/ WORK IN PROCESS
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Early this month I was invited by New Demos (Vin and Tommy) to talk about my process and a few things I’m working on at Revue Theatre in Roncesvalle. It’s kinda a format I’ve been interested in for a while and I really didn’t expect there to be 200+ people there. I did a presentation on how working with a computer is ‘Noisy, Calculated, and Imperfect’. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I use automated tools or work with feedback mechanism (you know, everyday pokémon training stuff). I also try not to be too precious about things and like to find the messy and glitchy in calculated systems. A lot of people presented apps, games, or products design projects (iconic). I also much enjoyed the 3D Jamaican patty as the banner. It was a KUTE night!
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Awards/grants update – Ontario Arts Council’s Multi/Inter Arts Grant
I’m excited to be creating some new work this year with the support of the Ontario Arts Council’s Multi/Inter Arts Grant. I’ll be working on a series that hopefully combines a few different things (visual arts, sculpture, and narrative). I applied to this by myself so it feels extra special :). I’ve also been prototyping out of the Design Fabrication Zone as an experimental artist at TMU to find a nice rhythm with some new tools ฅᨐฅ.
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Preparing most of this month for ‘Intelligent Terrain’, a residency in Quebec led by Luisa Ji. I am a *big* fan of how Luisa thinks about and practices working with ecology. This residency is on artificial intelligence, ecology, and climate responses in the arts. I’ll be doing an installation, thinking through motifs and patterns, measuring things not to exploit, and writing more deeply about water. If you are in the area, by chance, we’ll be showing what comes out of the residency May 4th at 4pm - 9pm.
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Art For Art Sake Group Show - Showing till April 27th
’(Un)biased Rendering I & II’
Graphite on paper
Curated by Aykeh & Adjowa
Poster by Keran H.TS
@ It’s Ok Studio, Toronto
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Ok, so a few different things came together in this, which I'm happy about. It was for my first sound exhibit and I’m really happy I got to do it with Roya, who ate curating the whole thing.
I wanted to play with sound bites for awhile. I probably will keep doing this but I actually felt like I was starting to get a flow down in Ableton. I wanted to share it online so I made the video using old footage from a Sony handycam, Adobe Premiere, and Touch Designer. I've been seeing a lot of split screen experiments and wanted to try it out.
Headphones awn when listening pls.
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Shared an experimental soundscape titled “True True” in a group show curated by Roya Delsol. I’ll probably post it closer to the end of the month, when the exhibit has wrapped at It's Ok Studio.
AN INFINITE* WAVE
”A showcase of Black experimental sounds, AN INFINITE* WAVE invites artists adroc, Alanna Stuart, Eric Slyfield (with Christopher Dela Cruz), Erica Whyte, Milen Melles and PRIMEDIESEL to explore the potential for sonic placemaking in their works. Field recordings, experiential compositions, audio collages and recorded conversations function as an exercise in world building — worlds real and imagined; to build, nurture, and archive.
The exhibition features an installation from artist Alex Douglas.” (Who I found out is also Grenadian and Jamaican!)
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A few exciting things happening this month:
- Working with the Design Fabrication Zone as an experimental artist
- A residency on ai and materiality
- A collective quilting project on technologies of black care
- Ontario Art Canada Multi-Inter Arts Recipient
*Image of Krstyne (the Stoll tech and friend) learning how to maintain it.
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I’ve been drawing a larger piece than I’m used to. I’m a tiny human who loves tiny things, and I love the idea of tiny things being viewed in a gallery setting, but this larger piece has required more planning, which is nice. I’m enjoying a long run rather than short sprint in my drawing process, regardless. This was mostly over the winter, so we’ll see how it turns out.
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This is a chess set I modelled very quickly for the purpose of 3D printing. I hand built these out of clay originally and found that I wanted more consistency in them. I’m going to go through the motions of injection molding eventually — to see how I like them and then make a board of some sort, perhaps. Unless someone has a suggestion? I have an idea but I’m up for other things.
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Adding some documentation as I practice more technical drawing.
Pictured: ‘Hands holding a textile’
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This image was made for an experimental mix meant to feel like car ride from beginning and end. I love thinking about what makes pop music ‘pop’ — and not just in the 16 bars way or air-time way.
I really wanted to make an animated 3D graphic (rotating) for a live stream, so I ran with the girl math trend out of my pure enjoyment for math theory. I’m not exactly sure how ‘gorl math’ ties into cars but as far as i’m concerned it doesn’t matter. I also made a short video stitching together memes and internet videos about cars and not girl math so that I could practice my video editing. It’s now just a small archive and remembrance to the strong hold car culture has on modernity. I was going to use it as a projection for when I played this mix on NYE live, but didn’t get to it. To be continued..
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I made this kitchy CD cover for a mix I put together because I felt like I was seeing a lot of really good cassette and record sleeves but less CD sleeves. It is the first mix I’ve arranged using Ableton and it felt very intuitive to me although there’s so much I’m still learning about Ableton. This was done very fast and then I made a little glitch animation of the CD rotating (not pictured here but very satisfying). The image is an hommage to hearts as gang signs. I’m always trying to capture little internet motifs, so I particularly liked how the hearts in the right corner turned out. The media arts theorist in me wants to write a whole essay about how floating hearts are indicative of both the simplicity and complications of interfaces and ux, but I refrain.
I also really wish I chose a different heart-gang-sign when I took that picture … ・ᡣ𐭩
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I’ve been rendering more products in 3D, as well as my technical drawing, over the last year. Mostly out of my interest to use Blender in my fabrication process and to prototype more physical things. This is a lamp that I designed last year called Luna- P, which is based off of the floating cat head in Sailor Moon. The shape is meant to be soft but industrial and somehow came out feeling like a kettle bell (which I’m not mad at). I picture this lamp on a side table or on the ground but I’d love to hear if there’s something else that it’s giving or where it belong? A friend mentioned it’s very space-age but I prefer to imagine it walking on a trail or used while camping.
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I interviewed textile artist Meghan Price for the ‘Labour’ issue of Studio Magazine. I’ve been really curious about the Jacquard loom as an early piece of computer history as well as digital weaving machines. At first I reached out to Meghan because she’s been weaving with a digital loom called the TC2; then I saw her show best estimate, at United Contemporary, and I decided I had to interview her about how material and looms relate to labour. Meghan is really insightful and creates some beautiful artifacts that include found objects like old video tapes and plastics.
Full article can be found at Studio Magazine, Spring/Summer 2023 issue.
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Ceramics is a really beautiful craft that has gained a recent resurgence. It’s a nice reason to use your hands, make something, and/or be disconnected from the internet. It’s one of those things that once you get into you never quite feel finished with. Bowls and cups aren’t my go to, but they are crucial in practice. I’ve been really drawn to lighting and organic modelling which i’ll post about later.
Note: After working in the glorious field of ‘design and innovation’ for a few years you start to get a sense of the political matrix for goofy takes on ai, this is me gladly adding to the heap.
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Soft.ware is a foresight study that probes a potential future paradigm for how everyday things might be continually patched and recrafted — updated like software. The scenario imagines a culture of recycling and repair where literacies around materials science are more widely spread and people are incentivized to make their textiles and devices last longer.
I’m interested in the idea of ‘patchwork’ and ‘patchworking’, which is usually used in the context of quilting and sewing, applied to technology. My pride and joy with this piece, however, was using machine learning to generate speculative textiles.
Another piece I really loved that came out of this project was an interpolated image. I used machine learning to stitch together a few of the images that came out of this piece to create something more sci-fi. The images were shot in a local greenhouse/ food coop and were meant to give off the sense of a textile and material warehouse in a near distant future.
CREATIVE DIRECTION: Erica Whyte
PHOTOGRAPHY: Ruth Titus
PRODUCTION: Mercedes Sharpe, Simay Ozturk, Nat Saavendra, Sizwe Inkingi, Hope Elder
POST PRODUCTION SUPPORT: Jeremy Glenn
EDITING: From Later Studio
Read the full study and art book: Soft.ware
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A Short Speculative Fiction During Covid –
"Today, everything from events to non-essential businesses have closed due to Covid-19. Set in a near distant future, this is a short speculative fiction that marks this urgency by focusing on endemic crisis and the anthropocentric.”
Article: After Outbreak (AO): The Other Side of the Counter
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In my essay prose era:
I want to focus on how afrofuturism and black futures can represent the making and unmaking of worlds. This writing is based on research and thinking I patched together in an are.na channel.
I’ll start with the iconic musician and artist Sun Ra, most well-known for contributing to afrofuturism and Space is the Place. The 1970s film includes themes of spirituality, science fiction, and Egyptology. Sun Ra’s music travels other worlds and brings listeners into the cosmos and planetary.
Then there’s Janelle Monae’s album The Arch Android which takes us through an eerie yet magical cross between the body, identity, technologies, and oppression. The concept, riffs Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto and Erykah Badu’s album New Amerykah Part Two.
These pieces are just a small sample platter that stand out but each are a glimpse into what could, would, or should be; whether that’s something daily or systemic there’s a nostalgia for the unruliness, tenderness, and vulnerabilities that come with assembling possibilities.
When writer and filmmaker Kodwo Eshun talks about the prefix afro-, futures, and futurity he describes three critiques:
1. Acknowledging East / West / South / North Africa; the Caribbean; and South Americas, aside from dominant narratives.
2. A decolonial lens that focuses on spiritual and indigenous technologies.
3. How utopia relates to the afterlife, slavery, and race.
When it comes to digital spaces today it could be something as small as excessive scrolling on my phone or more seriously how we gauge the unsettling ways data, privacy, and identity intersect. Reflecting a bit on my most resistant and ideal moments, but speculative narratives and black futurity then act as a rhythm between personal bounds and boundlessness. I then wonder how will we make sense of and give meaning to design — more specifically our daily rituals and long-term goals as a community?
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Three projects that I worked on between 2018-2020 about labour, surveillance, and community.
Game: Post_Human Monday
Resource: The Carded
Project: Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants