Michael Candy...
...is an emerging new media/kinetic artist with a specific
interest in mimesis, technological archetypes and the discourse that exists within these contemporary parallels. Through the deconstruction and analysis of everyday devices, Michael has developed a unique rationale of instinctive engineering, which he uses to investigate contrasts between nature and technology.
How did you start making kinetic art?
When I was a kid I’d always take everything apart just to see how it worked. That was my learning process, a very visual and deconstructive way of figuring things out and breaking a lot of stuff. I pulled everything apart, like, everything.
Did your parents get annoyed?
Yes! They got really annoyed with it. But it was sort of like, some things wouldn’t make it back together. I had taken everything apart in the house apart at one stage or another.
Would you take things apart & put them back together as new things? Nah, I would just take them apart and maybe use their parts for another thing. Actually, I still do that a lot. I always wanted to do engineering or design or something like that but I didn’t like the commercial product aspect, so I wanted to make things that were more individual and didn’t need an industrial purpose. Things that could just exist and be pretty.
Where do you find inspiration?
My inspiration for designing and constructing work can start with an end result and work backwards from that. So basically working out what I wanna do and figuring it out from there. Or in some cases, I figure out a way to do something and then I figure out what to do with that. So maybe if I took something apart and there was a really interesting component, that maybe moved in a certain way, and I could use that, that could lead me to new work. So it’s a mish mash of influences from real, everyday situation sort of things.
Your Blossom (2009) piece features leaves rustling up and down. Did you figure out a mechanism to make those move before the idea of leaves came into play, or vice versa? I wanted the leaves to move, and I designed the mechanism with that in mind. At Serial Space at the moment, one of the works I have created, I wanted to smash neon bulbs individually. So I started with that and worked backwards and made this sculpture that reloads fluorescent tubes. So you then dial a phone number and it snaps them. In another cell phone activated work you dial a number and a jackhammer smashes through a TV. So all works to do with destruction. We had about 30 televisions, and they were piled up against a wall, and they were just sitting there with an axe lying next to them, and this really old lady hit one of the TV’s and it took her about three shows to crack it. Within about ten minutes of the show it was reduced to rubble. People were hurling TV’s at the wall. It’s like an Indian rubbish dump right now.
Where do you come across your materials?
Everywhere I guess, I live in a workshop pretty much. My room is more like a workshop that a bedroom. I sleep in a loft bed above and everything is tools underneath. So I just wake up in the thick of it. It’s a part of my life and it surrounds me everywhere. So when I drove down to Sydney (for the Serial Space show) I just packed everything into the car, like every tool. Without them I’m claustrophobic, I feel like I can’t make things.
What would happen if you went on a holiday and had to leave all of your tools and materials behind?
It would be a terrible holiday. It’d either have to have a really nice beach, or I don’t know, something to keep me entertained. Lots of sex, or something like that. I could really use a ‘nothing’ holiday though. I nearly break down every now and then, just from like so much stuff going on at once. I maybe hit rock bottom like four or five times a year with cash. Like, have no cash for two weeks waiting for the next thing to come through. Payment for art really sucks. It’s like; you get paid after it’s done. So you have no money to begin with. It’s not always that case, but it’s usually last minute and really rushed.
Do you have a day job?
I’m a full time uni student studying fine art. I’m in my final year, so on my way out of QUT. I have one thing to do next year, but I haven’t really figured it out.
The Ice Cream Miniature work, how does it operate?
It uses a gearbox from a zoom motor of an old video camera. Video cameras are a great resource for those things. I know where to source things, so I look at things and know what’s inside them now and what I can use out of them. Don’t tell people about the video cameras though – it’s my best kept secret.
Do you prefer to collaborate with other artists or work alone?
I’m easy. There are certain projects that are my own mission and I will complete myself, but other times it’s really good to have an influence. The two artists I worked on for the Serial Space exhibition, we skyped it together, and came up with the idea and wrote the proposal and did the show. I had to repair a lot of their works and make them actually work and do elements like that and lend advice for how to do things, and it was really like a group thing where everyone informs each other. It’s nice.
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