Multitude...Transmission 2...Works and Artists

Elin Ahlberg

Fine artist from Bristol, working in video and other media to create installations which explore the human experience of digital technology.

www.elinahlberg.net

Shared Stuff

Single channel video installation, depicting deficit and excess through the flow of assets.
Everyday objects transfer between three spaces.

Digital video.  1 minute. 2010

Elin Ahlberg. Shared stuff. Digital video still. 2010

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Steve Fossey

My arts practice is interdisciplinary in its approach, but rooted in site specificity.  I use elements from video, installation, and performance as supports for my questions.  I attempt to capture and rework observations of everyday life in a process of layering knowledge creatively as it is revealed.  The form of this layering is a palimpsest of moving image, audio and text that asks the viewer to dialogue experiences that foster a shared sense of Site.     

www.stevefossey.com

Berlin - The Space Between

This video was shot on a train above ground in Berlin. The experience of being in Berlin contains an inescapable duality of a resonant past and an immediate sense of an unfolding present. Behind the newly converted exteriors of buildings that will become apartments, shops and bars, there are creative ambitions to forge an exciting future that belies the bullet ridden exteriors that neighbour the developments.

The histories of Berlin fluctuate between the hidden and the revealed. As one travels between places on the S-Bahn and U-Bahn, a sense of suspended time occurs as the sound of the voice announcing approaching stations blends with the hum of the electrics. Shapes pass by and views of the city formulate histories in the minds of the traveller that produces a sense of space between points in history. As these sounds and shapes merge, an abstraction of location is caused and colour, perception, time and space become a moving image that allows the traveller to be lost in this space between.

Animation.  10 minutes. 2011

Steve Fossey. Berlin – The Space Between. Digital video still. 2010

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Jonathan Kelham

My work is based in drawing and spans painting, sculpture and film.

Jonathan Kelham was born in1986, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, UK. Receiving a BTEC Foundation Studies in Fine Art from Hull Collage [2006] & subsequently undertaking a BA [Hons] in Fine Art at Birmingham Institute of Art & Design [2009], being awarded  the Sir Whitworth Wallis Art Prize and Artwise Curators/British Airways Award. In 2010, Jonathan completed a MFA at BIAD, gaining a Distinction for both art practice ‘Leaders Of Men’ and research in the ‘Subjectivity of Utopian Philosophy: within the Realms of the Unreal and Nobson Newtown’. During 2010-2011, Jonathan completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Education which included a Research Residency at Meantime Independent Project Space, Cheltenham, UK on Art & Education’. The ongoing Leaders Of Men have been exhibited nationally including: Surface Gallery, Nottingham, Oxford House, London Flatpack Festival, Birmingham & BIAD/The Lombard Method [for The Event 2011], Birmingham, whilst being printed internationally in publications including: Yuck n’ Yum [Dundee, UK], Impulsive Random Platform  [London, UK] and Potroast [Auckland, NZ]. Forthcoming projects include: Leaders Of Men: Village Tour, [2012] Residency, MEANTIME Independent Project Space, Cheltenham

jkelham.com

Leaders of Men

The hand drawn and rudimentary Leaders Of Men Animation incorporates the development of the juxtaposition through montage of specific English figures and the awkward, bumbling cartoon characters to develop this notion of the creation of alternative worlds, narratives, dialogues and spaces with a concern for a particular sense of the intentionally constructed portrayal of a romanticised Englishness. Whilst the use of the record by post-punk band Joy Division [An Ideal For Living EP, 1978. from which the work takes its name] references another nostalgic and specific English social and historical period, which provides a potential for creating a ambiguous narrative or contextualisation of the hybrid characters, generating a contradictory dynamism to these lumbering figures.

Animation.  3 minutes. 2010

Jonathan Kelham. Leaders of Men. Animation still. 2010

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Duncan McKellar

My work is based in drawing and spans painting, sculpture and film.

The scale of my work ranges from single line drawings capturing a moment to paintings and sculptures which can take years to complete, acting as physical and mental challenges. These large pieces form a constant from which other work can evolve. I find great satisfaction in both extremes, from the immediate to the obsessive.

www.duncanmckellar.com

48 Hours in Moscow.

A Pantoscope was a pre cinema entertainment device enabling a theatre audience to watch a continuous panoramic painting scroll by on tremendous rollers. For hours audiences would watch as scenes unfolded before their eyes. I created a portable version of this public entertainment device that uses a ten-meter scroll of cartridge paper measuring 28cm in diameter. Like handmade videotape, the paper scroll is wound from spool to spool and a drawing is created on each visible section as it passes by. This device enables a continuous image to be produced. When the drawing is complete, watercolour is added from memory and documentation photographs. 

The finished scroll is then recorded rolling passed a digital video camera. The animation can then be viewed as if riding the journey, continuing the tradition of an informative, entertaining public travelling artwork. 

Animation.  4 minutes. 2010

Duncan McKellar. 48 Hours in Moscow. Animation still. 2010

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Eleanor MacFarlane

Founder of theViewergallery and theProgressiveImage, I am an artist interested in Moving Image and art contraptions, scientific and optical ideas, and their meaningful implications.

I have a first-class BA in Fine Art and am currently undertaking an MA. I am an Artistic Assessor in             Visual Arts for the Arts Council, an arts book reviewer, an Arts Mentor for the Koestler Trust, and an            occasional tutor.

www.eleanormacfarlane.com

X4

Insects behave in ways which reveal deep parts of human psychology. Motives and anthropomorphisising aside, insects react to forces, they interreact and respond. They have the basic instincts of flight or fight. It is as if humans retain a primitive insect part of the brain, and so although we have a basic understanding of their behaviour, there is an inner conflict as insects are also linked to our repulse mechanism.

Digital video.  5 minutes. 2006

Eleanor MacFarlane. X4. Digital video still. 2006

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Multitude at the Art Shed

Multitude

Moving Image may be described as Video Art, terms overlapping into narrative areas, and into documentation of studio practices and events. Video Art may encompass experimental happenings and ephemeral events captured on video. The Moving Image also suggests Cinema, with its larger scale of filmic and collaborative concerns. Moving Image can comprise everything that moves in a film-type medium, including animation, home movies, historical street scenes, vintage broadcasts, early shorts, use of found footage, and more. Moving Image artists themselves borrow and use any and all of the media mentioned, and define themselves variously.

Multitude is a theViewergallery project, part of theProgressiveImage exploration of Moving Image.

theProgressiveImage...multitude

Multitude- a great number; a crowd; an assemblage; the vulgar or common people; the state of being many; a great number of individuals; numerousness.


Moving image and video art presents multiple views.

Different train journeys are juxtaposed, creating dual visions as if on inner and outer journeys.

Objects appear and reappear between screens – a contemporary take on one of cinema’s oldest tricks.
Cartoon figures morph through aspects of character and caricature.

Are insects individuals, or one unit of a unified multitude?

theProgressiveImage seeks to define Moving Image, and explore why artists use the medium. Why a photograph that moves? Why a film without a story? Perhaps artists use Moving Image to work with time, exploring the pace of thought - moments which can stretch out, and which journey on through the mind.

Digital video, film and animation techniques usually play at anything between 24 and 60 frames a second. They trick us into seeing a continual flow of movement, but really, they reveal to us that reality is similar – a series of events which our brains piece together into a sequence. Moving Image artists make and show a version of reality. 

Transmission 1 Drawing Moving Image

theProgressiveImage

The definition of Moving Image is still forming – something to do with Video Art, Cinema and Photography, yet not exactly any of these, as it may or may not deal with issues of Narrative, Documentation or Performance.

Moving in and out of these frameworks, Moving Image utilises new and old techniques of Animation and Digital Technologies, and uses the camera as a unique medium of expression.

Artists whose practice is in Moving Image work in an age rich in imagery and sophisticated in use of technology. They borrow, as artists do, from all sorts of traditions, to capture and show through the lens fundamental ideas of art, life and meaning.

This first screening from theProgressiveImage, Transmission1, shows Moving Image and Animation from ten contemporary artists using Drawing in a variety of forms – animation, digital video, studio-based practice. Using pencil, computing, documentation and hair, Drawing is explored and redefined through Moving Image.

theProgressiveImage’s mission is to seek out and create a context around Moving Image works, and to explore definitions of Moving Image – a photograph existing in time rather than on paper, a film as if cinema had not been invented, a digital poem, video painting, a long moment.....

theProgressiveImage...Transmission1...Drawing

Heather Barnett

Rachel Evans

Parul Gupta

Paul Harrison

Jacky Hutson

Colin Legge

Eleanor MacFarlane

Duncan McKellar

Michael Szpakowski

Tom Walker

Transmission 1 Works and Artists

Colin Legge

Colin Legge is currently based in London, and works predominantly with video and text, although his work is sometimes performative, drawn, or sculptural.

One side of his work is much to do with story-telling and narrative. The other side is an exploration of the spaces we inhabit, in both a physical and psychological sense. In both instances he is interested in ways of presenting the every day.

http://www.colinlegge.co.uk

Unit

Unit is both the bare bones of a story, open to interpretation, and a very particular one-man-act.

Digital video. 4 minutes. 2011

Unit. Colin Legge. Digital video still. 2011


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Duncan McKellar

My work is based in drawing and spans painting, sculpture and film.

The scale of my work ranges from single line drawings capturing a moment to paintings and sculptures which can take years to complete, acting as physical and mental challenges. These large pieces form a constant from which other work can evolve. I find great satisfaction in both extremes, from the immediate to the obsessive.

http://www.duncanmckellar.com

48 Hours in Moscow.

A Pantoscope was a pre cinema entertainment device enabling a theatre audience to watch a continuous panoramic painting scroll by on tremendous rollers. For hours audiences would watch as scenes unfolded before their eyes. I created a portable version of this public entertainment device that uses a ten-meter scroll of cartridge paper measuring 28cm in diameter. Like handmade videotape, the paper scroll is wound from spool to spool and a drawing is created on each visible section as it passes by. This device enables a continuous image to be produced. When the drawing is complete, watercolour is added from memory and documentation photographs. 

The finished scroll is then recorded rolling passed a digital video camera. The animation can then be viewed as if riding the journey, continuing the tradition of an informative, entertaining public travelling artwork.

Animation.  4 minutes. 2010

Duncan McKellar. 48 Hours in Moscow. Animation still. 2010

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Heather Barnett

Heather Barnett is a visual artist inspired by biological design and imaging technologies. Current projects include a creative collaboration with slime mould (an intelligent organism); running micro-designs, the microscopical design brand; and developing art/science projects at The University of Westminster where she is Senior Lecturer in Photography. Heather is currently working on a public art commission for Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford.

http://www.heatherbarnett.co.uk/

Physarium Experiment No 013. Spelling Test.

Animated time lapse experiment with the intelligent organism Physarum Polycephalum. 

Does it know its name?

For a few years now I have been attempting to collaborate with the slime mould, Physarum polycephalum, observing and manipulating its beautiful growth patterns and testing its intelligence and problem solving skills.

Animation. 2 minutes 30. 2008.

Physarium Experiment No 013. Heather Barnett. Animation still. 2008


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Eleanor MacFarlane

Founder of theViewergallery and theProgressiveImage, I am an artist interested in Moving Image and art contraptions, scientific and optical ideas, and their meaningful implications.

http://www.eleanormacfarlane.com/

Personification

Perhaps we are as shadows, or clusters of molecules comprising form, apparently moving and having something to do with each other. Streaming humanity, shades of substance, in effect more alike than we are different.

Animation.  8 minutes. 2010

Eleanor MacFarlane. Personification. Animation still. 2010

Drawing

Drawing from the pencil’s eye view. The act and motion of drawing smudges the edges of feel, intention and mark making. The pencil seems to know what it is doing once it is set free.

Digital video. 7 minutes. 2006

Eleanor MacFarlane. Drawing. Digital video still. 2006




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Jacky Hutson

As a painter, her work could be loosely described as abstract, with a strong use of colour and depth of layering, by comfortably working on a larger scale, naturally allowing for scope and movement within the image. Creating strong, flamboyant, sometimes stylized images with a 3-dimensional feel - her love of graffiti is reflected in her work. The subject matter can be quite random and very often changeable throughout the process.

http://www.spreadbeauty.co.uk/

Spread Beauty 1

"The necessity of art and beauty everywhere - not just the gallery space - in the workplace, the home, the everyday - to transform the space"

Animation. 9 minutes. 2010

Spread Beauty. Jacky Hutson. Animation still. 2010

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Michael Szpakowski

Michael Szpakowski is an artist, composer & writer. His music has been performed all over the UK, in Russia & the USA. He has exhibited work in galleries in the UK, mainland Europe & the USA. His short films have been shown throughout the world. He is composer & video artist for Tell Tale Hearts Theatre Company & a joint editor of the online video resource DVblog.

http://www.somedancersandmusicians.com

Six Hours in Scunthorpe 

This stop motion animation was created as part of the 20-21 Visual Arts Centre's 10th birthday Celebrations in Church Square on 23 July 2011. Made with the collaboration of lots of Scunthorpe folk in a six hour period, it also features performers from the day.

Digital animation. 10 minutes. 2011

Michael Szpakowski. Six Hours in Scunthorpe. Digital animation still. 2011

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Paul Harrison

My work is involved in ideas surrounding transformation specifically how our perception or opinion of a subject's reality is changed through an animated or creative action. I view what I make as a socially engaged portrayal, one that is involved in formulating and asking new questions about the human form and condition. Including examining the relationship or contrast between what is considered real or imaginary within an art context.

http://vimeo.com/user7557956

Away From the Unknown.

Away from the Unknown is a digital stop motion animation that explores a notion of Hyper reality. So this piece is looking at an opinion that i have in which currency is a form of Hyperreality.

This animation was basically a reaction to my anxieties surrounding money and how it controls lives. Furthermore this work contains issues involving materiality and the immateriality of an image or depiction. In the end i hope this work can help people gain a greater insight into our capitalist way of life.

Animation.  7 minutes 30. 2011

Paul Harrison. Away From the Unknown. Animation still. 2011

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Rachel Evans

Rachel is a recent graduate from Bath School of Art and Design whose practice is centred around the physical act of drawing and mark making.

http://www.rachelevansart.blogspot.com/

Arm Span Daily Drawing

The Work is a five day video documentation of daily drawings mapping out the artist’s marks from the body’s actions and dimensions.

Digital video. 4 minutes. 2011

Arm Span Daily Drawing. Rachel Evans.  Digital video still. 2011

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Tom Walker




http://www.re-title.com/artists/cv/tom-walker.asp

Spin

Spin shed fall over

Digital video. 30 seconds. 2011

Tom Walker. Spin. Digital video still. 2011




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Parul Gupta

Lines have always been the medium of my expression and exploring it further is a constant research. The greatest source of inspiration in my practice comes from being receptive towards things which otherwise frustrate or sadden me, and how my aesthetics responds to it. Things which could go unnoticed, initially becomes the inspiration and then the part of the work – whether using broken hair as a medium to define line or using the scratches - an empty pen leaves on the paper. Through this I envisage drawing as a spatial exploration poised somewhere between installation and abstract line drawing.

http://www.followingline.blogspot.com/

Hairfall

My own hair has been a very integral medium in my drawings and for that I ritualistically collect my broken hair everyday from places like my bed, shower, comb, clothes and from every place I see them. There is a permanent place in my room where I have kept a white paper to collect my hair every day. The ritual starts in the morning each day when the paper is blank and till night, with every addition of hair on the paper, hair forms a natural organic drawing. In this video I have shot the process of creating the drawing as each hair strand fall on the paper.

Digital video. 5 minutes 30. 2011

Parul Gupta. Hairfall. Digital video still. 2011

theProgressiveImage Transmission 1

theProgressiveImage

It has come to my attention that not everyone knows what is meant by Moving Image. I make it, and even I’m not sure how to define it. As painting is not simply pigment on canvas, equally, Moving Image/Video Art could encompass cinema, experimental video, documentation of performance art, or digital arts.

theProgressiveImage is a platform to explore the possible definition of the medium of Moving Image, at least according to me. My take is that is comes from photography – it is a quest to disembody photography, to make it exist in time rather than on paper. My own aesthetic sensibilities come from surrealist photographers, and artists with a great sense of drama and contrast, and strong visual imagery which only the lens can capture. And so I cite artists such as Man Ray, Brassai, Moholy-Nagy. More currently I would mention Susan Derges and Steve Pippin. Although of different concerns, Marina Abramovicz, for her alternative way of capturing a decisive moment. And too many others to mention.

To abstract is to summarise or epitomise. As photography puts a frame around a particular aspect of life that is there all the time, emphasising a point, eliminating irrelevancies, so Moving Image reveals what a lens can capture, and what is unfolded in time. It abstracts that moment, summarises it. I am really fixated by ideas about time, what it is, how it passes, what it leaves. The Moving Image exists in time more than other dimensions, and is a fruitful medium to explore and remake such concepts.

theProgressiveImage is a series of screenings and projects around ideas in the Moving Image, defining, exploring, imagining what it can be. Moving Image is up for definition and contextualising. Its market is variable, its value nebulous, its history being written. If artists choose the most appropriate medium to convey their intentions, why do artists choose Moving Image - why choose something that takes time to unfold, that cannot be framed or rolled away, is not performed yet waits for its moments to unfold.

A photograph that moves, perhaps. An abstract photograph that moves, and yet exists in the air, in the lighted dust swirling over our heads as a cinema projection, or like an angled reflection in a shop window.

What does Moving Image show. Not exactly what a photograph can show, otherwise it would be that photograph. It is not a film, in that it does not centre itself around filmic concerns, although, like many arts, it may borrow from them, and others. Moving Image is to do with the movement, or the travelling through time of an idea, and how it is manifest in non solid form – in visible form – a long moment, not quite the same at the end as where it started. 

Moving Image is a thought, a feeling, a vision where these two aspects collide. It employs many disciplines of photography in ideas about framing, scale, focus, depth, and so on. There is time to visit the prosaic as well as other layers of meaning of such things – framing is a visual choice, both in what to include and what to exclude. It employs the artists eye, and training, and hundreds of hours of looking, seeing, seeking, capturing. The artist frames the lens around subject and composes and contextualises the image. And with Moving Image that may be frame after frame after frame, using, changing, abstracting such photographic rules. And then there are other aspects of framing – to reframe ideas in new ways, to offer a juxtaposition, or a familiarity, or an association or disassociation.