Surge Molecule, 2011, photocopies, linen tape
11 x 8 1/2 inches
paper or paint - tm
work on paper
Surge Molecule, 2011, photocopies, linen tape, 8.5 x 11 inches (studio installation view)
I still have a redweld folder full of paper scraps from a previous body of work, dating back to the late '90s; occasionally I get the urge to make something with them. The above piece falls somewhere between a quilt and a mosaic made with computer printouts xeroxed onto office color paper. It is held together on the back with strips of cut, gummed framer's tape, used to join the individual facets together and forming a de facto armature that makes the piece look more solid than it is.
Will post details of this eventually but there's a tendency for close-up photography to omit the character or personality of an object as it sits in the room. The chair is here (as usual) for scale, in this studio installation shot.
dump.fm partial group portrait
Thanks to whoever took this photo of my installation in the "Dump.fm IRL" show, which opened last night. The grid is from a collection of "eyeflip" photos posted to dump.fm from dumpers' webcams. Had been saving them as jpegs for a while and when I was asked by the curator, Lindsay Howard, to submit something to the show I thought of making a physical artwork out of them. Below is how the piece looked in the studio:
For more detailed views here is the web version of the piece, just assembled this morning. (Some tweaks may be done.) In the photo above, the "key" is:
Top row: ryder, mirrrroring, girlafraid, hypothete, JSLASHER
Row two: xsaidanddone, lobstersoap, FRWLx, stewfoo, noisia
Row three: lucy, zoeee, frederick, mallxgoth, stage
Row four: ary, CHCSD, kellymaxine, mirrrroring, poopdeck
No criteria were considered other than what to save (mostly on the fly, from images appearing on dump.fm over a few weeks' time) and whether the image worked in a group of twenty. [Update: should probably mention for anyone unfamiliar with the software that these flips were done by the webcammers themselves and involved no manipulation by me other than brightening them somewhat for printing.]
More about the exhibition. Thanks to friends for coming to the opening and also "Sanity Disobedience for a New Frontier," which also launched in Brooklyn last night. And many thanks to "Sanity Disobedience" curator Rod Malin for replacing a TV one of my GIFs was showing on, when it broke the day of the opening (ouch). Was great to meet many of the artists in both shows for the first time "irl."
making an old sketch new-old
A few years back was making quite a few ink wash drawings on legal paper, steno pads, etc. The one below is fairly typical: a quasi-modernist sculpture over what may have been a bleed-through from a hastily-sketched floor plan, outlined in ballpoint. I scanned the drawing (after which it was hit by more raindrops and effectively no longer exists). Then, using an online image-editing program, enlarged the width and converted it to a black and white GIF format.
Using another online utility (timb's bong.gs layering tool) I superimposed the green check pattern found by stage, captured the result and saved it as an animated GIF. So now the drawing has a new retro tech sheen to go with the old, differently retro subject matter.
One of the trollgenerator "memes" from a week ago asked "Tom Moody - Who Wants to Make Shitty Art of the '40s into a GIF Anyway?" Exactly.
squirrel, summer 2009
Last summer a squirrel picked an area outside my window for nut storage and annoying the scotty terrier next door. When not working the damn thing stretched out on a fence top and caught some rays. I didn't photograph it but drew this sketch on a post-it note. Finally got around to scanning it. In black and white it almost looks like a lithograph or something. I swear I saw this.