what

Cassette casts fired to bisque [approx 1000ºC] with repositioned slip reservoir.

multiple, 1.33:1

David Jablonowski
Multiple 1.33:1 (2010)
mixed media

'David Jablonowski questions the potential of communication in contemporary visual culture. Through sculpture and film, he explores the way language is established and developed and then reproduced technically in relation to political and historical discourse. Jablonowski's interest in display systems and information transfer has as much to do with the hardware that is used in the staging of knowledge as it has with the knowledge itself. The repetitive and unsustainable promise of a valid direction of communication is expressed in works which question the understanding of sign systems; making us aware of the transience of visual language.' - http://www.iscp-nyc.org/artists/current/david-jablonowski.html

I first came across this piece last month in an issue (No 350) of Art Monthly, in an article about the supposed dissolution of mass culture due to the digitisation of public time and space. The more that I'm reading on subjects such as these the more it seems that the concern isn't that we will become consumed by technology and lose our connection with the physical, but in fact, whether we already are/have and don't know it. It's about as determinable as an analysis of the origins and principles of postmodernism, so I'm guessing the more that I read, the less that I'll know. What I do know though is that it is really pertinent to my choice of media.

The piece above, one of a series of similar pieces in an exhibition called perfection, simple, way, is comprised of a hunk of plaster trying to feed itself into/through a laptop, seemingly in an attempt to digitise itself.  

how

what

My next move is to produce a rubber (vinamold) mold of the VHS tape above, so as to be able to cast the object in plaster. There's a fragility to plaster that I want to explore in terms of smaller, more intricate pieces (in comparison to Cast Production). Figuring out how to arrange the mold split and plaster jacket (for support) has been really difficult because of both the undercuts and the fact that I want to cast it closed, without an open side. I'm also concerned about how resistant the tape will be to the heat of the rubber. When I cast the keyboard last year there was substantial distortion, however the keyboard felt more durable and was a lot denser than the tape. There's every chance that the tape won't hold up to it.

why

The Dilemma of Modern Media graph from Preservation in the Digital World by Paul Conway, Head of Preservation Department, Yale University Library, March 1996

Archives not only contain records of products/ideas/objects that have become obsolete over time, but are also acutely demonstrative of the very essence of obsolescence. This graph shows that while the quantity of information being saved has increased exponentially from the age of clay tablets and parchment scripts, the durability of media has decreased almost as dramatically. There is information within our archives stored on media such as floppy disk/VHS/magnetic tape/compact cassette/hard drives, and in time the hardware needed to read these electronic/digital/optical formats will become obsolete. 

Digital technology - based on incredibly precise mathematical coding - either works perfectly or doesn't work at all. "If you go beyond the limits of the error rate, the screen goes black and the audio goes to nothing," Mayn said, "and up to that point, you don't realize there are any errors. Analog technology" - used in vinyl records or electromagnetic tapes - "deteriorates more gracefully. The old wax cylinders of the original Edison phonograph sound faded and scratchy, but that are still audible." Mayn picked up some tiny plastic digital audiotapes that fit neatly in the palm of his hands. "People love these things because they are so small, compact, and lightweight and store tons of data, but as they put larger and larger amounts of data on smaller and smaller spaces, the technology gets more precise, more complex, and more fragile." He bends the little data tape in his hand. "We have a lot of these from the late 1980s and even the mid-1990s that can't be played at all."

Extract from Are We Losing Our Memory? or The Museum of Obsolete Technology by Alexander Stille
http://www.lostmag.com/issue3/memory.php

what

I'm really happy with the crisp detail of the item cast. Both casts are drying to a bisque state and will need to be worked into to remove the remnants of the reservoir before firing.


I would like to produce another mould however, with a less heinously placed slip reservoir!

what

Cassette tape 3-part slip cast mould.

what's left

how



fill holes

build clay walls with keys for end part

fill with plaster

build clay walls for side part with keys, fill with plaster - flip and repeat (adding clay reservoir on one side for slip)

secure then pour in slip

poison pen

Katherine Morling

Poison Pen (2010)

porcelain with black stain

Poison Pen forms only a small part of what is a much larger installation [Out of the House: as seen at Collect 2011, Saatchi Gallery] of monochromatic ceramic objects.

There is a whimsical theatricality to Morling's ceramics. They are at once nostalgic; familiar; fragile; and mundane, and succeed in becoming a vacant representation of their former selves. 

Ceramics is a good imitator of other materials and is adept at taking on board a desired form, which makes it an obvious choice when wanting to replicate an object. It also offers a strong sense of history and tradition, something that, it stands to reason, is missing from modern day processes and materials. Slip-cast it can be solid or hollow which can also add to the solidity or fragility of the piece.

The idea of 'hinting at past times' is something that sits well with my narrative of obsolescence, and the reproduction of objects in ceramics that have simultaneously both a comfortable familiarity and an uneasy blankness is where my current thinking lies. It combines that which is present, through the form in which it takes, and that which is other, in the absence of the actual object.

concrete radio

Mark Essen
Concrete Radio (2011)
concrete sculpture and HD video, colour, sound

'Using George Berkeley's metaphysical theory of subjective idealism as a starting point, Mark Essen has developed a film work that encompasses his sculpture Concrete Radio. Filmed around the Wysing arts centre, Cambridgeshire, Archangel George presents the traces of human disruption in an abandoned and deserted landscape. The film adheres to Berkeley's theory of metaphysical perceptions of the mind; that the existence of ideas depends solely on their being perceived, and following thus, that ideas exist solely because of the mind. Essen's film posits that to exist is to perceive, or be perceivable and that it is the human presence that informs us of an action or consequence. Essen's sculpture will accompany the film in which it features'

I came across this piece at an exhibition called Crash at VIVID, Birmingham. For me, paramount to the idea of metaphysics and the weight of human presence and perception, is the fact that the radio itself reads as an obsolete relic, with the concrete representative of uninhabited space and emptiness.

what

Sony VHS tape

TDK D90 cassette tape

Sony C7 betamax player

G.E. answering machine

Mr.Data MF-2HD floppy disks

betamax/VHS tapes

These are a few items that I'm looking at to cast. I think it's important that I avoid anything especially nostalgic/retro, as they're really difficult notions to pull off in an artistic context. As a starting point, and with respect to my current position (my contexual research and conceptual exploration is still in the very early stages) I need to begin to make items that fit the criteria of obsolesence/out-moded/out-dated in an attempt to get the idea off the ground.

why

Having been born [1983] just prior to what is (now) referred to as the Information Age, and at a time whereby sweeping changes brought about by digital computing and communications technology were beginning to alter the face of modern society, I am very much interested in the disparity between the tools available to me as I was growing up, and those of today.

The commercial use of computers and mobile phones experienced explosive growth in the early 80’s, and led to a seismic shift in the way that we live, communicate and play. I can recall listening to tape cassettes, watching films on VHS, playing video games on a monochromatic Game Boy and only having (limited!) access to a house phone, all of which have/has been replaced and/or displaced by more efficient counterparts.

I don’t have a distrust of technology, change or progression but I do have a concern that as we continue to develop new technology we will continue to oversubscribe to it, and that too much of what we are able to do without it will be consumed by it. For this reason I would like to produce a body of work that carries a social commentary on technological progression, the forces driving it (political/social/economical) and its impact upon societal values.

During Level 4 I cast a computer system out of plaster in an attempt to portray the transient nature of technology and also question the value of technology in relation to obsolescence and supersession. This is something that I wish to revisit with this body of work, however with greater conceptual depth and finesse.

Cast Production (2010)
plaster

This piece challenges the disengagement of traditional practice in the art culture of today, reflecting upon the effect that technology has had upon our sensibilities. In an age whereby cognition seems to frequently displace emotion, my intention is to call into question the validity of conventional processes, in direct comparison to technological progression, whilst maintaining a tangible association with the piece.

My intention now, almost two years on, is to move away from the notion of craft versus technology and concentrate solely on obsolescence. My decision to revisit the process of casting is an attempt to draw narrative from the fact that to cast is to index an absence; the object no longer exists and what is gained is residual and vestigial. It becomes both material and immaterial, present and absent: a vacant mass.