Notes on Notes - Strange Chimera

James Elkins - The Object Stares Back
Seeing Bodies

Our eyes are built to seek out complete figures - we instinctively repair fragments into wholes and search for continuous contours and closed curves.
This phenomenon is called subjective contour completion.
On a deeper level, subjective contour completion answers to a desire for wholeness over dissection and form over shapelessness.

The night sky is such a shapeless thing. It is a chaos; it has no pictures,it does not represent any earthly forms. No border - no frame - no outlines - no up or down - no beginning or end - and for these reasons it is beautiful but intolerable to our eyes.

To make sense we create from it - a tapestry of patterns and pictures, of mythical creatures, and geometric regions.

The urge to make a continuous shape out of the pieces of our visual world runs very deep.

When confronted with an unfamiliar object - we try to see something of ourselves in it - a reflection or an other, a doppelganger or a twin or even just a part of us, a face, hand, foot an eye or even a scrap of bodily tissue.
In other words we try to understand strange forms by thinking back to ourselves.

could be interesting

A Fragile Transient Structure

Notes from my recent talk at The Whipple Museum giving some context and background to 'Strange Chimera' the work was shown as part of Cambridge University's Science Festival 2017. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello - and thank you for coming along today to see the work and hear me talk about it. I would like to thank the Whipple Museum - for allowing me to firstly access the collection and then to show the work in this fantastic space - also thanks to the library for their kind permission and helpful guidance regarding texts to reference in relation to the project. Maquettes for Strange Chimera in the Whipple Museum I would like to read my current artist statement to give some context to the kind of work I make and the process I employ. ARTist Statement My practice is expressed through the composition of constructed hybrid objects, working within the mediums of sculp...

Moving the Work On - Facing Extinction

Recently I had work accepted as part of a student response to the 'Facing Extinction' 2014 show held at the University for the Creative Arts in Surrey, U.K. The show was a recreation of the iconic piece created by Gustav Metzger, 'Mass Media'. The works by students were on display for the duration of the conference which Gustav was in attendance for. Installation view of the work 'Mass Media' 2014 The opportunity to hear Gustav speak, and also the privilege of being able to present the work I created to him in person was a great experience. The show was essentially about the challenges faced on a global level, regarding man made issues that result in a negative impact on the planet and humanity as a whole. My piece 'For The Sake Of The Species' was selected to be shown. The work was constructed as a comment on the increasing medical interventions needed to aid conception. Utilising the medium of photography to present the work - like...

Notes for LAB Winchester School of Art - MA Contemporary Curation

Concept: Starting Point Through harvesting inaudible sounds present in surrounding structures of the inhabited institution we will create and open up dialogues - the revealing of these invisible structure systems will be discussed in a broader sense. focus on social, political and cultural discourse ie; current chasms within politics the polarization of ideologies the empty space that was once the 'middle ground' Method: The removed observer see previous post 'objectives' Listening PROJECT wearable sculpture performative sound harvest OUt COme t.b.c. divergent thinking method

'as all our sorries fell to the ground'

Review of the show at ASPEX Gallery Video/Poem by Alastair Cook Installation Views 'For the Sake of the Species' 2015

Moving the Work on - Facing Extinction

Testing things out in the studio - ' Memory Cone' http://julienmaire.ideenshop.net/docs/memory_cone.pdf See blog entry 12th May.

Elevator Music

Short sketch of a digital work in development, it is interesting to observe the static sculptural work transformed through the lens. Real vs Facsimile Reflecting on the work of artist Paul Sermon who uses accessible 'meta-spaces' through which co-experiences can be explored. my practice is interested in the photographic image [or portrait] as an analogue image of self as a mirrored reflection as opposed to three D generated images. Mental co-existence in space, extension of the body through technology, phenomenology of the experience. These short 'sketch' clips are created on my phone when travelling or in waiting rooms hence the reference to 'elevator music' - suspended between one place and the next - a waiting place.

Projecting 2021

New short film 'Relational Relatable' created during 2020 Pandemic - now projecting live at CAS studio artists summer showcase. PRESS RELEASE Relational Relatable – Short Film Julia Keenan Created during the Global Pandemic 2020/21 Intention: the film is contextualised as an existential fable, with a melancholic base note. Alone in an incomprehensible world, despite the apocalypse looming, finding some care in the absurd. We are in isolation together, there is some comfort to be gleaned from that. The Narrative moves through a series of phases each with its own mood and protagonists. The shorter introduction setting the scene – the main body of content and finally the conclusion. The experience evolves through real and imagined scenarios, combining physical drawings with digital elements, dream like narrative and Disneyesque conclusion. The hope was to create something which considers the myriad of emotions experienced global...

Studio

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