I'm currently participating in a extended conceptual work as my "Homage to Andy Warhol" for a show title Homage in San Diego organized by the Digital Art Guild.
http://fineartamerica.com/featured/art-in-a-box-andy-mercer.html
The Director has agreed to print off this work at their end and to try and assemble the box for display in the exhibition.
I'm not overly concerned if the image distorts and pixelates its meant to look unpolished and grungy. Digital images often appear very precise, ultra controlled and dare I say "predictable" and so this is my response to these aspects of digital art. We Anglo Saxons do seem to have an obsession with precision, order and neatness. Personally I enjoy a bit of disorder. This ability to be precise provided by visual manipulation software my opinion is often equated with quality in art. More precision and control seems to mean higher quality of art for some. I want to challenge this perception.
But at the same time many people who don't know much about digital art think it "is" mechanistic and impersonal, so I also want to demonstrate that this does not need to be the case.
Industrial produced packaging is rarely 100% accurate.. registrations often slip, colors go unmonitored. I'm not 100% certain how it will work out and I like this uncertainty, it is the antithesis of industrial planning, but even with planning the outcomes are not completely predictable. I personally envisage something not much larger than a cigarette pack. So this work is a personal response to the systematization and standardization of every aspect of society. These days you can't place one brick on top of another without a whole raft of paperwork, plans and permissions to support it. Modern planning and industrial processes are hardly spontaneous.
In addition to this these industrial processes have become extended and this inevitably leads to a certain dislocation between the planning and the outcome. A coffee maker might be designed in Italy and the designs shipped to China, and several months later a container arrives full of "tea" makers. So Wendy (the Director) is my "out sourced industrial worker" struggling to interpret my design through her particular San Diegan goggles. I see her as very much a part of the process. If the finished BOX does not sit 100% flat on the plinth I will NOT be surprised or disappointed. I'm looking for one off unrepeatable impossible packaging.. a "parody of" and "and personal response to" those impersonal industrial processes that have created and maintain the modern world. I will be delighted if the end product is quirky.
I'm hoping Wendy will enjoy her participation and will feedback on the whole process... with pictures etc.
More to follow..
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