M Plummer Fernandez is a South East London artist who uses computers to push the boundaries of industrial design. I came across these pieces he made titled Digital Natives where 3D scanned a series of traditional objects and then abstracted and distorted them, turning them into new objects.
Everyday items such as toys and a watering can are 3D scanned using a digital camera and subjected to algorithms that distort, abstract and taint them into new primordial vessel forms. In some cases only close inspection reveals traces inherited from their physical predecessors. These are then 3D printed on a z-corp printer.
Vessels are arguably the lowest common denominator for man-made objects across all cultures, these objects however have no storage function other than to embody the stored digital data that describes them.
What I love about these objects is that they’re not only abstracted physically, but with a unique blend of colors. The faceted gradation really is a beautiful effect which gives each piece a sense of movement. I’m really looking forward to the day where I can buy a “recipe” for one of these vases and then print it out in a matter of hours. DIY will take on a brand new meaning for us all soon enough.
The strange and surreal furniture designer and Korean artist Lila Jang, who in his last series likes to twist and distort the classic French furniture of the 18th century. Lila Jang studied design and Fine Arts in Paris in Seoul, and has already participated in numerous exhibitions worldwide.
When first viewing this large diorama by Roxy Paine, you’re struck by the paradox of what you think you should be seeing and what is actually in front of you. It’s clear this is an expertly executed replica of a fast food restaurant counter complete with order screens, straw dispensers and a soft-serve ice cream machine; but devoid of flashy logos, food, or any other visual cues whatsoever, all that seems to remain is an empty shell—a carcass—carved entirely from birch and maple wood.
Titled Carcass, the installation was one of two large-scale dioramas on view at Kavi Gupta Gallery as part of Paine’s first solo show in Chicago, Apparatus. Via the gallery:
With Apparatus, Roxy Paine introduces a new chapter in his work, a series of large scale dioramas. Inspired by spaces and environments designed to be activated via human interaction, a fast-food restaurant and a control room, the dioramas present spaces and objects which are hand carved from birch and maple wood and formed from steel, encased and frozen in time, void of human presence, making their inherent function obsolete. Rooted in the Greek language, diorama translates to “through that which is seen”, a definition that has evolved throughout time as dioramas became conventionally known as physical windowed and encased rooms used as educational tools. Paine transforms the environments on display by using the diorama’s traditional experience as a tool to create a contemplative experience where what we see behind the glass transitions between being real and being a mere shell of something real.
The additional installation, Control Room (shown in the video above), similarly depicts an extraordinarily detailed collection of switches and knobs, a control center with an unknown function. You can learn more about both pieces over at Kavi Gupta. All photos by Joseph Rynkiewicz, courtesy the gallery.
In your youth, nothing can stop you from enjoying time with your friends, especially not a simple matter of rain during summer fun. You may grow up and forget the names, but you’ll always remember the moments, the time on the dock with your friends during a surprise shower. © Samantha Fortenberry, 2014 Sony World Photography Awards.
Scottish artist Douglas McDougall uses charcoal, sandpaper and scalpel blades to create his amazingly realistic portraits of friends and people he finds interesting. In his younger years, the 50-year-old artist used to do a lot of pen and ink illustration work but eventually settled on charcoal as his medium of choice. ‘The immediacy of applying that blackness and the way in which it’s sucked into a white paper forever excited me with a glorious kick of absoluteness’, the artist states. Douglas McDougall uses various kinds of charcoal along with unusual art tools like sandpaper and sharp blades to create his detailed hyper-realistic portraits.
SUNLIGHT PILLS BY VAULOT&DYÈVRE
Every winter the same picture: Moodiness, flaccid skin, looking dull and the tendency to a depression hit right in. Though this shouldn’t be a problem anymore as Vaulot&Dyèvre designed a range of supplements for our lack of sunshine and to restore our vitality. The sunshine from Borabora to the Maldives, Haiti and the Bahamas is available as a healthy little pill. Though be careful and don’t exceed the recommended daily dose.
Alexis Mire created the ‘Home Series’ as an assignment in her color photography class. The home series aka the plexi glass series came in her mind when she thought about was ‘home’ actually meant to her. She realized that she always carries her ‘home’ with her as it is rather an idea than a physical home. Her idea of a home is like a glass panel, invisible but there, protecting her, coming along wherever she goes. Alexis Mire states: ‘For me, home is everywhere at any time because home is buried deep inside me.’
Hae Jung Lee (Artist on tumblr)
Alejandro Plaza- “Since childhood he had a great attraction for art, crayons and paper were his hobbies.
Title:Summer- Acrylic on canvas. 150 cm x 116 cm
Created by mixed media artist Anila Quayyum Agha, this elaborately carved cube with an embedded light source projects a dazzling pattern of shadows onto the surrounding gallery walls. Titled Intersections, the installation is made from large panels of laser-cut wood meant to emulate the geometrical patters found in Islamic sacred spaces. Agha shares:
The Intersections project takes the seminal experience of exclusion as a woman from a space of community and creativity such as a Mosque and translates the complex expressions of both wonder and exclusion that have been my experience while growing up in Pakistan. The wooden frieze emulates a pattern from the Alhambra, which was poised at the intersection of history, culture and art and was a place where Islamic and Western discourses, met and co-existed in harmony and served as a testament to the symbiosis of difference. I have given substance to this mutualism with the installation project exploring the binaries of public and private, light and shadow, and static and dynamic. This installation project relies on the purity and inner symmetry of geometric design, the interpretation of the cast shadows and the viewer’s presence with in a public space.
Intersections is currently a finalist in the 3rd Annual See.Me: Year in Review Competition, and you can learn more about it here. (via Twisted Sifter, Hi-Fructose)
aw phillip. i really loved your work. so sad. Dead at 46, Philip Seymour Hoffman
Image © Lees More
Sam Songailo creates site-specific installations that play with geometry. This piece, “Zen Garden,” appeared at Fontanelle Gallery in Adelaide, Australia in the fall of 2013. Check out more of his work on our blog.