Sections of Infinity

Installation view.

This is my final work of my Master's degree, on exhibition as part of the Sydney College of the Arts Postgraduate Degree Show.
Abstraction is a result of thinking about uncertainty, infinity is an indeterminate number, and through an effort of imagination I seek to describe the realms of the indefinite. Where not things made, but things in the making, not self maintaining states but only changing states, exist.

©ADG2012

Hallucinations of the primary visual cortex

Watercolour, gouache, pencil and ink on watercolour paper, with digital reflection.

The primary visual cortex, located at the back of the brain (posterior pole), is the simplest cortical visual area. It is responsible for the processing of spacial information regarding static and moving objects, and is integral in pattern recognition. Hallucinations of the primary visual cortex have been classified into four groups (form constants), all geometric in nature, and include tunnels, spirals, lattices, and cobwebs.

©ADG2012

 

 

Work In Progress

Acrylic on board.

 

©ADG2012 

Within the Cerebral Cortex IV

Watercolour, gouache, pencil and ink on watercolour paper, with digital reflection. 

 

Rhombus II (◊)  

Pattern, structure, their individual components, and how these fundamental units extend through repetition to form grids or fields.

©ADG2012

ScumSTREETscuM

3.0 Mpx iPhoneography.


Scum Street Scum is an ongoing photo series I commenced earlier this year. It abstracts the dropped, spilled, and discarded products of waste I see in gutters and backstreets from day to day, into biomorphic compositions of space and form. I am interested in these overlooked, abject forms because of the transient space they occupy. When something becomes rubbish because it has been used, broken or accidentally dropped it becomes an object of pure potential, it's purpose ambiguous, and its meaning uncertain.

I will continue with this series and explore within the limitations of the camera-phone. Given the opportunity I would like to carry this series further by working with a higher resolution camera to produce images that capture more of the fine detail I see in these myriad forms.

Visit scumstreetscum blog for all images.

©ADG2012 

Being and Becoming •

Watercolour, pencil and ink on found paper. 

©ADG2012

Big Bang: Plastic Expansion

In the cyclic universe theory, universes are created and then disperse into space, one after another, with each cycle lasting trillions of years. From a big bang singularity, this universe composed of plastic and light, unfolds from its dense state with an energetic crackle. The present fades into the past and the future comes into being. The space will continue to expand, growing darker, colder and more diffuse. When the universe eventually becomes flat and featureless it will collapse and come together in another cosmic bang.

©ADG2012

Junk Geode III : Icosahedron

 

Poster board, metalized polyester film, wax.

The icosahedron, one of the five Platonic solids, it is a regular polyhedron with 20 equilateral triangular faces. Plato conceptualized the icosahedron as the atomic form of water, and within his philosophy it was an example of an enduring form, a manifestation of the eternal.

©ADG2012

Within the Cerebral Cortex III

Watercolour, gouache, pencil and ink on watercolour paper, with digital reflection. 

 

Rhombus (◊).

©ADG2012

dɪpreʃəraɪ'zeɪʃən

Captured here is a unique interaction with an ordinary unit of matter. The material moves from its ordered state of uniformity into a dynamic folded space with a distressed static crackle. The noise of this material folding, and the faint sound of air escaping through the valve is produced as a result of its changing state. The light displayed off the broken surface radiates against the vacuum black, as a distinct region, a field of refraction.

©ADG2012

Within the Cerebral Cortex II

Watercolour, gouache, pencil and ink on watercolour paper, with digital reflection.

These self-replicating patterns of kaleidoscopic hexagonal form tessellate perfectly, and their construction can potentially be extended infinitely. When arranged as a vertical panel, an individual elongated hexagon appears like an illuminated stained glass window in the Perpendicular Gothic style. These dynamic forms illustrate an idea of vision from the mind's eye, the windows of the cerebral cortex, or the stained glass of the cerebral cathedral.

©ADG2012

Within the Cerebral Cortex

 

Watercolour, gouache, pencil and ink on watercolour paper, with digital reflection.


Initially intended to be used as a scientific tool, the kaleidoscope (observer of beautiful forms) permits dynamic vision. The apparatus, a cylinder of mirrors, transmutes asymmetric reality into a mathematical utopia of symmetrically flowering structures. In this way we simulate the view of the world as seen through the compound eyes of insects, which are typically hexagonal in cross section.
I am interested in this device for its ability to alter that which is seen, to look, to examine and to facilitate an expansion of complexity.

©ADG2012

Liquid-Crystal: Mesophase

Digital Vector Image.


Liquid crystals are a state of matter (phase) that have properties between those of a conventional liquid and those of a solid crystal. Shown here, the phase transition (liquid/solid) is occurring. A sample of the material was placed between two crossed polarizers; the sample was then heated and cooled. The crystal and liquid crystal phases will both polarize the light in a uniform way, leading to brightness and color gradients.

©ADG2012

Synthetic Progeny: Iamond Composition

Junk Geode II : Cuboctahedron

Poster board and metalized polyester film.

The junk geode mimics the geological form of its namesake, a cavity inside rock that contains various crystal minerals such as calcite, pyrite, and dolomite etc.
In this iteration the containing geometric solid is a cuboctahedron, a polyhedron with eight triangular faces and six square faces. The crystalline interior is imitated by metalized polyester film which can be manipulated by hand within its shell.

©ADG2012

S.O.1 : Synthetic Organism

Watercolour, gouache, pencil and ink on cardboard.

We are synthesizing DNA to create the first synthetic organism, a prototype of artificial life. SO1 has no specific function, but once it is alive we can customize it. We can go back to the computer, change a gene and create another variant. New life forms are generated by simply entering a sequence of keys.
 

©ADG2012

/ɪnfəˈmeɪʃ(ə)n/

Vector Image.

An ordered sequence of symbols that can be interpreted as a message, the information of this pattern relates to the biological process of binary fission which is the subdivision of a cell into two or more parts and the regeneration of those parts into separate cells.

Here the cells move downward in a chain, increasing complexity one unit at a time.

The cellular pattern maintains an order of inheritance from parent to offspring.

©ADG2012 

Organic Tessellating Cell: Unit 1

Digital vector image on cardboard.

Devised for a hexagonal grid, this folded skin connects on all six sides, tessellating and extending into an imagined infinity. The organic form is contained in one cell on a two-dimensional plane. The placement of connecting folds was adapted from a series of hand drawn tiles originating from an isometric grid.
The view of the many tiles appears as a window onto an unseen skin, a cut into the fabric of reality, like a hole in a skull revealing the brain.
 

©ADG2012

Drawing With Video

Ballpoint pen on Office paper, A6


During my part time work over the past five years as a video store clerk I produced a volume of A6, biro drawings like these. Using A4 office paper quartered and torn I recorded my ideas in hours of boredom and continued progressing my aesthetic.The format was small so I could fit the drawings in my pocket for discretion around management, this size also allowed for an immediacy which pushed my style and was conducive to any impulse.

Now having finished this job, with another store closure, I intend to arrange the best of these drawings (having kept them in a chronological stack), scan them and produce a book under the title Drawing With Video.

©ADG2012

Materialization dematerializatioN

The process of coming into being that starts with a mathematical point, an indivisible atom, that groups like a molecule to other atoms and converge as cells. This artificial instant is caught in the perpetual flux of generation and destruction.

Watercolour, pencil and ink on found paper.  
©ADG2012

Candy Floss Decay

A fascinating material, cotton candy (aka fairy floss) is spun sugar coloured with food dye. As it is mostly air the voluminous form decays quickly and the sugar congeals becoming hard with a wrinkled, rock-like solidity. During the process of decay the floss releases a sweet sugary aroma and maintains it bright colour pigment.
I will continue to document this transformation and have identified further applications of the material including time-lapse photography and installation.

©ADG2012

Bioluminescence Through Inversion II

Another ectoplasmic aggregate variant.
Watercolour, pencil and ink on paper.  
©ADG2012

Infinite Variation - Finite System

Vector Image.

Through the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, shapes and polygons, an illusion of form is generated, an impossible figure based on mathematical expressions. The isometric grid appears as a field of energy out of which crystallizing structures can emerge.

©ADG2012