LOSS / ABSENCE / THE UNSEEN / IDENTITY

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LOSS / ABSENCE / THE UNSEEN / IDENTITY

BERT SIMONS Rozemarijn, Paper Portrair of my Girlfriend, 2008

3D paper replica of Rozemarijn Lucassen. A 3D computer model is constructed from data derived from images of the portrayed. The computer model is tartarised with the images from the photo shoot and translated back again into the tactile world by converting all of its faces into printed paper parts. These parts are reassembled, using the same technique as in common paper craft, cutting and gluing, into a realistic paper model.

www.bertsimons.nl

CORINNE QUIN Timekeepers, 2008

“To see the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wild flower, to hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour” (William Blake) What does time look like? What does time feel like? Standard analogue and digital clocks exist in the here and now, only telling the precise moment of the present. Timekeepers clocks use thread and string to develop a new language of time. Time is a distance measured with a length of thread pulled through a standard clock mechanism. The thread winds into a container and creates its own particular shapes and forms. This gathering of thread is a physical manifestation of time, an accumulation of the real, tangible and visual that shows the past, present and the future. The Timekeepers can measure any moment of human
experience decided by the user: from birth, death, marriage, absence, love and beyond. Over time, the growing object accumulates a personal narrative and emotional value specific and unique to its owner.

DOMINIC WILCOX The Glove, 2008

A glove made using a cast of Dominic Wilcox’s hand.

www.dominicwilcox.com

NB: STUDIO London's Kerning Map, 1996

NB: Studio was approached by the International Society of Typographic Designers to create a piece of work to be exhibited as part of The London Design Festival 2006, for an exhibition entitled My City, My London. The exhibition celebrated the place of graphic design in contemporary visual culture and its intention was to explore typography in the visual world of the capital. Their response to the brief was based on the distinct layout and style of the London A to Z (designed and produced in 1936) and how the words and letters are squeezed and “kerned” into streets and roads. To show off this unique typography—and to show just how much the words and names represented the intricate nature of London’s streets—NB: Studio removed all non-typographical data. The result is a skeletal map of London’s kerning; a typographic reflection of how we fit into a city.

www.nbstudio.co.uk

PABLO VALBUENA Augmented Sculpture Series, 2008

This project is focused on the temporary quality of space, investigating space-time not only as a 3D environment, but as space in transformation. For this purpose two layers are produced that explore different aspects of the space-time reality. On the one hand the physical layer, which controls the real space and shapes the volumetric base that serves as support for the next level. The second level is a virtual projected layer that allows controlling the transformation and sequentiality of space-time. The blending of both levels gives the impression of physical geometry suitable of being transformed. The overlapping produces a 3D space augmented by a transformable layer that can be controlled, resulting in the capacity through the installation of altering multiple dimensions of
space-time. These ideas come to life in an abstract and geometric envelope, enhanced with synesthetic audio elements and establishing a dialogue with the observer.

www.pablovalbuena.com

MAREI WOLLERSBERGER Child Force, 2007

Exploring the interrelations between technology and ideology, Wollersberger’s work looks at how emerging technologies serve a contemporary political agenda by enabling a state of surveillance. Child Force is a social fiction, looking at how childhood might change when genetic engineering converges with a state of surveillance. The setting for the narrative is an imaginary society based on aspects of current western politics, such as social selection and surveillance. In the UK, citizens from the age of three are monitored for conspicuous behaviour; DNA samples of 50.000 children are already registered. Simultaneously, scientists claim to have discovered the “criminal gene”. If scientific findings could be used to decode DNA, will our children be the first to undergo genetic tests for socially undesirable traits? Would children with “clean” DNA gain superior status?

http://marei.co.uk/

MATHIAS HAHN

Raggy Heroes, 2006

An item made to be sold in the context of a war museum shop. A damaged/incomplete puppet that needs to be repaired/assembled by the user. Oppositional to our usual consumerism, it emphasises improvisation, customisation and acceptance of flaws. By buying one of the characters a donation is made to support relieve organisations that are active in operational zones. In opposition to dull mass produced merchandising products such as pens or camouflage rubbers, these items try to include some of the content the visitor has experienced during his visit to the war museum.

Commemoration Seeds, 2006

A product for the Imperial War Museum Shop in London. Usually the negative side that lies in the nature of war is hidden behind a heroic and nostalgic picture that celebrates technology and glory. To critique this way of perceiving war, Commemoration Seeds uses the tradition of the poppy as a sign for memorising the dead. Each jar of seeds gives figures about the amount of seeds contained and how these represent the quantity of people who lost their lives during a certain war. But more than just underlining the horror of war, the poppy seeds represent a positive attitude when seeded to grow new flowers from them.

www.mathiashahn.com

TIAGO DA FONSECA No Angle, No Poise, 2007

No Angle, No Poise is an update to the classic spring-balanced tasklight from the 1930s. Tiago da Fonesca’s offering to the magnificent icon is a well-deserved respite from its vigilant stance. Most Anglepoise lamps end up in the same position for months, we barely touch them, adopting awkward postures as soon as springs give in. Here is an opportunity to see the lamp during a rest from its stiff vigilance, captured in one of those moments of unattended beauty.

http://tiagodafonseca.com/

ALON MERON Endoskeleton, 2008

Our own bodies are supported by an internal skeleton and yet our notion of shelter and safety is often manifested in the word “shell”. Comfort and containment are linked in our minds. Our houses are shells and our daily life is arranged inside their rigid structure, flowing from one room to the other. When you move into a new house you put your things in their place and in doing so you draw the map by which you will live. Alon Meron has applied the structural principle of a skeleton to the domestic environment. The space is now drawn around the function rather than containing it. Different elements of the house can now be coupled; “I can have my library in the toilet and my lounge outside. The living house becomes an extension of my limbs rather than a series of containers for my life.”