Hiatus

This will be my last post for a while. I've really enjoyed working through the ideas in this project ... and have some thoughts about what I want to achieve in my next piece ... but I need to break for a while before I embark upon it.

Don't forget that if you are viewing the images in previous posts, clicking on them will reveal the entire image in far more detail.

Martin

I've been working on this one most of the day, and I think it's the best I've done so far. The dark cleft from which the feathers protrude took me a while as I messed around with colors and textures, but I'm happy with the results.

Feathers are becoming a constant in this collection, but I think they are a perfect metaphor for the technological theme. They represent intrusion in the images, particularly the new one below, but also renewal. I like the notion that they are can disturbing and beautiful, fascinating and abhorrent all at once.

This picture also represents something that my previous pieces only capture in part, that there is something exposed and unrevealed about personal technology that may young adults carry. There is what we see, jackets and wallpapers, bling and chains ... but there is also a hidden element; messages and information, pictures and details within that are private and personal.

I completed another piece last night, inspired by the Setting the Scene exhibit at ACMI.

Part of the idea of technology intruding and being adopted by young adults is of course, its intrusion in the most personal spaces we have, the intrusions on personal space.

When young girls adopt technology they often strive to make it a physical part of them to all intents and purposes, and a symbol for what they represent. With mobile phones it's achieved by adding 'bling', new phone jackets and chains, new wallpapers and functionality.

In this piece, I've tried to achieve a blend of this, a blend of technology and beauty, functionality and some consideration for aesthetics. A very direct intrusion on personal space but with obvious function.

And here's another

One of my daughter, significantly altered. Having got the hang these tools now to some degree, I'm trying to perfect a 'like it was painted' look. I think I succeeded with this one? Hard to say. Frederique liked it anyway (the subject :-).

Inspirations

I've been reviewing digital artwork examples online for inspiration. The 2007 digital artwork showcase jumped out as some of the best examples of work in this medium. Looking through the examples of work in this showcase was to say the least, humbling!

I particularly loved the work of David Fuhrer, whose sense of imagination and scope were impressive. There's a definite political edge to his art, a deeper message which is one of the things I've tried to do in my work.

I stayed up late last night to complete my next piece. It's another eye, with a darker more menacing look about it and a digital iris.

First art piece done

I've not yet come up with a name.

I cut up a photo, and blurred out the features a little to get a smooth otherworldly quality.

I tweaked the black in the iris a little to make it darker and increased the rise and fall to the right of the eye to make her more dramatic. Removed any blemish from the white of the eye and spread the grey skin to the left of the iris.

Finally, I took some pictures of feathers (some cocky feathers from our regular visitors on the veranda) ... trimmed them down and reduced their size, then positioned them over the arch of the eye. I found the lovely green feather image on a free stock website stock.xchange and added that for a little color.

The result is better than I'd hoped for, dark and a little abstract.

I've decided to use manipulated digital images, and a web 2.0 tool to do the art work. I'm tossing up between Pixlr, or perhaps Splashup to manipulate the images and create my works of art ... I'm not sure which one I'll choose yet. Though I've not used either before, I think at first blush, Pixlr has a UI that looks a little more approachable.

Before I started this project, I wanted to give significant consideration to the theme behind what I was doing. I wanted it to achieve more than simply a piece for submission.

I have a strong interest in young adults and technology, and the way that they identify with it. It's one of the main reasons I built The Digital Narrative last year; in order to help young adults identify that they are in control of the tools they are using online.

In that project, I hoped that by building stories using online tools, they would identify ways of manipulating these tools. I hoped that young adults would become creative and inventive in the way they interpreted the intentions of the online applications they were using.

With this project I hope to achieve something along the same lines, but in a way that is more personally identifiable.

My first bash at a theme is below:

I've observed that young adults, particularly girls, have a personal identification with technology that has driven us toward a revolution in the way we communicate and socialize. They were the driving force in making make SMS mainstream, amongst the first to adopt the technology for socialization.

Though boys are just as likely to own technology, girls are far more likely to make it a part of their outfit, a part of who they are. Boys are more likely to manipulate it, to bend it to their own purpose, but girls personalise their mobile devices, and many readily admit to feeling as though they have an absent limb when it's not with them. They adopt it into their lives and it becomes part of their identity.

This assimilation is what I hope to capture in my art, through the manipulation of images, and the inclusion of foreign objects into images. The art will reflect the way in which for many young women, technology is more than just a tool, it is a part of who they are.

Unfortunately, many young women still refuse to accept their mastery of this technology. The unique way in which they adopt new technological devices. Though many young women readily send SMS, use Myspace and Facebook and numerous chat applications. Though they may record and share digital images and live in a social digital world ... despite all of this, many still don't identify themselves as being proficient users of technology.

I'm hopeful that through this project, I'm able to build something that helps young adult users of technology recognise the power they have over this medium.