at the site - idea that one needs to get rid of nature to build it. 

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Assessment 2 Research: French Ad Campaign

Intermarché – a big supermarket chain in France – decided it was time to save an endangered species from the rubbish bin; ugly duckling fruit and veg. In the UK a whopping 40% of greens don’t reach our shelves simply for being a bit unfortunate looking and globally we waste $750 billion worth of food each year.

This ad campaign perfectly sums up what I am exploring for this assessment, focusing on our expectations of nature (in this case produce) and the alterations we’ve made to it. An excessive use of technology and chemicals in the production of food has lead to the creation and normalisation of the “perfect fruit” or perfect vegetable.” We want them to look this way because they seem better or healthier, and we reject others that are not perfect on the outside, thinking they can’t be good on the inside. Due to recent movements reverting back to organic production of fruit and veg, we are faced with “odd” looking produce which we aren’t used to. 

I think these are all interesting ideas that stemmed from my first assessment on ecology, now delving into notions of consumerism and societal trends. I am looking for ways to develop this as a work, and thinking about photography as well as advertising.  

https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/inglorious-fruit

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Manuhiri (Travellers) 2014-15

Assessment 2 research: Fiona Hall 

Hall’s Manuhiri (Travellers) is a large installation composed of found driftwood resembling living creatures and animals. Each component is unique, having been shaped by the ocean’s currents over various periods of time, and been brought back to life, from a fallen branch or stick to real or imagined creatures. This work comprises numerous types of woods, both native and introduced, including manuka, kanuka, pine, poplar and others, which have all been washed down the Waiapu River on the North Island of New Zealand. Although once surrounded by heavily forested land, the river is now highly degraded, after suffering from deforestation, extensive erosion, chemical run off, and the accumulation of silt due to development. 

I collected the driftwood from the beach at Awanui on Aotearoa New Zealand’s north east cape, where the waiapuriver flows out to the sea. Storms and landslips bring fallen trees down from the forests upstream; years of intensive farming have caused large-scale erosion that is now silting up and reshaping the river at its mouth. When the waiapu (which means rushing water) finally reaches the sea its cargo of fallen timber is thrown back onto the beach by the tide, piled up like bones from a forest graveyard. Scattered among them you can find the creatures of the woods and water, travellers from a former forest life, reshaped by the ocean currents and now journeying to another life back in the world of the living.

https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/works/2016.26/

I thought this work was really interesting conceptually, particularly in the way that Hall highlights the sculptural capacities of nature at work on its own materials, as a result of human activity on the environment. I find it really interesting that she does both of these things in the same work, showing how we have impacted the environment, and how it has responded to these changes - in this case, creating beautiful, life-like creature sculptures. I really admire her ability to observe these changes and curate such an impressive work, straight from nature. 

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 ngayirr (sacred) 2015-17

Assessment 2 research: Nicole Foreshew

Indigenous artist Nicole Foreshew explores the relationship between the body and the earth in works that consider concepts of time, materiality, growth and renewal. She focuses on notions of culture and family, referencing the deep connections that have developed and remain between people and land over generations. She also explores the ‘interventions’ or impacts of humans on the environment, through social, cultural and economic actions, such as burial, cutting, mining and farming. 

In ngayirr (sacred) (2015–17) Foreshew brings together an ‘awareness of place together with cultural knowledge of earth, mineral and plant materials’. ngayirr (sacred) comprises of nine tree limbs found by the artist on Country that have been ceremoniously transformed.  The head or tip of each limb is covered in a crystalline skin that range in colour from pale pink to deep russet.  Installed learning against the gallery wall, the individual branches evoke bodily forms.  Foreshew intentionally buried the limbs underground in a site of personal significance. Over time a crystalline skin grows across the limb, the result of a chemical reaction deep with the earth. Referencing spiritual and cultural practices of the artist’s homeland, ngayirr (sacred) traces ‘personal connections to kin and the material knowledge required to retrieve and revive the body’.

https://www.mca.com.au/artists-works/works/2017.36/

I thought this work was incredible, both visually and conceptually. I was instantly drawn to it because of its simplicity and use of natural elements, which are things I have also been trying to focus on for this assessment. After reading up on this work and Foreshew’s practice, I have come to realise she is concerned with very similar issues, looking at the relationship between humans and the environment, both in terms of our impacts and personal connections. I have primarily been focusing on environmental issues rather than culture, but this second assessment may give me the opportunity to broaden my understanding of our relationship to the environment and the way I define it in my work. I will try to look at a range of cultural practices that connect us to the land, as Foreshew has done. 

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Close ups of Assessment 1 Poster. 

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Assessment 1: Final work - Poster 

Art and design often explore relationships between humans and non-humans, the environment and ecology. How can contemporary art and design propose new possibilities for imagining the ‘human’ and the environment? 

I have chosen ecologies as my topic for this assessment, exploring the relationships between humans and the environment. I have narrowed this down quite significantly through the process of experimentation, from a very broad question into something much more specific, focusing on the notion of the manipulation of the environment or natural world, by humans. 

This ‘poster’ is not a traditional poster, in the sense that it is not rectangular in shape, nor is it completely flat, nor contain any words. I aimed to create something completely different and original as well as exciting, in an attempt to challenge what a poster could be, similarly to how we, as humans, challenge what nature can be, in the various ways that we exploit and reshape or modify it. It is human nature to desire power, and we reflect this by constantly trying to control the environment, – wether it be for agriculture (use of pesticides and chemicals, genetically modified organisms…), urban development (deforestation, natural source depletion, pollution), or even our individual expectations (trends, obsessive gardening, organisation and  ‘neatness’) – wanting and manipulating it to become something that it is not, and as a result killing it. 

This poster is comprised of a variety of leaves collected in the surrounding environment that are simply attached together by a zigzag stitched thread, done on the machine. I carefully selected and arranged the leaves to form this work, to achieve a composition that I was pleased with aesthetically, thus asserting my control over the chosen objects and securing them into place. The loose threads hanging down from the poster are also intentional and contribute to the overall aesthetic of the work, as do the visible stitches, acting as a reference to the extensive use of machine in contemporary society and its effects on the environment, and to the environment in its pure form: tangled, wild, a little chaotic, hardly ever neat and organised as we would prefer it.

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Experiment 3: Zip Lock Bags

In this experimented I continued using natural materials I could find in my surroundings. Instead of sewing them together like I had previously done, I decided to try something slightly different that would allow me to explore slightly different ideas about our relationship to the environment. I organised or sorted the leaves I found into small categories and put each of these in a small zip lock bag. I thought that by collecting a few of these, I could align them into a grid and attach them to one another, creating a poster composed of multiple small leaf filled zip-lock bags. I only did four for the purpose of this experiment and thought it looked pretty cool (just hung them up on white wall with clear sticky tape) especially the transparency of the plastic giving it a medical or science aesthetic. There was no clear concept for this but it definitely appeals to the relationship between humans and environment, and to me almost shows the leaves as trapped inside the plastic, which could link to some themes about pollution, as well as the way we, as humans, feel the need to organise and categories things and species.

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Experiment 2: Sewing Leaves

I really wanted to try something different, that would lead me to a more original outcome than a printed poster. I decided to start experimenting with natural materials that I could find around me. A quick walk around my backyard gave me plenty of materials, mostly leaves, of various sizes, textures and thicknesses. I thought of sewing them together to create a poster - not really a traditional poster per say, but it can be hung up on a wall and sits flat (sort of?) I thought the results were really interesting and definitely very different to anything I’ve ever done before. This work is quite simple conceptually as well as materially - it only consists of some leaves and bits and pieces sewed together using a sewing machine - but to me it appeals to a pretty broad spectrum of ideas that I’ve been thinking about, in relation to the relationships between humans and the environment. It focuses on our human need for control and power over other elements and forces in the world (nature), in the way that the leaves have all been carefully selected and arranged to form this work - their positioning within the work is not random, I worked on a composition that made sense to me and that I thought looked good aesthetically, thus asserting my control over the chosen objects and fixing them into place. The use of the sewing machine is deliberate as well and references the extensive use of machine in contemporary society, perhaps for farming, or as a leading cause of pollution and global warming. 

I really enjoyed working with these materials and am very pleased with the results, I will definitely keep looking into these techniques for my final work. 

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Environmental Posters

Directly relate to my concept, especially in regards to the way we treat the environment: take take take, until there’s nothing left. We are soon to reach that point, the point of no return. The messages in all these advertising posters are all different, relating to varying issues but all have the same aim - to convince us to take matters into our own hands and fix what has been done. 

I think all these posters are very clever as to what their message or aim is - they go straight to the point, using pretty graphic imagery (the tiger especially) to shock people and get their attention, usually with minimal words or a catch phrase, which puts the viewer on the spot and consider these issues. Visually, these poster are really interesting, especially GreenPeace’s Stop Pollution, which makes such a powerful statement with its juxtaposition of the image of the hand with smoking chimneys as the extension of fingers. 

Shark, World Wildlife Fund https://www.adsoftheworld.com/media/print/wwf_shark_0

Stop Pollution, Green Peace  https://www.coloribus.com/adsarchive/prints/water-pollution-program-stop-pollution-3621055/

Protect the forests, World Wildlife Fund  https://twitter.com/wwf/status/692064734733058049

When the wood go, wildlife goes, Asia Sanctuary         http://www.earthporm.com/shocking-effects-deforestation-come-life-brutal-print-ads/

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Experiment 1: Dada Photomontage 

Here I have experimented with Dada style collage or photomontage techniques, to create a poster, but have modernised it by using photoshop rather than doing it by hand. I used victorian botanical drawings of different varieties of plants found online as the focal point. I tweaked these slightly, by repositioning certain parts of the flower and even adding more, such as the long red spotted petals, which now almost remind me of some kind of insect. I cropped the leafy plant drawing using straight lines to give it that crisp, scissor cut dada look, and put it in the back ground against a magazine article about environmental issues in an aim to mimic the dadaists’ use of newspaper clippings and overall aesthetics. I then cut out the centre of a different flower and placed it in the top right corner, enlarging it. 

The randomly scattered and coloured letters across the image read “control” and convey the ideas that I have been thinking about in regards to the relationship between humans and the environment: that we have a desire for power, and are always trying to control it, either wanting it to do something for our own benefit, exploiting it and as a result killing it, (farming, deforestation, pollution, natural resource depletion) or wanting it to look and be a certain way (neat and organised, colourful, leafy, safe), thus restricting it from being the way it should be, restricting it from existing in its most natural form, unaffected by human interaction.