Sunday 31 January 2016

Landscape & Light

The private view for the Letheringham Lodge project (Landscape & Light) was well attended and proved a great opportunity to meet up with other artists working in similar disciplines. Information about the event including; work produced, and profiles of artists who took part can be found at: http://landscapeandlight.org/page-a/

The installation I produced can be seen in the videos below. I feel it worked better than anticipated, with the wind adding a real element of movement to the work. During the setting up of the work I somehow managed to flip the screen on my laptop resulting in the projected image from one side of the installation being upside down. This happy accident was left to feature in the work as I felt it  created further visual interest as the layers mixed on the central panels. Also below are also images of my work projected onto the lodge as part of the exhibition showreel.

In reflection this has been a great project which has again shifted the course of my practice. It's main legacy will be my reconnection with drawing from life as a means to develop ideas and imagery, and a focus on the installation itself and its relationship to the context in which it sits.









  




















LLOYD EVANS - Landscape & Light 1 from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.

LLOYD EVANS -Lodge 2 from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.

LLOYD EVANS - Lodge 3 from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.
LLOYD EVANS - Lodge 4 from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.

Wednesday 27 January 2016

Letheringham Lodge - Studio tests continued...

Below are studio tests in which I experimented projecting new 10 second and 14 second timed animations onto 5 central screens. I also tested the faster cut animation, and tried projecting onto a single sheet of cartridge paper from opposite sides. This created a mixing of imagery on the picture plain. But of more interest was when one of the projector beams were interrupted, this would reveal the image from the other side. By walking in front of one of the beams you would not cast a shadow on the work but reveal another layer of the image. This creates a work which reacts to the viewers movements. Often when the viewer interrupts a projected beam the flow of a work can be affected and the connection to the viewer severed. Here interruption may work to enforce the views personal response to the work, as movement exploring around the installation transform a looped sequence into unique experience. The final decision regarding which arrangements used will be made on site at Letheringham.

LLOYD EVANS - Screen test 1 from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.


LLOYD EVANS - Screen test 2 from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.


LLOYD EVANS - Screen test 3 from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.

Reading list

Below is a list of texts I have have explored throughout this module.

Time - Documents of Contemporary Art - Whitechapel Gallery
The Sublime - Documents of Contemporary Art - Whitechapel Gallery
The Consolations of Philosophy - Alain De Botton - Penguin Books
A History of Experimental Film and Video - A.L.Rees - BFI Publishing
The Place of Artists' Cinema (Space, Site and Screen) - Maeve Connolly
Aurora 2007 Possible Worlds - Adam Pugh - AURORA
A History of Artists' Experimental Film and Video in Britain - David Curtis - BFI Publishing
Ways of Seeing - John Berger - Penguin Books
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction - Walter Benjamin - Penguin Books


Monday 25 January 2016

Letheringham Lodge - Final artwork

Below is the final selection of images used to create the Lodge installation. After test projecting in the studio, I decided that some images needed reworking and the set as a whole needed to feel more consistent. Some images were tweaked while some were replaced.

In this set I believe qualities of line and tone are more harmonious. Using these stills I have created two simple animations. There is no fading between layers and transitions are immediate like a slideshow. The running order is different for each, with the first animation timed so that images change every 10 seconds, while the second transitions every 14 seconds. I have deliberately chosen these timings so that the central screen of the installation will shift every few seconds and a phasing will occur as the timing drifts further apart, then closer together before synchronising every five transitions.

Animation timings

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80   90   100 110 120 130 140 150 160

14 28 42 56 70 84 98 112 126 140 154 168 182 196 210 224

I have also printed a set of these images at A5 to see how they function independently of the installation. While I think they need re-printing to deepen the blacks, I feel they stand up well, working independently of the installation as works in their own right.























LLOYD EVANS - Lodge 10 second frames from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.

Stefan & Franciszka Themerson - The Eye and the Ear

Stefan and Franciszka Themerson shared a short-lived career working with experimental film from around 1935-45, before going back to their respective careers of publishing and illustration. The Eye and the Ear (1945) was their seminal work in which abstract forms cut with images of nature were used to accompany four songs by Karol Szymanowski. The Themersons explored how visual and auditory qualities could be directly translated, looking at the overlapping nature of auditory and visual experience. Geometric forms mix with clips of natural forms, leaves, stars and water. At the start of the work is a short statement, which opens:

"This short film is an experiment designed to use the medium of screen to create for the eye an impression comparable to that experienced by the ear.... “

It is true there is a linguistic overlap in our description of both auditory and visual qualities. By finding these overlaps and using them to integrate sound and visuals, harmony can be successfully achieved. At times, passages from this short film rise above all other attempts I have found to integrate image and sound, achieving a unity of sublimity.

"Rhythm is not the only sort of structural pattern common both to visual and to musical phenomena. It is perhaps significant that some notes are called high (which is a visual term) and some others low. We say light, clear, limid sound, and we say dark, thick, turgid. We often speak about melodic line, a gentle, undulating line, or a violent angular; it may be a line of simple design, or decorated with an arabesque of notes" Stefan Themerson

I am also encouraged by what I perceive as the successful fusion of abstract forms with film clips of water and sky. These clips, which appear in the second and third segments, stand out from the work as a whole. The water clips especially seem to break down into abstractions of movement, shape, and form. They seem to exist in a new mode like the purely abstract marks with which they share the screen. As I go on to develop work I will consider exploring how 'real' clips can be used in conjunction with my draw or painted imagery.

link to The Eye and the Ear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-NNnOPb8Wc

Below are screenshots from The Eye and the Ear







Sonification

Below is the work I have entered for the Sonification event. It is a modified screenshot taken from my Au Courant animation. I look forward to seeing how this translates. After watching a demo of how the process works, it is clear that geometric images or ones with some kind or repeating elements or symmetry make for the most recognisable sound forms. There is the distinct possibility that this image might produce nothing but static! However, I am yet to see how such an organic type of image will cope and look forward to finding out.



Norman McLaren & Len Lye


Norman McLaren

An earlier pioneer of abstract film making, McLaren painted directly onto film, which can be seen below in the documentary clip Linked. Different-shaped marks arranged in sequential patterns on film strips were translated directly into sounds. These worked alongside painted visuals, which were also produced directly onto the film reel. In the latest Sonification exhibition I will be taking part in an event in which one of my paintings will be digitally translated into sound waves in a process that echos this early practice.

Throughout his career, McLaren explored the relationships between sound, line, pattern and colour. The relationship between these elements appears as the primary focus of his extensive body of work. McLaren said that: “One of the principle advantages of abstract film is that you can stimulate and provoke the spectator's emotions with a fascinating gamut of movements - rapid, calm, precipitous, majestic.” In Begone Dull Care, McLaren’s handmade expressive visuals were used to complement Oscar Peterson’s Jazz score. The improvised nature of jazz being mirrored in McLaren’s own organic, expressive use of line and colour.

Using hand-drawn or hands-on processes, his work has a primacy, which I feel my own work can sometimes lose when taken into the digital. Complex in nature, his works often feature many different passages that work to accentuate the close relationships of these elements. Each passage acts as a movement within a wider symphony. However, the timeframes are much more compressed and immediate and the boarders between these sections are more like transitions than defined breaks.

While he could be described as an abstract filmmaker, figurative elements play throughout his works, with abstract marks or shapes sometimes moving in humanistic ways, before breaking back into the purely abstract. In the work Synchromy the hand-drawn marks are replaced with abstract geometric shapes. This work appears as a mechanical experiment in which McLaren was exploring how colour and shape could create a pictorial vocabulary that could be effectively translated into accompanying sound. Each stripe represented a note, with groups of these stripes forming chords that could more easily translate into recognisable music for the audience.

In early experiments fusing sound and visuals, I struggled to effectively link the two. Timing sound and visuals to respond in a coherent fashion in AfterEffect was at first a painstaking process but one with which I had started to get to grips. Here in McLaren’s work, visuals are commonly directly converted into or read as sound, insuring harmony between the two elements. If sound goes on to feature in my new work I will look to investigate technologies in which Sonification can be more directly achieved.























Link to Begone dull care
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svD0CWVjYRY

Link to Pen Point Discussion, documentry clip showing McLarens working process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0vgZv_JWfM

Link to 'Pas de Deux' (1968)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bXWWz5Tv_I

Link to 'A phantasy in colours' (1949)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86Wp96uG-N8

Link to 'Spook sport' (1940)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXTx9BKENs

Link to 'Synchromy' (1971)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqz_tx1-xd4

Len Lye

Len Lye originally trained as a painter and Sculptor at the Canterbury College of Art in New Zealand. Moving to Britain in 1926 he stopped off in Australia on route. His subsequent discovery of Aboriginal imagery and colour palettes influenced his work through the ensuing decades. Lye was first to develop the technique of drawing directly onto filmstrips, which other artists such as Norman McLaren would later adopt. As well as pioneering the developments in abstract film, Lye was also known for his kinetic sculptures, which he would develop throughout his career.

Lye's first use of the abstract in film was to accompany a recorded conversation. Abstraction of form and colour was intended to suggest the emotional response/feelings of the unseen speakers. From here he went on to experiment by directly painting abstract forms onto the surface of the film reel, cutting this with sound footage to accompany a verse from Shakespeare's The Tempest.

A Colour Box (1935) was a seminal work for Lye. Here, his visuals on the filmstrip directly reacted to markers of sonic interest, which had been placed along its length. Painter Paul Nash commented on Lye's work:

"Len Lye conceives of colour film as a direct vehicle for colour sensation.... Lye believes, as I do, that he holds in his hands a real power for legitimate popular entertainment. A new form of enjoyment quite independent of literary reference; the simple, direct visual-aural contact of colour and sound through the eye and ear. Colour sensation."

In this quote, Nash is discussing the new art form of abstract moving image and sound that Lye was developing, however, when he describes it as 'free of literary reference' I see in this a description of all abstract art.

Lye was quick to take advantage of technological developments, although his use of processes were often unorthodox as he sought to push the boundaries of what was possible. In Rainbow Dance (1936) the new process of Technicolor was used to intensify colour sensations. A pioneer of ideas and processes, Lye was a great example of how an experimental approach could lead to new discoveries. While I am a fan of his work, for me, the image itself rather than rhythm and movement is the primary concern. The quick responsive directness of changes in his visuals act as a counterpoint to my own approach, which is to slow the filmic process down, allowing the viewer longer to consider each image.





















Link to Rainbow Dance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L00R9Drn1mc

Link to A Colour Box
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPDWgpabc7U

Link to Free Radicals (1958)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEEduQMwB3c

Despite stressing I intend to slow the process of animation I did try experimenting speeding a clip up in Adobe Premier, below is the result of this experiment. I quickly decided this was not a route I would take further, If I decided to develop work with this kind of speed then other techniques such as stop-frame drawings akin to those of Nicholas Hutcheson would be more appropriate.

LLOYD EVANS - Lodge fast cut from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.

Usefulness

Reflecting on my earlier post 'Where is the sublime, how do we evoke it,and how much does it cost?' I have being considering how culturally ingrained ideas about value can be shifted from the artifact to the idea, therefore allowing reproductions to operate with the same validity and worth as originals. My first thought has been usefulness! A computer programme is useful because it can perform a function (for example Adobe Photoshop can be used edit an image). While there are hundreds of thousands of copies of the same program value is held through it's usefulness. The product is good at its job, and therefore Adobe know they can charge high prices and still sell thousands of copies.
If art could be proven useful to the human condition, not viewed with such suspicion by the majority the revelation that arts worth is in the idea and not the artifact may be revealed. However the subjective nature of art means I cannot perceive any way of measuring arts vital role other than through phenomenological tests of worth. Because phenomenological testing relies on experience rather than data the validity of results will always be called into question, and therefore is unlikely to precipitate a great shift in social perceptions.

However if a test to measure/prove arts worth to society and the individual could be developed it may be enough to precipitate such a cultural shift.  




Landscape in Film

With my latest work moving into landscape, I have started to explore the contextual heritage of artists working with landscape and the moving image. I have picked out key references where I see connection or resonance with some aspect of my own investigation.

William Raban
William Raban originally studied painting at St Martin’s School of Art. Early paintings explored how time could be captured within nature. His work included, leaving canvases outside to weather and grow mould, throwing thinned oil paint into the sea and taking prints from the breaking waves, or wrapping a canvas around a tree to take its impression. He began making films to find ways of more directly documenting time within a landscape setting. In View (1970) a river scene was recorded, documenting changes through a winter’s day. This recording lasted approximately 5 minutes and consisted of a series of filmic frames, captured some minutes apart. Compressed together, they created a time-lapsed image, the sense of change being heightened by the manipulation of time. Raban closely controlled the period between frames to create a naturalistic rhythm within the work, echoing the flux of nature’s own rhythm.

In Colours of this Time (1972) Raban used long exposures to record shifts in hue from sunrise to sunset. Minute, once imperceptible changes in light are revealed; the world is in flux. Working with Chris Welsby, Raban went on to produce River Yar (1971-72). Designed for two screen projection, the work followed the changing conditions over three weeks in spring and autumn. Viewed simultaneously, each screen respectively documented spring and autumn. Again, time was manipulated so that at once a screen might appear in real time, while the other marched ahead. For a period both screens synchronize before drifting apart again.

Using multiple screen installations is something I have already started to explore in my own work and something I will look to continue with. So far, multiple projections have been used to create combined images, allowing the 'happy accident' to help shape the work. Raban also stresses the importance of active experimentation in his working practice. However, juxtaposing different images to act as counterpoints to each other is something which I am yet to try. During the 'From the Studio Floor' exhibition I did show two linked projections either side of the main staircase, however these were simply two of the same recordings played in synchronization. The idea to exhibit in this way was a last minute consideration, decided upon the day before the exhibition. This meant there was little time for much experimentation, I did try projecting different animations but differences in timings and effects meant that these looked 'messy'. Visually there was also too much distance between the screens for the work to be effectively viewed together. Therefore, I settled for mirrored animations. In future I will look to try designing work to be viewed concurrently. This might also be a different direction from which to explore time within my work. Creating loops or patterns in time, the projections could phase in and out of synchronisation.





Link to Broadwalk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdzZXwjQ6zg

Chris Welsby

Chris Welsby first studied painting at Chelsea School of Art and was influenced by the 'systems' painters, which included Peter Lowe and Jean Spenser who taught at that time. While influenced by these painters Welsby in his own work opposed 'what is structured, measured, systematic and predictable, (with) what in nature is quite the opposite'  Natural systems he captured included the direction of the wind in Wind Vane - (1972) the movements of a moored boat in Estuary - (1980) or patterns in the cloud cover in Seven Days - (1974) Here I see a parallel with my own practice, I too have been influenced by painters who play with strong visual systematic pattern based canvases such as Bernard Frize or Bridget Riley. However, like Welsby this has not translated directly into my work,  I have also looked to create more natural/organic based works albeit primarily through painting and now animation. In the work Shore Line - (1977) Welsby used 6 projectors arranged in a line showing the same looped visuals of breaking waves. His work is primarily seen in the context of the gallery which he feels is more suited to the viewing of his work.

"I have always felt that the work is more readily understood in the fine art context. The concerns of cinema (as apposed to film) though undeniably of interest and relevance to my way of working have always been a peripheral consideration... Although still primarily cinematographic (these installations) allow for the viewer the freedom to choose the duration of his or her participation in the work"  - Chris Welsby  

I am personally undecided as to the best way of exhibiting my work and I have experimented with various locations including gallery spaces. I agree with Welsby's idea that the gallery environment allows viewers the chance to choose the duration of their participation in the work. However, so does work outside the gallery space, what the gallery space does offer is the chance to control conditions and set up complex arrangements in a sympathetic environment. It also offers is the chance to present other forms of work alongside the projected image which Welsby took advantage of in his installation for 'Estuary' exhibiting his film alonside log sheets, satellite photographs, and meteorological charts. Exhibiting prints alongside my projections is something I have discussed in an earlier post, realistically the best environment to do this in would be a gallery space. I have experimented with working both inside and out of gallery spaces over the last year. Outside I have enjoyed exploring how different contexts react with, or alter the reading of my work. However, inside gallery spaces I have been able to spend time creating more ambitious and immersive environments (Gallery 3/From the Studio Floor/DanceEast/UCS). I see myself continuing to experiment using both traditional and non traditional spaces as my work continues.







Links for the work of Chris Welsby:
Seven Days
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku0NdPNeubg
Interview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnGrOmIIBrI

  




Saturday 23 January 2016

Where is the sublime, how do we evoke it, and how much does it cost?

"Immensity is within ourselves," wrote Gaston Bachelard. The question of where the sublime is situated has been a point of contention from Kant and Burke to the present. Artist James Turrell has called himself an 'intranaut', an explorer of inner space. This may sound counter intuitive for an artist whose practice includes creating view-finders, through which we may observe the light of the external world. However, the use of the external infinities of sky or space, are used to better site ourselves within a context of immensity. We gain understanding (non verbal) of ourselves through a relationship with something greater. Turrell once said, "I want to create an atmosphere... that can be consciously plumbed with seeing, like the wordless thought that comes from looking into a fire". Here, while the sublime comes from observation of the external, it is 'felt' within us. It speaks of a connection/moment of clarity in which we have a non-verbal, metaphysical understanding or experience.

I do not see the sublime as existing in a specific location such as the natural world, nor is it evoked when a specific set of parameters are met ; vastness/ awareness of ones insignificance/ being overwhelmed/ terror/ the infinite.

This is because it defies definition. It belongs to the indefinable realm of feeling, which is a personal response. We can no more guarantee that a viewer will be moved by a work, than we can guarantee a friend might like film as much as we do. Our own route to the sublime depends on our personal and cultural understanding and experiences. While this can include collective ideas and concepts, the exact nature of ones response will always be personal. Words may 'summarise' our response to an experience and site it within a collective understanding, but they cannot ever fully explain how a work is felt. In a variation of Berger's "Seeing comes before words," feeling comes before understanding.

As discussed before, I believe a sense of spirituality/otherness/sublime is evoked through a work’s aesthetic. It is our first aesthetic response to a work that holds our deepest understanding or connection to it. However, I believe there is another culturally accepted way through which spirituality or otherness is evoked by the art object; exclusivity. I see exclusivity as a 'false prophet' (thou shalt not worship the unique) of spirituality/otherness. Exclusivity speaks of prestige, money, social status, material desire, and anxiety of our own poverty. Here we are in awe of the art object as a precious artefact to be coveted, contained, owned. As John Berger writes, this could be linked to the rise of the camera and ease of reproduction, meaning that value had to be reattributed. In a world in which everything could be cheaply produced, the power of the wealthiest would be nullified. To maintain the illusion of this established hierarchy, the unique is used as a symbol of status. The rarer something is, the more it is coveted because its ownership reinforces our own success. The art market functions with a value system in which aesthetic and socio-political content are secondary to exclusivity. I think that ultimately, this is why art has repeatedly failed to connect with the mass public in the way pioneers of the avant-garde had hoped. Art’s primary appeal is as artefacts, to be collected by the rich; it is not for the contemplation and enjoyment of the masses.

"The bogus religiosity which now surrounds original works of art, and which is ultimately dependent upon their market value, has become the substitute for what painting lost when the camera made them reproducible. Its function is nostalgic. It is the final empty claim for the continuing values of an oligarchic, undemocratic culture. If the image is no longer unique and exclusive, the art object, the thing, must be made mysteriously so.'' (John Berger - Ways of Seeing)

A question which I am constantly considering/exploring and see as central to the development of my work is, “Do I submit to the cult of the unique?” Currently,I produce work in which there is no original, no master image. The works are created from different sketches/ink drawings, which are combined to make reproducible digital images. With the digital image, there is no distinction between original and copy. Layers from earlier works may be reattributed, reused in different contexts, flipped, reflected, re-scaled. However, the unique does feature in my current work. Projecting multiple images from different sources on the same picture plane makes for almost endless variations. Given the same source images, the viewer would be free to create their own running order. In effect, everyone would be free to create their own unique work, undermining the concept of exclusivity, to which the unique is usually attached.

Whilst I could print limited sets of works, this feels like an act of defeat, a hollow gesture. A limited set serves no artistic service; it only goes to reinforce the art object symbolic function to denote financial or intellectual superiority, as Berger goes on to say:

"The majority take it as axiomatic that the museums are full of holy relics which refer to a mystery which excludes them: the mystery of unaccountable wealth. Or to put it another way, they believe that original masterpieces belong to the preserve (both materially and spiritually) of the rich." (John Berger - Ways of Seeing)

However, there is a major issue with this philosophical standpoint. If I do not create work within the established framework of ‘exclusivity equals value’, if I instead create works which are cheaply or freely reproducible, then how will I afford to make art? Without the commodification of art, its very existence is put at risk. I cannot afford to spend my life creating works to give them away. By securing financial reward, I will be able to go on creating new works. Ultimately while mystification in art goes to obscure true value, paradoxically, financial value makes the production of art possible. On reflection, this point could be further refined to say that, value created by exclusivity, affords the artist to work and live within the existing capitalist system.

Could the cult of the unique fall? I believe this is unlikely. The idea that exclusivity denotes social status is not a problem unique to the artworld, it pervades and underpins the very fabric of our modern society. Technological progress is achieved due to the anxiety that, in order to be happy, we need the latest and best products or services. With acquisition of status symbols, we seek to banish our anxiety and confirm our success in relation to others. If, culturally, we could see through the illusion of exclusivity, it would not only radically change the value of art objects but precipitate a global financial meltdown. A reassessment of what we need to be happy would take place and the resulting economic landscape would look very different. It is in the interests of a financial elite and our technological progress that the status quo be maintained.


In my original Statement of Intent (which can be found on a much earlier post) two questions I proposed my investigation would consider were:

1) I intend to experiment translating my artwork into different formats, therefore, could a so-called sublime image be conceptually robust enough to survive reproduction into different platforms? Or, within the framework of a technological reading, could “networks of reproductive processes thereby afford us some glimpse into a postmodern or technological sublime, whose power or authenticity is documented by the success of such works in evoking a whole new postmodern space” (Jameson, 2010, p.145). Essentially, could the very act of reproduction lead to a postmodern sublime?

2) Reproduction affects the monetary value of a work: the less unique, the less value there is; thus, the value of a work may also affect its aura. This raises the question: is monetary value needed to create or reinforce the aura of a work? If so, it makes processes of mass reproduction more problematic for me as a method of communicating the sublime.


The idea of value, both in art and in a wider context has always been an interest but something which I have yet to directly explore in my own work. In my latest animations, I see the potential for them to function as libraries of paintings. The work could be expanded to work as both projected animations and series of digital prints taken from individual frames.


I want to explore how translating these animations to printed images changes both their reading and value - the uniqueness of the ethereal projection being replaced with the mundane postcard. The unrepeatable experience of a site specific work is replaced with the mass produced portable image. The question is, will mass producing multiple images lead to a post-modern sublime or disengagement?

As an experiment, I intend to exhibit an animation alongside a series of digital prints taken from said animation. Next to the prints will be a plaque with the following words:

In buying a print you accept the artist’s right to endlessly reprint, rescale, reinterpret, rework, and re-present the image. Elements of it may be re-appropriated and used in future works. You are buying the work based on your value judgement of its artistic merit, not its exclusivity. Exclusivity does not validate artwork or provide value. Value is derived from perceived aesthetic, social, or political merit. The notion that value is tied to uniqueness is an outmoded elitist concept used to project superiority over others. You are buying an idea not an artefact.

I want the viewer to stop and think about how value is attributed, why do they attribute more value to the unique than the reproduction? Does the unique hold some physical quality that a reproduction or duplicate may lack? Or is it solely exclusivity and with it, status, which they are buying. Is the unique art object merely operating in the same way as a branded t-shirt, selling for five times as much as a non branded one does?

A point to note is, that I have arrived at these conclusions through contextual research and logical thought. Yet, I too find myself willingly falling into the traps of exclusivity and the unique. I'm sure that if I was ever offered the first known photograph of Duchamps Urinal unframed, or a good, framed reproduction of that same photograph, I would choose the unframed original.

It is also worth noting that I am not calling for the devaluation of art. The primary question that I am posing is that why is the reproduction so devalued, when its aesthetic and socio- political resonance can be just as impactful?

To change our views about value would require the unlearning of a culturally ingrained concept. It would require a total transformation of thought and social structures. The model of exclusivity and value are so closely embedded in our collective psyche, that I question if I could realign my own way of thinking. I anticipate that the ideas, concepts and questions set out here, will continue to underpin my critical thinking as I go on to create future works.







Friday 22 January 2016

Letheringham Lodge - Studio test

So far I have been undecided as to how to present work for the Letheringham Exhibition/ private view. I have considered producing a set of digital prints made from my combined drawings, projecting one or more of the animations I have built from my drawings onto different surfaces; old barns, trees, the Lodge exterior or interior, or simply projecting still images in the same way.

However, projecting outside may be weather dependent, and many of the surfaces are dull brick or wood. After previous experiments, I have found a white background to be most sympathetic to subtle projected images. On darker surfaces, often a lot of detail is lost. At this point, I remembered an idea I had formulated a few months back which hadn't been taken any further and might work in this context.

The plan was to use translucent screens arranged in a line, so that an image would slowly fade as it passed through multiple layers. By projecting onto these screens from both ends, using different images, the outside images should be distinct, while the more central screens should be a varying blend of both. I intend to set up a slide show of different works at each end, timing each slightly differently so they do not run in sync. This means that when the shows are looped, each frame will at some point be seen with every other frame in the opposite show, with at least 15 frames in each slide show. This allows for a wide degree of variation. Ideally, I would like to exhibit this within one of the barn spaces, using the context to frame the work instead of projecting directly onto it.

Below are my first experiments in my studio.












































































LLOYD EVANS - Lodge test 2 from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.
LLOYD EVANS - Lodge test 1 from Lloyd Evans on Vimeo.

Tuesday 19 January 2016

Letheringham Lodge - New combined drawings

These are the first works, created from cropped elements of the new high resolution scans of my four large master drawings. Manipulation in Photoshop has been kept to a minimum and I have tried to avoid re-scaling any layers, so that there is a consistency of line quality. Each layer is created from an A3 sized section of one of the master images and each work may contain between 4-9 layers. I intend to print these as a set of small scale works and select a few to try A1-A0 size, to see how they cope with a degree of enlargement.