Jackson Pollock

Number 23, 1948
Enamel on gesso on paper
support: 575 x 784 mm frame: 651 x 861 x 42 mm
painting

Pouring and dripping paint has an element of chance, however every action would have been thought out and considered. For instance, the order in which the colours were used, when to stop pouring, etc.

Tate Collection (2002) [online] Available at: <http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=12146&searchid=11123&tabview=work> [Accessed 31st January 2012]

Dave Cole

Knitting Machine

Knitting Machine

The knitting of this flag wasn't an exercise in process, but a statement on society. However for me the process in this piece is unmistakeable, every movement planned to furthest extent. 

"Acrylic felt with excavators and aluminum utility poles. Completed flag is approximately 30 x 20 x 1 feet as installed at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA"

Dave Cole (2005) [online] Available at: <http://davecoledavecole.com/projects-knitting-machine.php> [Accessed 31st January 2012]

William Anastasi

April 15, 1989,
32 minutes, 4B, 1989
Graphite

William Anastasi makes drawings, usually with his eyes closed. He follows a system of rules he sets. In  this instance he held a pencil in both hands and moved along the wall in a long sweeping motion, drawing as far as his arms could reach.

Mattress Factory, Ltd. (2012) [online] Available at: <http://www.mattress.org/index.cfm?event=ShowArtist&eid=21&id=246&c=> [Accessed 31st January 2012]

How to devise a system

Devising a system for making art isn't as easy as I thought it would be.

If I decide to roll a dice to make decisions, I have to give the roll of the dice a meaning. Or individual numbers on the dice a meaning or rule.

How do I then apply these rules to whatever it is I'm making? Yet another set of rules is needed at this point to contextualise the first roll.

Computers and Art

Description of mathematical art systems.

Mealing, S. (2002) Computers and Art 2. Bristol: Intellect LTD (p.54)

Sol LeWitt

The process of a Sol LeWitt wall drawing.

Every care has been taken to mask off the areas that wont be filled with scribbles, ensuring a clean line and spotless finish.

Pacewildenstein (2007) Sol LeWitt Scribble Wall Drawings. New york: Pacewildenstein

Systems drawing

Jorinde Voigt

Voight, J. (2012) [online] Available at: <http://jorindevoigt.com/blog/?cat=20> [Accessed 30th January 2012]

Crochet systems

This patternation follows strict rules, I would like to make samples in a similar kind of stitch formation.

Cabban, V. (2010) [online image] Available at: <http://doyoumindifiknit.typepad.com/do_you_mind_if_i_knit/2010/09/a-bit-of-knitting-here-a-bit-of-crochet-there-.html> [Accessed 30th January 2012]

Crochetdermy by Shauna Richardson

Freeform crochet on an impressive scale. Following a system of sorts but due to the nature of these creatures, increases certainly wont be regular across the entire form.

Richardson, S. (2011) [online] Available at: <www.shaunarichardson.com>  [Accessed 30th January 2012]

Inger Carina

Inger Carina, Filet Crochet & Starch

Carina, I. (2012) [online] Available at: <http://hellocraftlovers.com/> [Accessed 30th January 2012]

systems artists to look up

Josef Albers, Donald Judd (see fig.), Carl André, Sol LeWitt, Gerhard Richter, Mario Merz, Kenneth Martin and Mary Martin, among many others.

Edmund De Waal

A change in the weather (2007) Kettles Yard

A change in the weather is a collection of 365 vessels, seperated into 12 sections, according to how many days are in each month. The top shelf is January, the second Febuary, and so on. This type of collection/installation speaks loudly of process led making, a need for production.

De Waal, E. (2007) A change in the weather [online image] Available at: <www.edmunddewaal.com/projects/kettlesyard.../KettlesYard_mima.pdf> [Accessed 27th January 2012]

Systems Art

Neil Ferguson - 16000 Paintings as a Sequence

"The exhibition displays 16,000 small silhouette paintings produced under the same set of rules.
Each painting:
uses the same brush.
is the same size.
uses Ivory black watercolour paint.
is a complete silhouette.
has no gaps or spaces within the painted form.
is numbered.
is not titled.
cannot be repainted".

"The denial of artistic freedoms regarding choice of colour, shape of paper, tool of application, method of application seems to promote free possibilities for imagining that allows shifts of thought to investigate intrigue and influence. The tighter the rule, the greater scope for imagining takes place".

Whitechapel (n.d.) Systems Art [online] Available at: <http://systemsart.org/fergusontext.html> [Accessed 27th January 2012]

Systems Art

Defining a set of rules and sticking to them rigorously.

Initial documentation

A couple of shots taken in my bedroom of my numerous belongings.

Shoes I never wear

Books I always read

I thought Polaroid photographs would be appropriate, as they connote documentation, quick flashes and snapshots of life. As I don't own a Polaroid camera I have tried to Photoshop these images into a scanned photograph.

To make the image more realistic I think it would be advantageous to take photographs from a greater distance. Polaroids are square, so any images taken on a conventional digital camera to Photoshop in are not as convincing as they are framed rectangularly. By taking images from a greater distance, the area of photograph shown in the Polaroid frame is of the entire (in this case) bookshelves, rather than cutting off the edges. The rectangular photographs don't have enough space around the edges, with no important subject matter, to reduce the image appropriately.

Another attempt, again with the same issue of it looking 'cut off' top and bottom. The nature of digital photographs means they don't work well within a square frame unless taken at a great distance so as to fit the entire subject matter into the square.

Matthew Barney

A series of works over several years, each called 'drawing restraint' and numbered chronologically, are about making a mark.

Drawing restraint is to be taken literally; the artist is restrained by self-designed and home-made contraptions. He then proceeds to draw and make marks whilst working against and with the restraints.

Drawing restraint 2

Drawing restraint 6

This unconventional approach to mark-making is very interesting and something I had not considered whilst thinking about drawing with chance methods. An accessible way to draw in this manner would be to make marks with a pencil attached to a meter stick, or drawing at arms length.

Drawing restraint 15 is slightly different in that the subject of the drawing is the drawing tool. A series of drawings were made on a transatlantic voyage, taking advantage of obstacles like motion sickness and turbulent seas.

Drawing restraint 15

Barney, M. (2007) Drawing Restraint: vol v: 1987-2007. London: Serpentine Gallery
Barney, M. (2005) Drawing Restraint [online] Available at: <http://www.drawingrestraint.net/main.htm> [Accessed 14th January 2012]

Abstraction

Definition of 'Abstract art' from the Tate website glossary:

"The word abstract strictly speaking means to separate or withdraw something from something else. In that sense applies to art in which the artist has started with some visible object and abstracted elements from it to arrive at a more or less simplified or schematised form...A cluster of theoretical ideas lies behind abstract art...In general abstract art is seen as carrying a moral dimension, in that it can be seen to stand for virtues such as order, purity, simplicity and spirituality."

Abstraction for me is the development of a first notion, removing nearly all of the original framework and structure, into a new idea. This is important in art when employing the concept of decentered subjectivity. For instance, turning a personal project about my current situation into 'real art' (i.e. a venture that is deeper than pictures of my belongings) takes many steps, first of all documentation of the belongings is essential, but then it is of utmost importance to destroy the personal link, instead turning the items into something else, numbers, letters, codes. Turning this development into drawings, crochet. These actions are the first steps in abstraction.

Tate (n.d.) Glossary: abstract art [online] <Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=8> [Accessed 14 January 2012]

Hyperbolic crochet

Hyperbolic crochet is based around complicated forumlae and mathematics.

Institute for Figuring (n.d.) Available at: <http://crochetcoralreef.org/Content/makeyourown/IFF-CrochetReef-HowToHandout.pdf> [Accessed 6th January 2012]

Michael Landy

Michael Landy set about cataloguing every item he possessed before systematically destroying everything. Over 7000 items were documented and destroyed.

Art Angel (2001) Available at: <http://www.artangel.org.uk/projects/2001/break_down> [Accessed 6th January 2012]

Accompanying publication:
ArtAngel (2001) Michael Landy/Break Down. London: The Times