WORKING PROOF: FEATURING JUST PRESS PRINT
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CONTENTS Intro
Working Proof: Featuring Just Press P
Working Introductory Text For Working Proof.
Paul Laidler
“Printmaking is concerned with the act of transformation”.
Paul Coldwell
“the difference between what you see on screen and what is printed is hugely significant”
Richard Falle
“it can’t be considered finalised without becoming tangible on the page”.
Andrew Super
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“Each generation is seduced to an extent by the technology of it’s own time”.
Stanley Donwood
“to look to the future, whilst remaining firmly rooted in the past”.
Gordon Cheung
“the work combines hand produced elements with technologically derived imagery”..
John Ford
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“2D graphs were compiled to create a 3D model”.
Katie Davis and Peter Walters
“It took about a year to get the print at the right size with the right paper and printer.”
Carolyn Bunt
“from a single authored printed artwork to a creative multiuser web and mobile app”. ”
Arthur Buxton
“it was just a feeling that something had to be realised”
Paul Laidler
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WORKING PROOF:
FEATURING JUST PRESS PRINT
WORKING PROOF: The main focus of the publication Working Proof stems from the close relationships that exist between technologies, ideas and making in the graphic arts — particularly in the area of digitally-mediated print and its many offshoots. The aim of the publication will be to develop a framework that will map a technologically informed graphic territory, a territory developed through practitioner-based insights that inhabit a ‘thinking through making’ position. Featuring Just Press Print: The first edition of Working Proof offers a selection of collaborative productions with artists and designers working at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UWE Bristol. Senior Research Fellow Paul Laidler has initiated the majority of these projects as part of his ongoing research using the centre’s fine art print publishing studio CFPR Editions (www.cfpreditions.co.uk). As part of this approach to making prints, the collaborative production process enables unique insights into studiobased activity and fosters the type of
dialogue that comes from the act of making. Collectively, the collaborative, technological and print related themes within this first edition will elaborate upon the exhibition Just Press Print that accompanies the publication. The title of the exhibition was chosen to highlight the significant elements for the creation of a digitally mediated print that are often overlooked. This can, and often does, include the relationship and conversation between artist and publisher/master printer, the iterations that are necessary to achieve the final print and the need for archiving and recording the process. The exhibition can be read as a physical projection of Working Proof and like the publication, the exhibited work will be an ongoing documentation of a work in progress. The development of these two connecting presentation formats will become part of a touring event in the United States between 2015 and 2017. The opening venue for the exhibition will be the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore who have been instrumental in making the event happen. Paul Laidler is a researcher, lecturer and artist working in the field of graphic arts and printmaking at the University of the West of England, Bristol. He is the editor of Working Proof and the curator of the Just Press Print Exhibition.
WORKING INTRODUCTORY TEXT FOR WORKING PROOF.
‘TO SEEK OUT NEW PRINTS AND NEW PRINT CIVILISATIONS’.
MENTALITIES & HERITAGE.
The concept of ‘graphic image’ stands at the centre of print practice: a visual language that is constantly being impacted upon by an ever-expanding imagemaking technology. Certainly there is evidence to suggest that printed conventions may be present within the broad field of digitally mediated artefacts, but what reconciles these endeavours within a graphic heritage?
The artist and academic Luis Camnitzer suggested that “digital technologies have brought not only technical innovations in print practices, but also and most importantly, have provoked a ‘mental change’ in the creative process”. Camnitzer’s ruminations concerning the impact of digital technology on the future of printmaking prompt a number of questions concerning the longevity of the discipline and how these technologies are addressed alongside established practices, as they are predominantly understood today. These allusions to a (digitally informed) shift within printmaking practices resonated with the central exhibition of the 28th Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana (2009) entitled ‘The Matrix: An Unstable Reality’. The print matrix has been a constant and tangible component within the discipline of printmaking yet as the exhibition title suggests, this fixed point of reference is not so stable or controllable in the digital age. This uncertainty within a practice where the physicality of tools and process has been ingrained in the language of the discipline resulted in the initial curatorial question of the exhibition ‘Does a medium stay the same once it incorporates new technologies in its discourse’? The exhibition selected artists work that was defined as extending from ‘traditional and contemporary printmaking’, but how many extension possibilities might there be and what informs the point of departure? Perhaps more importantly to what end can we understand these developments as graphic practice?
Over the past 20 years digital technology has rapidly developed across creative practices within the visual arts. To this effect we have seen the development of new practices and courses that centre upon an engagement with digital technology as a tool, medium and cultural phenomenon (Fab Labs, Digital Media Arts, etc.). These emerging practices and disciplines are a direct response to the omnipresence of the digital age whilst the pervasive and mutable potential of the technology has had an equally profound influence upon pre-digital disciplines such as publishing and printmaking.
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THE POSTDIGITALS.
BACK TO THE FUTURE – OF PRINT.
At the other end of the spectrum, the realisation of artefacts that attempt to bridge the digital and physical divide has been more readily embraced within the Design field. This is most notable through the exhibition ‘After the Bit Rush’ (2011) where questions as to whether something is analogue or digital appear to have receded. Moreover we have seen further incarnations of digital developments such as augmented print, e-print and digital editions in the truest sense such as the online company ‘s[editions]’ (www.seditionart.com/) who publish artworks exclusively created in digital media. At first glance these later developments may be best defined as new media, thus appearing to be more digital than printmaking’s association with digital technology and the discipline’s relationship with notions of materiality in relation to the physical artefact. At root these developments have a historical lineage with printmaking yet the role of discipline specificity upon new and associated technologies appears to be blurred, de-emphasised or lacking in a dialogue towards defining the discipline’s heritage with production, realisation and artisanship in the wake of technological advancement. Here the computer as the magic black box phenomenon overwhelmingly begs the question of what can we do, as opposed to what are we doing?
‘There truly are many forms of imagery nowadays that are modern, and unique to this period. We’re surrounded by systems, devices and machines generating heaps of raw graphic novelty’. (Sterling, 2012)
It is also worth noting that these shifting technological perspectives and possibilities are playing a part in reinvigorating the crafts. At first glance this may appear to be a rejection of digital’s virtual and system based products, and a return to the physical and handmade. On another level the notion of craft is extending simultaneously, incorporating the technological with the physical through programming and hacking for instance. In the recent ‘Out of Hand’ exhibition at MAD, curator Ron Labarco echoed these sentiments by stating that “the digital revolution is over and we are now in a post-revolutionary period, with the achievements of the last few decades taken for granted and even expected in the creative industries. So ‘postdigital’ doesn’t mark the end of the digital age but instead the broad acceptance of digital technologies as commonplace.”
Just to clarify: in this instance the relationship with graphic arts practice originates from the discipline of printmaking and the realisation of physical artefacts in the digital age. Here the affiliation with postdigital does not exclude the use of digital technology but seeks to consider its influence upon printmaking and contemporary craft-orientated pursuits. For example, digital technologies such as rapid prototyping and laser cutting are gradually being encompassed within the field of printmaking despite the fact that these tools often reside (and have originated) in other disciplines or departments. This raises questions about how resulting works are located within the discipline of printmaking rather than in an architecture or product design department? Fundamentally the introduction of 3D printing into the field of printmaking raises interesting debates around the idea of discipline specificity – is it printmaking or sculpture? Or does this even matter and, if so, to whom does it matter and why?
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“Printmaking is concerned with the act of transformation” – Professor Paul Coldwell
The conversation that follows is an edited version of an article entitled ‘Printmaking – New and Old Technologies – A Conversation’ that was published by the journal Porte Arte, in 2012. The text was developed during a collaborative print studio project between myself and Prof Paul Coldwell. During the production of a print edition Prof Coldwell and I would discuss the use of the printed image and the role of technology within our practices. Through these conversations we talked about the ongoing relationship between old and new technologies within fine art printmaking. The resulting article explores how ideas move between virtual and real, and the need for printmakers to engage with physical objects.
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Paul Laidler: Do you think the inherent qualities of digital technology attack the heart of Printmaking? Words such as ‘materiality’, ‘tactility’ and ‘texture’ are often associated with the physical nature of the print process that is deeply ingrained in the language of printmaking, and the medium’s sensibilities. Paul Coldwell: Printmaking is concerned with the act of transformation. We make the mark on an etching plate and that is transformed and translated into ink on a piece of paper, or we cut a stencil and that is turned into ink being pushed through a screen to make a screenprint, or a drawing in grease on a stone is transformed into ink on paper as a lithograph. So printmakers are well placed to think about these issues because we are always in this process of transformation and translation. How do you feel about this in your own work?
PL: As an art student I first became interested in making prints using an office Xerox machine. At the time I found the recording properties intriguing given that the flat recording area on the machine had been designed to copy 2D surfaces yet the potential remained to capture an unusual appearance of depth that was sensitive to the physical qualities of flatness. I recall thinking that the work existed somewhere between photography and printmaking, and in hindsight this may have been my first experience of what was to follow when we consider how today, digital technology has brought these two disciplines closer together.
Although I had used traditional print processes prior to using Xerox, I believe I was attracted to the fact that the device was easier to operate, the results were immediate and it allowed me to work through permutations of ideas more quickly. Perhaps this was also what got me hooked on the indirectness or the relationship with control. PC: The artist Tim Head spoke of his interest in “the different type of space inherent in electronic scanning… essentially everything is flat. It’s scanning closely over the surface and encoding it.” So for you it’s about surrendering a degree
of control? You control the process but then the process controls the aesthetic or the final aesthetic. It’s more like shifting the area of your control, and if you have made the right decisions beforehand then the technology will complete that idea. PL: I think I’ve always been attracted to the possibilities of systems when making artworks or perhaps the intuition that comes with designing a system that, as you say, shifts the emphasis of control. In this instance I am interested in understanding what a system or process will provide, then how this resonates with an idea. I’m
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particularly interested in works that engage with a medium and its processes without literally being conceived in the medium that the ideas refer to. For instance Tim Head’s Slow Life ink drawing and Tom Friedman’s Untitled Dollar Bill collage apply systematic approaches that bring to mind the remote precision of digital programmes and the actuality of the handmade. Tim Head’s i series prints actually brings me to my next question about digital printmaking which has most commonly been associated with inkjet printing - yet I feel it is much more than inkjet, given the broadening possibilities of digital rendering devices that are available. What are your thoughts on this potentially nascent field? PC: Well, as we previously mentioned about technologies being all-pervasive, in some ways it’s very difficult to talk about a digital print. For example, some digital prints are scanned drawings, photographs or paintings that have been reproduced as inkjet prints. So in these cases the only aspect of the digital is that an original has been translated into code in order to print a multiple. That is one end of the spectrum. At the other end, is the image that is worked on the computer using software such as Illustrator or Photoshop, where the image does not have any materiality until it is finally printed as inkjet. Or, as mentioned, artists like Head who use programming itself. So between these extremes there is a whole range of approaches. Of course we mustn’t forget that originally it was only artists like Laposky, Franke or Cohen who were themselves programmers, or could work with technical assistance and were able to access the equipment, who could make digital prints.
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But what interests me, is the way that artists are now using digital as one aspect of their armoury and they are bringing it to bear on all the other technologies they know, it does not have to be exclusively digital. PL: Probably the most recent addition to the field of digital print technologies is 3D printing. The technology’s relationship with the field of printmaking is self-evident, yet direct access to such expensive equipment remains an obstacle for the printmaker. It is also worth noting
that within a university environment, rapid prototyping technologies tend to be part of engineering, architecture or product design departments rather than art departments. Collectively these circumstances appear to suggest that printmakers will have to wait their turn. However, the broadening possibilities that I previously mentioned may develop in far richer ways if printmaking programmes were to explore more collaborative and cross-disciplinary activity. I suppose if one was to take a few leaps and continue along this predominantly digital and cross-disciplinary route, would
printmaking still be the most appropriate description for the resulting works, or does the inclusion of new technologies change a medium and its discourse? Earlier in the day, and on a similar note, we mentioned the more recent re-emergence of the crafts and the way in which analogue and digital technologies have become integrated within the making process - to the point where they are seamless. It’s interesting to think about what digital craft actually is, despite the fact that this definition is not new in itself. Is it craft as we have come to know it through
analogue practices that simply adopt digital technology, using the same sensibilities to make physical artefacts? Or is it the reverse, where one’s craft is through languages and processes that embrace, and are synonymous with digital? Words like ‘embedded’, ‘augmented’, ‘dematerialised’ and ‘virtuality’ might begin to offer insights upon this strand of digital craft. I wonder what the latter looks like, I’m not sure we have really seen a lot of it yet, although there are some indications emerging. Perhaps I’m referring to this idea of the ‘digital native’. PC: If one steps back and considers the model of the average artist, they generally have very little equipment and are investing more in their time rather than hardware. I just wonder how many artists have the technology available to them in order to do the kind of playing and experimenting needed to become familiar enough with the material and the technology, in a way that in the past one became familiar with pencil and paper, paint and brushes. Even in college, the amount of time someone could spend in the studio is very limited, and time with equipment and specialist technicians is even more limited. So I wonder if that impacts on this whole technology debate? It has also been the case that artists get involved with technologies and processes once they become cheaper and therefore accessible. Certainly with large format inkjet, this was the case, coupled with the development of better inks and printers that could accommodate a wide range of papers and substrates, the conditions were right for artists to ‘play’. Maybe this creates the conditions for a digital native?
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“the difference between what you see on screen and what is printed is hugely significant” – Richard Falle
Richard Falle’s approach to image making utilises the simplicity of a drawn line within the programme Adobe Illustrator. Each line is developed incrementally through a series of connecting points to create what may be best described as a ‘constructed drawing’. The drawing software provides a limited set of tools to create defined, two-dimensional areas or shapes. Images are created by layering those shapes one a top of each other and adjusting the way they interact with the shapes, or groups of shapes, above or below them. Falle explains that his process is less to do with intuition, as one might experience with a pencil or paintbrush. Instead he adopts a more considered methodology; approaching every surface as a problem to be solved through experimentation using trial and error. Here the possibility to continually change the drawing is more gratifying for the artist than using a more sympathetic or expressive medium. The completed digital drawing file often documents the entire creative process, and will contain many hidden variations of the final image, development ideas and sketches embedded within it, but not visible. This form then captures the work of art from inception to completion in a way that the artist finds unique. Falle’s printed work and thinking about his approach to drawing offers a number of avenues about how digital construction methods maybe extending autographic distinctions and process-led concerns with representation in a digital age. To gain further insight into the digitallymediated drawing process the artist and
I thought it would be interesting to use a conversational approach – offering a level of immediacy on the artists’ thoughts. The following conversation is a transcription from a radio interview by Frome FM between radio commentator David Chandler and artist Richard Falle (30th March 2013). The programme ‘Seeing Things’, reviewed a number of works by Richard Falle at the Metaphysica Exhibition hosted by Rook Lane Gallery, Frome 30th March - 5th April 2013.
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David Chandler: You are a vector artist Richard Falle: Yes DC: Can you, for the uninitiated, and I’m sure there are billions of them, just explain what that is? RF: OK...Most people when they think of digital artwork, whether they are conscious of it or not, think in terms of digital photographs, and scanned images and Adobe Photoshop and
things like that. Those are called raster or bitmap images because they create images by filling the screen with little squares called pixels; each pixel is given a colour and a place to be on the screen. All of those pixels together make you think you’re seeing a continuous tone image like a photograph, the opposite of [alternative to] that is vector graphics. Vector graphics uses things called anchor points... DC: Right
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RF: ...and you draw with anchor points, a bit like drawing dot-to-dot to create shapes and then you fill those shapes with colour. You just tell it where to put the points and it joins them together with a line, and you can tell it [the computer] whether you want the line to be curved or straight, and the area you’ve delineated with the lines and the dots, the anchor points, which are called paths...um...you tell it to make a certain colour, or make it more transparent, or less transparent, or blend from one colour to another colour. DC: The effect that you get seems to me to be... quite this really incredibly smooth looking, beautifully rendered, slick looking shape. There is this wonderful gloss to the to the image very often. RF: Yes. I try... DC: Ultra clear. RF: ...I try to avoid that. I spend my life trying not to get that. DC: You try to add noise. RF: Yeah. I think because there’s a kind of preconceived idea, especially within the arts community, that vector graphics are all very flat, and cartoon like, and graphicy. Like comic book style. What I try to do is make my vector graphics as far from that as possible and as close to a photograph as possible because... [pause] it’s just a challenge and I love a challenge. Which does make my artwork somewhat niche, I think. To understand what’s gone into it and to really get the most out of it, I suppose you really have to understand the limits of vector graphics.
DC: But I think to someone who might not be literate when it comes to digital art, might look at your work and think first of all that they’re looking at a photograph... RF: Well that’s what I hope. DC: Right. That’s what they might first of all see, but then the problems occur when you present them with a cycle helmet for someone with two heads, or an ice cream on fire, or a trumpet for a six fingered trumpeter, then you think “well wait a minute, how is this done?” RF: I deliberately create images that can’t exist, of things that can’t exist because it forces a kind of understanding that it’s not a photograph. It can’t be a photograph because this can’t be photographically created. DC: Largely they’re kind of visual jokes aren’t they? There’s a pair of gloves... RF: Yep. With the gloves, I chose them specifically because I wanted to see how closely I could render leather. DC: Right RF: It’s very organic, so a lot of the things I choose, I try to use things that are quite chaotic and quite organic because Adobe Illustrator itself is very precise, it’s very accurate. It’s accurate to a thousandth of a millimetre when you place things, so it’s all about control and what I’m often trying to create are things that have a lack of control. There’s a lot of smoke and flames... they’re kind of moving, they’re kinetic, and yet Illustrator by nature I
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think a lot of people think of it as stilted and static, so it’s playing not only with juxtaposed imagery; large and small, hot and cold, that sort of thing but also the technique juxtaposing your perceptions, or if you understand the programmes, your preconceived ideas of what the programme is and what it can actually do.
DC: It’s very strong.
or objects. I can use these to do a rough photomontage. I use the photomontage as a reference when drawing in Illustrator. It’s important to understand how light plays on the different surfaces, how textures might be reproduced, shadow and reflected light. It takes several months to draw the final image and then I get them printed. CFPR Editions do all my printing. The printing of the file often starts by showing the image on screen to Paul Laidler, who heads CFPR Editions. We then discuss how to realise the work as a physical fine art digital print. And usually that throws up lots of problems because CFPR’s printers are so much more accurate than my computer screen...
RF: ...becoming that one.
DC: Right.
DC: What about exhibitions then? With the kind of work you do, it being digital and because it can exist on the Internet, it can exist in cyberspace, what is the value of actually printing these things out; sticking them in a frame and putting them in an exhibition space?
RF: ...It’s so much sharper, the resolution, that suddenly things that you can get away with on the computer screen, no matter how far you zoom in, become problematic; it’s also very different to see the image on a
DC: You know the ice cream cornet in flames has got to be your signature piece? Would you say? That one? RF: It seems to be...
DC: Why do that? RF: That’s a very good question; but the, the difference between what you see on screen and what is printed is hugely significant. I design them entirely on the computer screen. I do some preliminary compositional sketches in pencil or biro, or whatever comes to hand. I’m usually not in my studio when I get a good idea. The sketches are not at all detailed, they just help me with perspective and lighting and composition. I then hunt on the internet for photographic images, or if I can, set up pack shots using a digital SLR of the key object
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surface with indirect lighting, as opposed to the direct back illumination of a computer screen. The proofing process is also a good time to make the final tweaks to enhance the image, and Paul is very patient and insightful when discussing possible edits. So for every print it might go through ten proofing stages and there might be three weeks between each proof while I tinker with things and change things and adjust things to get a better result and then it’ll be printed again and then that will have changed some other things and I’ll have to change that and then it’ll be printed again and I’ll do some more and so it’s quite a long process. Often we change something simple, like the hue of a colourfield or its dimensions, or the placement of the subject in the colourfield and the image will suddenly pop and you know it’s right.
thing. It’s taking a programme that’s known for creating things that are flat and flawless and graphic and trying to reproduce that with a chaos that you find, kind of, in everything. The texture, the marks and problems and it’s not perfect, it’s anomalous and it’s that that gives it reality. That’s why so many cgi graphics on television just somehow don’t work, because they’re not believable because they don’t have that level of chaos. It’s trying to create something that looks chaotic and has that edge, that you’re talking about, but using a programme that is incredibly precise. I don’t think I’ve cracked it yet, but if I had, I wouldn’t enjoy making the prints. I think every time I do a print I get a little bit closer, and little bit closer to getting there. But then I keep having to find a new challenge.
DC: I’m wondering if this a modern dilemma with high definition stuff. There is this perceived problem with high definition movies right now that they look so real and so flawless and there’s no noise so there’s no character anymore. There’s no excitement. The problem seems to be that when you create something that seems be so flawless it’s very difficult to build in the kind of gritty, graininess that we like. You know it’s like the sound of a distorted guitar, for example, sounds great. It could be slightly out of tune...
DC: So artists are these people that just like giving themselves these problems that nobody else wants?
RF: Yep. DC: ...but it doesn’t matter. RF: Well you’ve hit the nail on the head. That is the challenge. That’s the exciting
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The end
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“it can’t be considered finalised without becoming tangible on the page” – Andrew Super
The following conversation has been extracted from a much longer text produced for g&e Print and Art Edition Magazine as a co-authored article in the form of a studio conversation between two researchers and an artist. The two researchers are Dr Cecilia Mandrile and myself with the artist Andrew Super. Andrew Super is an artist whose work is grounded in an exploration of time – specifically how little bits of time come to be understood as personal, cultural, or historical moments. His photographic and print based works take extended periods of time, well beyond what could be understood singularly as moments, and compress them into singular images through various means of mediation. The resulting images
question the momentous nature of the subjects, allowing viewers to explore events in remarkable new ways. Dr Cecilia Mandrile is an artist, educator and researcher interested in the displacing nature of the print process. Her practice and research interests focus on printbased portable objects that reflect on the displacement experience.
these practice-related inquiries we invite artists whose practice encounters (and in some instances challenges) our research-based interests to produce printed artworks. For this conversation we are interested in exploring current print conventions and the new coalescence of digital technologies, as a means to locate the graphic artefact in post-digital creative practices.
PL: We should probably start by giving the conversation a bit of background, to explain why Cecilia and I are interested in discussing the process of making printed artworks with artists. As researchers we are interested in developing commentary where the creative practice of art plays an instrumental part in an enquiry. To develop
CM: For the context of our research a ‘graphic artefact’ is defined as a physical object made using digital technology at some stage of its conception, design and/ or production. Here we consider the use and role of digital mediation as being central to defining the parameters of the practice-related inquiry. By appraising the
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postdigital approach to making, we aim to develop a framework that would map a technologically informed graphic territory. PL: Having spoken with Andy on a number of occasions about the role of mediation in image making and the inherent properties that different processes offer, I was keen to invite him to produce an edition with us. As Cecilia previously mentioned the only main stipulation was that the work had to engage with digital technology in its conception, design and/or production. Knowing that Andy predominantly works with analogue photography, we were interested to see how he would respond to the invitation. AS: It was difficult to figure out what to do, with the only constraint being that there
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needed to be some sort of printed outcome. Previously I’ve utilised digital output out of necessity rather than choice – I would have preferred working in the darkroom, but didn’t have access to facilities that would allow me to make my work the way I wanted to. This was the first instance where I’ve worked digitally in spite of its ubiquity, rather than because of it. Working from video was a logical leap because of its origins in lens based media, and treating it similarly to a long exposure, was all about figuring out a technical method. To be honest, I came about the process, and subsequently the work, out of sheer experimentation and play. That process of altering something, and seeing what happens was always important to my photographic practice in the darkroom, and it was equally as important here, especially when the time came to start proofing and figuring out how to make an industrial printer meet my needs. CM: You printed these on the Roland – why did you choose that printer over the others? AS: That really came through conversation with Paul. Once I created the work and we talked about the constant referential nature of the work (the print back to the videos) it made sense to reference the screen where the image captures originated. We both wanted to make the prints slightly glossy, but only the image bits rather than the whole page, so we needed to use a printer that could apply a spot varnish. CM: Could you tell us about the process? AS: The process used for creating these images is straightforward, albeit time
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consuming and emotionally straining. The sources are streamed from the web, either via YouTube or LiveLeak, and screen captures are taken as quickly as possible for the duration of the video. The captures are taken manually in an effort to not merely break up the video itself into its constituent frames, but rather to keep the viewing of the video an experience similar to seeing an event firsthand. I then take the screen captures and layer them in Photoshop, stacked temporally with the first at the bottom and last at the top. The image files are subsequently blended; averaging the individual pixel values for each layer, and creating a generally nondescript colour field. Ultimately the entire content of the video is there in the image, but since it’s combined and all jumbled up, its graphic nature is removed, both in the literal sense of being a referent, and the figurative sense of illustrating violence. PL: I think there are two questions here that refer to our research interest in the physical and the graphic. Firstly could you say why these images needed to become physical. AS: It was important for me to make this work as prints because of the eternal nature of the Internet and the idea of things not going away. It comes from a deep held belief in American romanticism (which was decidedly anti-object, by the way) that was passed on through the philosophies of Thoreau and John Dewey. We’re, at our core, experiential beings and I like the idea that even though you can view these images on various websites, that doesn’t give you the same understanding of it as an image than if you were looking at the print itself. All
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sensibility requires – for the creator to look at that which they have made and critically ask themselves how closely it fits with the idea in their head, and subsequently the image on their screen. The real key is being able to step back from the maker standpoint and try to put yourself in the place of the viewer, to see if the techniques and materials translate to the audience as well. If it only works for someone with an intimate knowledge of its background then you won’t be communicating much.
the ideas that go into the work really only become evident the image gets set onto paper. This work relies heavily upon being printed, and it can’t be considered finalised without becoming tangible on the page. CM: Is there also a temporal correlation with the concept and resulting work as a print? AS: Of course. When people have something tangible in front of them they recognise, whether only on a subconscious level or not, that since they are looking at something tangible, they are looking at something of time, something that has a history to it. I like the juxtaposition of the object-ness of the prints with the multiple levels of intangibility that the videos possess. The fact that what occurred in the videos is so extreme, coupled with the fact that they are now simply ones and zeros floating in the ether of the internet removes them from the physical nature of, say, the Zapruder Film (the JFK assassination video). The prints have a concrete moment of existence, especially considering the manner in which they’re created. PL: In the context of the collaborative print studio, we were discussing and questioning the nature of a ‘Graphic Language’ within the creative process, specifically regarding to the development of digitally mediated artefacts. Since the series you are working on is called ‘(Non) Graphic Images of Violence’, it would be significant if you could comment further on your understanding of ‘Graphic Language’. AS: The term ‘graphic language’ is, on face value, problematic. A language is simply a system of conveying meaning from one entity to another, but the term doesn’t
CM: What’s next?
necessitate a physical component - and remember, all artefacts are physical. I think that there’s a problem with calling something a ‘graphic language’ (apart from alphabetic, pictographic, or morphemic representations) because it becomes detrimental to the agency of the image. What I mean by this is that images have (almost always) held a special power for us in the sense that they are an expression of an idea, similar to how music and dance illustrate abstract thoughts. As soon as we make a claim that images are, whether simply or difficultly, objects that connote meaning, we throw away (and possibly destroy) their magical qualities.
CM: If for a moment could we change the word ‘language’ to ‘sensibility’ do you consider there to be a sensibility for realising and rendering digital imagery as physical artefacts? AS: Absolutely. The simple technical aspect alone creates such an array of possibilities for the physical output. I remember creating my first technical notebook in an early photography class – it was a picture of a sink printed on 10 different darkroom papers with 4 different sets of chemicals. It was the same picture, but 40 different images. Which sink was the sinkiest? Who knows. But that’s exactly what the
AS: I’m not exactly sure at this point. There’s a lot of technology to keep experimenting with. I’m infatuated with the conceptualisation of time, how something simultaneously literal and metaphoric can be represented in a physical way. I’m interested in seeing what I could potentially be doing with lasers as well, specifically dealing with the inherent length of time needed to make laser prints – sort of figuring out how to make the print be a self-referential object. In the short term I’m continuing with this work. Unfortunately it seems I’ll never be lacking for source materials given the nature of the subject.
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To be continued…
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“Each generation is seduced to an extent by the technology of it’s own time” – Stanley Donwood
For those of you who may not know Stanley Donwood he is best known for his work with the band Radiohead who he has created artwork for since the group’s inception in 1985. Donwood and frontman Thom Yorke met at Exeter University and the two are often thought to be one and the same, despite accepting a Grammy award together for the band’s packaging in 2002. In 2012, I began discussing the possibility of producing a print edition with the artist Stanley Donwood. A year later we completed two laser engraved editions entitled February Holloway, 2013 & Wait here we will come for you, 2013. The collaborative relationship has since fostered four further editions including, Else (2014) Pigmented Inkjet Print; Peril (2015) Pigmented Inkjet Print, Lost (2015) Pigmented Inkjet Print, and Hell Lane (2015) Laser Engraving. As part of a much larger body of work (described by the artist as his ‘tree period’) the images were inspired by Holloways (hidden country footpaths) and other arboreal scenes; this work was also featured in a bestselling book of the same name and formed the artwork for Radiohead’s record, The King of Limbs. Holloway lanes are characterised by an over-arching avenue of fauna that creates a natural tunnel effect. “In the lead up to making these pieces I became fascinated with the idea of a cathedral of sound,” says Donwood. “I was working with Radiohead on the record that was to become The King of Limbs, and my early hearings of the music seemed to suggest an over-arching canopy of detail.” Whilst working on the Holloway book, Donwood slept overnight under some of the
canopies in south Dorset, most of which have since been cut down. He then drew the canopies from memory back at his studio. It was this body of arboreal drawings that were used as a starting point to develop Donwood’s edition with CFPR Editions. An artist’s practice-based engagement with production considerations is a central component for the selection of creative practitioners that work with CFPR Editions. Similarly, the creation of graphic artworks through digitally mediated means forms the framework to begin commentating on a postdigital print arena. With this in mind (and given that Donwood has produced both mechanical and digital prints in recent years) we hoped to develop a project that would extend the possibilities for revisiting and / or reimagining previous works. Early conversations unearthed the artist’s reluctance to continue producing digital prints, given the many years of working with the process. Perhaps more importantly
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Donwood was keen to continue his interest with primitive subject matter and the processes and aesthetics that suited a more organic outcome. The possibility of creating a digitally-mediated print that could provide some if not all of the artists concerns, created a perfect context to begin bridging facets of the digital and physical divide. Further conversations discussed the possibility of creating an edition where the binary fused with the organic.
When approaching an artist about producing a print edition, our studio ethos often begins by showing the artist a process, material or tool that they may not have encountered before. This technically-led approach can sometimes offer a different, new or novel option for the artist, and is often considered to be the main collaborative contribution of the editioning studio. In most cases, the studio’s affiliation with print process is a pragmatic one, yet this form of practice-
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“it looks as if trained paper-eating bacteria have been told to make a picture” – Stanley Donwood
based activity often initiates dialogues that reveal rich insights about the artist’s practice and the realisation of printed matter. As previously mentioned the dialogue within the studio is central to developing further insights about the discipline of printmaking and I felt it necessary (given the context of this publication) to ask the artist about his interest/observations/ position /relationship with new and old technologies. The artist offered the following thoughts: ‘Each generation is seduced to an extent by the technology of its own time; if our civilisation doesn’t collapse in the near future there will presumably come a time when 3D printing is perceived as quaint and old-timey. I think that when what we see as ‘technology’ first began to develop at a rapid pace, during the Industrial Revolution, people saw a dizzying parade of developments in almost every field. Suddenly there were machines for everything; from sewing to locomotion, and I suppose that something of that almost magical essence remains present in the cast iron of printing presses, steam engines and so on. There’s a sense in which that level of technology is ageless; if something breaks any semi-competent engineer can figure out what’s gone wrong and then fix it. If we are no longer able to generate sufficient electricity it won’t matter, as these machines were never designed with electricity in mind. There are no silicon chips. There’s also the problem of mathematics and the binary nature of digital technology. Digits are what we have attempted to replace everything with, but the things, objects, and aesthetics we are demanding were never digital to begin with,
and something unnameable in the human spirit is well aware of this. People instinctively prefer the human-generated curves of a classic car; the sweep of the arm is more beautiful than a digitally created vector. I could go on and on, but I have now put on my t-shirt that says DON’T GET ME STARTED’. The engraved editions (February Holloway and Wait here we will come for you) were developed from two separate pencil and ink drawings that the artist had produced before discussing any potential edition of the images. In this instance he supplied me
with high resolution scans of the drawings, that were then digitally adjusted for the laser cutting process. As part of the proofing procedure, the digital files were engraved into a number of paper substrates from different paper manufacturers that produced varying tactile and tonal qualities. This paper testing procedure offered a number of qualitative material considerations for the engraved image and gave the first indications of certain hand drawn qualities had been recorded, translated and rendered for the newly editioned work. Once the paper tests were complete, the digital files were then rendered
as ‘raster engravings’ – taking approximately six hours to cut, and produced as a limited edition of 6 artworks on paper. Upon viewing the completed raster engravings, Donwood commented that, ‘the results are quite mesmerising; to me it looks as if trained paper-eating bacteria have been told to make a picture. The vaporised images look very organic.’ The laser process uses carbon dioxide that is excited in a chamber. Emerging as light from an aperture in the chamber, the beam
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is focused by a series of mirrors, a lens and through a nozzle down to a thickness of approximately 0.2mm. When the beam comes in to contact with a material it cuts through by vaporising it. The nozzle moves across the surface of the material on an x and y axis that allows designs to be cut or engraved with a high level of accuracy and complexity in a variety of materials. In summary this specific laser cutting technology involves the use of a powerful laser to cut, etch or engrave into textiles, paper, card, plastics, vinyls, glass and some types of wood. A computer controls the path
of the laser over the bed to melt, burn or vaporise the material. In 2014 I was interested in returning to our digital edition roots in inkjet printing - where it all began. Around the same time Donwood had been undertaking a nostalgic trip of his own, after clearing out one of his old studios. During this tidying up Donwood had uncovered an archive of preparatory work on the OK Computer album cover – for the British Band Radiohead. Needless to say it seemed fitting that we would edition Stan’s early digital collages for our next series of inkjet prints.
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“to look to the future, whilst remaining firmly rooted in the past” – Gordon Cheung
as well as sparking a willingness to think and create in technological terms. More importantly, this generation has witnessed the transition between analogue and digital, enabling a understanding of the materiality and tangibility of technology compared with the all digital and immaterial that prevailed at the start of the digital era. Cheung’s art has been said to look to the future, whilst remaining firmly rooted in the past. The project undertaken at the CFPR provides a historical reflection of contemporary culture through the exploration of the Dutch Golden Age, a period of extraordinary wealth and power in 16th and 17th Century Holland. The title of the work ‘Tulipmania’ was a notorious episode in 17th-century Dutch history, in which the trading of tulip bulbs became so extreme that the price of one flower would sell for ten times the annual wage of a skilled worker. ‘Tulipmania’ was the world’s first recorded major financial crash, an occurrence that the artist has drawn upon for this work, highlighting that economic bubbles are not a modern-day phenomenon.
The initiation of the print project with the artist Gordon Cheung developed in 2013 after viewing a series of graphic art works by the artists at the Alan Cristea gallery, London. The gallery is known for its commitment to original prints and editions, and as such it was interesting to see a selected artist using a range of media including inkjet, laser cutting and painting. A few weeks later I would read an interview with the artist that began to discuss the role of technology
in the production and conception of the work. Cheung would go on to describe his preoccupation with a technological informed scene using phrases such as; between the virtual and actual realities; oscillating between Utopia and Dystopia and epic techno-sublime vistas. Needless to say I dug a little deeper to find out what other works Cheung had produced before inviting him to produce an edition as part of an ongoing project / inquiry.
Gordon Cheung was born 1975 in London, he studied painting at Central St Martins College of Art and at the Royal College of Art, London from where he graduated in 2001. Cheung and many others of his generation fall into an interesting and maybe unique category of artists who have grown up amid the digital revolution and are subsequently inspired by the new media of our age. One might speculate that science fiction films such as Star Wars, 2001 and Blade Runner have helped to forge a common imagination,
The tulip bulb for the series refers to the Rothschild bulb that was selected by the artist whilst visiting Amsterdam in 2013. The artist explains that the bulb is named after one of the most powerful banking family dynasties in history and therefore a principle player in spreading Capitalism globally. In 2013 CFPR Editions completed the first 3D printed bulb series for the artist Gordon Cheung. By using an Identica dental scanner (with assistance from Robert Keogh at 3dScan Alliance in Bristol) we were able to record the three dimensional surface of a
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tulip bulb. The capture data was then used to create five separate files as part of a devolutionary print series. In the photographic recording (on the opposite page), you can see the five devolutionary stages of the bulb that begins with the original high resolution 3D
recording on the left (constructed of 381,774 triangles) towards the simplification or decimation of the object as a pyramid structure on the right. The lowering of resolution in each 3D file eventually begins to reveal the triangular structures that are formed to create the final object - an image-construction process similar to a
digital photograph and the building of visual information through pixels. In this instance, the lowest resolution would always be a pyramid rather than a square. Before the printing process begins the 3D files are set to a specific number of triangles that are then ‘cleaned’ (by
adding or subtracting triangles in a 3D software programme) to make sure that the model is ‘watertight’ for the printing process. The print ready object is then uploaded to the 3D print on demand company ‘imaterialise’ to complete the process. The company is able to render 3D files in a range of materials and in this instance the model is 3D printed in wax then dipped into a ceramic slip - an ancient process known as lost wax casting. The ceramic coated bulb is then baked in an oven that melts the wax whilst hardening the ceramic exterior, creating a shell that is then filled with molten brass. The brass is then plated to have an 18kt goldish appearance.
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“the work combines hand produced elements with technologically derived imagery” – John Ford
The artist John Ford is a recent graduate (2015) of the MA Multidisciplinary Printmaking course at the University of the West of England, Bristol. The inclusion of a recent graduate within the Just Press Print project provides another level of commentary on the use and thinking of digital technology from practitioners at varying stages of their career. It has also been stated that digital technology not only brings a technical change but also a mental change when considering how and why we would make physical artefacts in a digital age, or how we have come to know the physical through the digital. From this perspective, the project aims to begin mapping technologically-informed graphic territory where artworks may intersect with, borrow from or align to established printmaking practices. John Ford’s practice embraces traditional printmaking and photography with threedimensional and computer aided elements. His work uses simple materials to build models based on sets from dystopian films such as Lars Von Trier’s Element of Crime and (in this instance) Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Ford’s capture method involves taking photographs of his models and re-photographing them on a laptop screen, distorting the imagery and creating distance between the viewer and subject. Through these processes, the work explores themes around reality, illusion and distortion and contemplate a world seen increasingly through television and computer screens. The work combines hand produced elements with technologically derived imagery, which is important to Ford’s use
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of different processes and his conceptual approach. The film Blade Runner deals with many of the themes that Ford is interested in, such as questioning the moral implications of advanced technology. The title for the print, Fiery the Angels Fell, is a distortion of a poem by William Blake, where the original line reads: ‘fiery the angels rise’, and is spoken by one of the replicants in the film. The replicants challenge what it is to be human and can only be identified as such through the Voight-Kampff test. Ford explains that he wanted to re-create
some of the ambiguity and atmosphere of uncertainty present in Blade Runner by playing with the perception of scale in the final print. The model for the print was made using balsa wood and tissue paper and was lit from inside the structure. The image is screenprinted to capture some of the moiré effects caused by re-photographing the photograph of the model from the laptop screen. The screenprinted image allowed Ford to methodically mix his own colours
based upon the degraded colours of an old CRT screen, and achieve a specific muted aged technological effect that we might associate with surveillance.
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Peter Walters & Katie Dav
“2D graphs were compiled to create a 3D model” – Katie Davies and Dr Peter Walters
Artist Katie Davies and CFPR Research Fellow Peter Walters collaborated to create a laser-sintered 3D print edition in 2011. The laser sintering process is an additive manufacturing technique that uses a laser to heat a powdered material or in this instance a Polyamide to create an object. The heat / sintering process binds an object by aiming at points in space defined by a 3D model.
set of 2D graphs, plotting frequency and intensity of the pulsar’s signal against time. The 2D graphs were compiled to create a 3D model, using audio processing and visualisation software, translated into 3D NURBS format, and outputted to a 3D printer. This research demonstrated for the first time that astrophysical data from a pulsar star could be transformed into a physical sculpture.
The printed artwork Vela was created through the transformation of astrophysical data, or more specifically, the transformation of a radiation beam into a tangible three-dimensional form. Walters describes the work and process where ‘the data is a radio signal emanating from a distant pulsar star, located in the constellation of Vela, some 950 light years from Earth. The signal has been transformed through a process of metamorphosis, which exploited audio processing, 3D modelling and rapid prototyping technologies. The radio signal was sampled and its components frequency, intensity and time – were plotted in a 3D coordinate system. The data plot was used to generate the 3D surface from which the artwork takes its shape’.
The artists are motivated by a desire to transform data from diverse sources through processes of creative abstraction into tangible physical forms. The form of the artwork is therefore not directly defined by
The electromagnetic radiation beam from the Vela pulsar star was originally recorded by the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia by R N Manchester in 1970. However, for this project Davies and Walters sourced the data from the website of the Australian National Telescope Facility. The project develops novel methods for transforming astrophysical data from a
vis
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the artists but is rather determined by the astrophysical phenomenon. Davies and Walters use of system-based procedures that render digital information into visual, tangible and sensory forms has resonance with the inherent differences between technologically informed making paradigms. The transformative potential between analogue and digital approaches has been commented upon by Goldsmiths Professor Sean Cubitt who succinctly observed, ‘from the standpoint of the computer, any input will always appear as mathematical and any data can be output in any format. Effectively an audio input can be output as a video image, as text, as a 3D model […]. It is this manipulability that perhaps is the defining quality of digital images - and maybe a key contributor to the differences between analogue and digital images’. On a similar note, Walters added that the work comes from an interest “in exploring ideas around teleportation and the transformability of data. But, to be honest, we just think the idea of having a star radiation beam on our desks is stellar”.
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“It took about a year to finally complete and get the print at the right size with the right paper and printer.” – Carolyn Bunt
outsourced to high-end commercial photographic printers that specialise in the discipline of photography. The initiation of the work (that is now an ongoing collaboration) with Carolyn did not begin until 2010 when the artist enquired about the possibilities of producing her photographic works with a surface quality that was more akin to lithography. From the beginning of the collaborative production (whilst having prior knowledge of Carolyn’s previous work myself) it became apparent that the artist’s affinity with the physicality of her digital images on paper was more than a surface that simply received the image. The selection of a substrate and the depositing of ink on paper have to be sensitive to the atmosphere in the image, a language harking back to printmaking whilst fully engaged with the subtleties of digital image making. Carolyn’s work appears to exist between photography and printmaking, harbouring slickness associate with the design world yet situated comfortably within the fine arts field.
Artist Carolyn Bunt graduated from the MA Printmaking programme at UWE in 2003 and predominantly specialised in photographic lithography during her study. A large proportion of Carolyn’s work focused upon capturing sections of architectural features that would initiate interplay between abstract and representational forms of image making. These subtle image collisions were enhanced further through the mixing of similar tones of colour to create duo and tri tone prints on an array of paper surfaces for lithography.
After graduating, the possibilities for continuing with lithography became more difficult due to the practicalities of producing litho prints – such as accessing dedicated studio facilities in the UK. Not to be deterred, Carolyn simply made the switch to working digitally, essentially downsizing her studio needs to the space of a computer and its software tools. Similarly the production of prints shifted from the mechanical photo litho to the digital C Type, or more specifically Lightjet and Lambda prints. Access to the printing of these digitaly mediated prints was therefore
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The cool, minimal and cinematic aesthetic of Carolyn’s petrol stations immediately make one question the reality of the photographic image, is it a bona fide structure in a genuine landscape or it a set, something modelled to look real. The revealing of the process is probably best described by the artist in a recent Q & A with the online gallery Art Finder .
A. This is the first of the petrol station works. I stumbled across it just outside St. Petersberg when it had just begun to snow; I knew instantly how I wanted the image to look. I took several quick photographs as it was so cold, and worked on it when I got home. It took about a year to finally complete, and get the print at the right size with the right paper and printer.
Q. How long does it take you to create each piece? What’s the process?
In Carolyn Bunt’s photograph: ‘And when I looked up it had gone’, a red and white, neon-lit, petrol station [possibly Russian] hovers in an invisible landscape. The cool aesthetic of this image is all-encompassing, and one immediately questions the reality of what one is seeing. Is it a bona fide structure in a genuine landscape? Or it is a trick, something modelled to look real. Momentarily, the work of Thomas Demand comes to mind. On closer inspection the invisible landscape is found to be a wilderness, a snow-sodden panorama, whereupon, the model mirage fades back into reality. Maybe.
A. Different for each work. I work on several pieces at once and don’t keep track of time, so I’m actually at a loss to say how long each would take… probably a good thing! In terms of the process, I take a series of photographs, and back at the studio I select an image and manipulate it in Photoshop. I start with a basic idea of what I want, but tend to work intuitively, deciding what to keep and what to take out as I go along. Q. Please pick one of your works and tell us about it.
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“from a single authored, printed artwork to a creative multi-user web and mobile app” – Arthur Buxton
to the originals) show the five most prominent colours proportionally, in an individual Vogue cover. Each column is a year starting with September and working down to October at the bottom. The columns run from 1981 on the right working across to 2011 on the left. After viewing the work, one becomes increasingly aware of the differences in overall national colour palettes. The most striking trend is the recent preference for paler colours, which is evident on all four charts. Seasonal trends are more subtle. The Paris edition is mostly published only ten times a year, which shows up as duplicated rows in August and January. Gaps occur where covers are unavailable. Aside from seasonality and longer-term changes in colour trends, other, more quantitative data is evidenced. By looking at ‘Paris Vogue Covers 1981 - 2011’ we can see a sudden change in tones which occur in late 1987. Colombe Pringle became the magazine’s editor-in-chief in December 1987. The colours undergo a sudden change again in 1994 when Joan Juliet Buck, an American, was named Pringle’s successor’. In 2011, I invited artist and UWE Illustration Alumna Arthur Buxton to produce a limited edition fine art print with CFPR Editions. The invitation was led by my ongoing preoccupation with artworks / artefacts that traverse the physical and digital divide. In the case of Buxton, I was predominantly interested in his approach to capturing printed information using open source software tools such as PicPie or ImageColour Extract that sample colour information enabling Buxton to create printed artworks.
Buxton’s work engages with data visualisation methods that use colour extraction tools to explore the artist’s interest in trends. The resulting print edition produced through CFPR Editions is a series of pigmented inkjet prints that map colour shifts over a 30-year period from the front covers of the four international magazine publications of Vogue, including British Vogue, US Vogue, Italian Vogue and Paris Vogue. Using open source software, Buxton extracts colours from photographic sources to create charts and timelines that typically
display the five most common colours from each publication. The removal of figurative and formal elements from an image present a series of colour harmonies that allude to sampling methods, information graphics, automation technologies, and objective forms of representation. When speaking with Buxton about the structure, and potential reading of colour that underpins the series the artist explains: ‘Within each piece the small bar charts (measuring 2.4 by 2.9 mm at 1:10 scale
Buxton’s subject matter has also included classic book covers, music albums, chocolate wrappers and Impressionist paintings. The scope of the process for a range of different audiences, alongside further developments with software tools and the design of colour information provided early indications of how the work might progress. In this instance the type of development that occurred, extended the use of Buxton’s art making process from a single authored, printed artwork to a creative application for a multi-user web and mobile app product.
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Arthur Buxton
The fostering of this approach was initiated after we answered a call for funding in 2013 entitled ‘books and print’ that sought to facilitate collaboration between academics and creative industry partners. The UK funding stream REACT (Research and Enterprise in Arts and Creative Technology) was keen to invite individuals who were engaging with printed forms and digital tools. More specifically REACT was looking for projects that would integrate new technologies to maximise their potential rather than merely aping the printed form.
As previously discussed, the inspiration for this research project was to extend the working methods from the Vogue series to a wider audience by making the process an interactive, easy to use, fun and participatory activity. The use of colour trend visualisation tools has predominantly been used by specialist design orientated disciplines that often cater for industry-based outcomes. Our approach broadened the audience and scope of such tools. This enabled audiences without specific design backgrounds to interpret their experiences
through colour with the option of creating personalised printed artefacts that expressed their interests and tastes. Real world examples might include; books recording the colours of outfits at a wedding, collecting the signature palettes used by your favorite graffiti artists or simply asking “what colours summarises my summer in Bristol? With this in mind, the project found ways of framing stories that users would be telling through the process. This allowed individuals to make their collections of charts,
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from photographs that are sampled by the software and then uploaded to a print-on-demand facility before being returned in the form of printed artworks i.e. ‘telling their stories with colour’. This innovative publishing tool would provide an alternative route into art print publishing. Easy to use print output options allowing for customisable pagination and page size would provide enthusiasts with a fun, entry-level way to experiment with print design and narrative. Since 2013 the project has obtained further funding to develop different facets of the product including marketing, branding, software and product development. More importantly, Arthur Buxton is now the founder of the company ColourStory Ltd (www.colourstoryapp. com). To find out more or experiment with the product, the mobile app is available to down load for free here: iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ colourstory/id1051680670?mt=8 Android: https://play.google.com/store/ apps/details?id=com.colourstory.colourapp
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“it was just a feeling that something had to be realised” – Paul Laidler
Ray Kinsella (played by Kevin Costner in the 1989 film Field of Dreams) is a crop farmer. Walking through his field one evening, he hears a voice uttering the words ‘If you build it, he will come’. After pondering on this, Kinsella decides to construct a baseball pitch in his cornfield despite the financial risks to his farm and family. Not completely sure why he is making the pitch, the compulsion to do so outweighs any thoughts of purpose for, or economic return from it. The compulsion to make has many parallels with art and its intended function (to be received by an audience). Towards the end of the film the baseball pitch becomes an attraction and it is deemed that ‘people will come’. Ray Kinsella was a text piece that initiated the Build it and they will come project, and as with the film character Ray Kinsella, the work had no intended audience, it was just a feeling of something that had to be realised. The realisation was due to the fact that for the idea to function as an artwork, it had to be more than an idea. As an idea the words ‘build it and they will come’ remained a solitary and silent voice. For the idea to be ‘heard’ the text requires audience participation, therefore the work refers to itself as an object for exhibition – to physically exist in a space where ‘people will come’. The idea to exhibit and comment upon the act of making also resonates with the development of the Just Press Print exhibition and the function of the Working Proof publication. The printed artwork Ray Kinsella is a 3D powder printed text piece measuring 5cm2. The text based imagery for the print was generated using Vipid (an online animation tool that lets you create custom intro videos
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that look like movie-studio intros) before being modelled in the 3D software package Rhino. Ray Kinsella is part of a series of artworks that include 3D and 2D printing methods. The marriage of three and twodimensional spatial concerns is alluded to through the photographic recording of the 3D print, both upon and within a 2D printed surface. With this in mind, photography is not used as a means to objectively document the physical work; instead the photographic recording is indicative of a ‘photosculpture’ that utilises the inherent qualities of photography to recreate a sculptural form. Ray Kinsella was produced as part of a series of collaborative artworks entitled Build it and they will come between the artist Brendan Reid and myself. The work contains a series of four quotes that refer to the art-making process and also have architectural connotations. The series is printed using rapid prototyping technology to create three dimensional, text-based objects. The three dimensional printing process is used as device to create a series of self-referential dialogues within the work. For example the text based work entitled Sol LeWitt uses the American artist’s statement “The idea becomes a machine that makes the art” to reference both idea and process. Here the rapid prototyping process is used for its industrial function, as a machine that produces prototypes rather than creating final artworks. The technology is commonly used in architectural practices to produce concept models / ideas, which makes the three-dimensional printing device essentially an ‘ideas machine’. In this instance the machine becomes an idea that makes the art. The series of prints also shares many traits
of Postmodern practice in art. The artwork Robert Venturi uses the text ‘Less is a bore’ that refers directly to postmodernism’s heritage in architecture with Robert Venturi’s parody of Mies van der Rohe’s ‘Less is more’ statement. Here, Venturi’s statement is collaged with Mies Van der Rohe’s minimalist aesthetic, that just happens to be an inherent quality of powder based 3D printed objects. Reid and I share a mutual interest in the oscillation of two-dimensional and threedimensional graphic forms, and we approach
this from both perspectives. The fine art context emanates from collaborative practice in art, and the ensuing self-referential play between image and object, process and idea. The self-referential play in This town ain’t big enough for the both of us asks, can artists ‘really’ collaborate given the individual status assigned to the discipline? Art’s association with individual expression as the highest form of originality has devalued the collaborative venture in art. Art as a discipline is predominantly taught from an individual
perspective and historically the making of art is steeped in self-indulgence and vanity. Unlike art, the acceptance of collaboration as a means of making is a common practice within architecture. This town ain’t big enough for the both of us foregrounds art’s collaborative dilemma as a means to ‘build’ a successful collaborative work.
Design by Verity Lewis