-Critical Evaluation-

The starting point for this blog of reaserch was Paola Anziche, her work consisted on more artistic merits than mine, she especially looked into form and the way an environment changes body extension.
Her methodology put my own work into a new light considering what might be a viable existence to a location for my work.
The environment also creates many other aspects to the piece, the feeling and the structure seems to change depending on location.
This notion for me was a new aspect to looking and critically making decisions about the work's context and how others might perceive my work to be.
If I had done this piece of reaserch before the final photo had been taken I would have taken great care as to the environment I was displaying the work and how this might eventually effect my work.

The next piece was of work I discovered was a series of photographs I dug up on Google, that were, from what I could tell, a university's or college's show.
The pieces accentuated parts of the body in a creative and yet viable form of body extension, again, this was not so far from my own work but almost an extension of it.
The key differences between my work and the artist's in reference is the lack of functionality and durability. The pieces I viewed were frail and in some case's very crude, as A piece of amour my work had to have some functionality and this brings us to the next guy, Stelarc.

Stelarc used technology and its functions to create performances by giving the audience the control over the show by using buttons to stimulate his muscles in different ways, creating this unique performance each time.

Rebecca Horn and her work spans back decades but what’s really nice to see is strong structures "Pencil Iron mask" and the famous "finger gloves" her experimentation with body extension is that through the sense's.
Her work often involves creating a unique experience for the user of her objects by creating an extension of the senses. This is not something that apparent in my work, or so I thought, but I remembered how the glove's of my amour feel, it's like nothing before, you have a good inch or two extensions of the fingertips and this creates pressure on the part just under the nail, creating a very sensual experience indeed.
Her work has been a key factor since then, looking into what feels like what and what advantages a piece can gain from incorporating them.

Next thing, I tried to dig up internet based reference to destructive creatisim, this in my attempts left me with very little.
It's a shame really as this section really hits into a key aspect of my work, breaking something down to re-create it again in a better and sometimes more suited form.
It's an old notion but the ideal's of recycling are very important to many cultures and the way we as humans lived in the past.
As it stands at the moment recycling has its many advantages and is currently a big buzz word for today’s culture.

My piece worked and was successful in its own right, I created (not finished) a piece of work that had sensory extension, was decorative (also tied in with the styles that I had researched on other 2D artist's) but on top of that it met its function in durability.
I am very pleased to say that even if it was unfinished, the work itself met all the requirements that I had hoped and would fit into a post apocalyptic setting.

Why?! A question about my work.

Why even create a piece?
Well this question there is no real main reason, i'd guess it's because I can never be doing "nothing" and with this I have to do things, and the only things I enjoy are usually creative. I love creating stuff, from models to doing web design to making music I love it all, I like the notion of saying "yeah, that was me, I left me mark".
Since I was a kid I'd build tree houses and draw comics. This was my way of letting off steam and dealing with my reality at that time, which was not always good. But this release gave me an opportunity to discover the arts of creation further, I would go one make board games, video games and yes, draw more comics.
So for me creating pieces of art is a release of stress and negative energy and use it to create something positive.

Why amour?
I have always had an obsession with amour since I was a kid. mainly because I'd have to make some to defend my many forts and tree house's.
Armour, up until now i thought of as being cool, but never questioning the reasons as to what is and why i like it. I like body extension and enhancement, from film characters to comic's I have always admired those that had implemented it in there character design and thus making the ordinary extraordinary.
Why it's made the way it is?
I made the piece from bits of spare junk around the house, I figured that the piece should be spontaneous and built from materials ready to me.
the materials have little value in the form they were in so I just decompiled them and transformed components into useful ones, nothing new on that front
What does this piece mean to me?
The piece was made to substitute an urge to create amour since my last tree house, so a good 6-7 years go, so this urge has been growing and growing until I just had to give it a shot. The artist's I referenced had similar plate based designs for their amour and I really wanted to implement them in my work.
The piece, to me, is a representation of what I'd fantasies about as a kid, exploring fantasy landscapes fighting hordes of undead and your average fantasy's that follow.
I would often dream of situations I could face with my friends and in this little world I created a mythology around it for my local area, bending and twisting folk stories until they were orignal and viable reason's for area's and the cultures that I would create.
Well's is a stranger area, it's got a lot of weird and explorable sections that offer interest and desire to manifest little sub plots and fit into the greater story.
an example is the "fog of change" a strange and interesting feature to the location of the town.
The fog rolls in and legend has it, in my world, that the fog is an omen of change, people's behavior change. This event happens in the spring and winter season's and is due to temperature change.
I have a video of the freezing fog that gripped the area a few days back, I will upload them soon.
Little things like this helped create a world in my head based on actually things in my reality but just, twisted into a more interesting factor.
So it's meaning for me, is one of nostalgia and a reminder of some happy days.

Creative destruction002

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction

The notion of creation through destruction.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1842/reaction-germany.htm

"the passion for destruction is a creative passion"

I am really struggling to find anything other than books on this :S

?!? What and Why?!?

What is my work:

Its a basic extension of the body for protection and the setting of the pieces environment is a post apocalyptic setting, much like that of the recent film "I am legend".

The amour I made was comprised from several different objects I collected from my apartment, tins and fabric even an old long sleeved top.
It represents the true nature of adapting and the survival methods we as humans evolved to.
Creating objects into new fabricated ones using the base properties is no new feature but the way I adapted and reformed the ideals of recycling were somewhat different

As time goes on mankind will continue to adapt to its surroundings and conceptually speaking we shall evolve our understanding of our environment and how to use it better.

A first step to becoming a successful race is that of which can adapt quickly and change with its enviroment before problems end it's very existence.

There was another side to my work, its the decorative side I researched from different eastern culture artist's, looking at slightly more impractical amour thats also decorative, something well achieved by the Victorians. The fusion of decoration and high quality workmanship into the form of protective amour and weapons spawned a lot of styles for our videogames, the biggest example is final fantasy and its series of games.

DESTRUCTIVE CREATIVISM

I just realized that my work also reflects on the base morals of destructive creativity and the base idea of taking mundane objects and breaking down there components to create another piece, this, in essence is what i was doing.
Taking mundane objects that might be readily available to a post apocalyptic community and transform its components into the sections of amour that became my finished piece.


Trying to find some links to destructive creativism artisi's.

Rebecca Horn

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=37&searchid=9468

This is her piece is titled "Arm Extension"(1968) And uses fabric wood and metal to keep the form.


http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=25&searchid=9468

Finger Gloves 1972
Fingerhandschuhe

Wood, fabric and metal
sculpture

"Ideas of touch and sensory awareness are explored in this work. Horn has described how wearing these gloves altered her relationship with her surroundings, so that distant objects came within her reach: ‘the finger gloves are light. I can move them without any effort. Feel, touch, grasp anything, but keeping a certain distance from the objects. The lever-action of the lengthened fingers intensifies the various sense-data of the hand; ...I feel me touching, I see me grasping, I control the distance between me and the objects.’ Implicit in the work is the idea that touching makes possible an intimacy between our own body and those of others."

This notion of creating extra senses is something that fascinates me, not only does it enhance the appearance, but due to its location it enhances the senses connected to the device... in this case, the fingertips. This device brings the distance closer, while all the time these items are out of reach as the practicality of the device is almost unusable.
This side not really that relevant to my side of body extension as mine was more practical based, well it had to be to fit into context of my work. Rebecca Horn has been in the field of sculpture for over 40 years and has had a few dabbles in body extension. But the pieces are to be based on their artistic merit over ability to successfully implement a body extension.
I guess when you think about it there is a lot of body extension going about today.
Getting fake nails to hair extensions all the way to piercings, these are a form of bod yextension and each comes with extra sensory action, sometimes sensitivity to an area and other times an extension of touch or weight.
The environment in which pieces are used also have detrimental effects on the piece and the experience for the user.
I think that the clever use of extra sensory can be heightened by countering with the removal of another, for example the finger gloves could


http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/berlin-uebungen/video/1/

This video is the finger gloves in use and scraping two walls at one time. Interesting, sound is as weird as it probably felt on your fingertips.

The notion of extra sensory body extension frightens me a little, because it can also be created to give the user negative sensory damage, and this could be implemented in pain. But I guess my argument is flawed because anything could be adapted in this way.

Rebecca Horn

"Rebecca Horn: Bodylandscapes: Zeichnungen, Skulpturen, Installations 1964-2004" By Armin Zweite, Rebecca Horn, Hayward Gallery

Published in English on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name at the Hayward Gallery, London, 26 May-11 September 2005. - Also at K20 Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, D̀eusseldorf, 2 October 2004-2 January 2005 ; Fundaðĉaao Centro Cultural de Bel̂aem, Lisbon, 4 February-17 April 2005 ; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, in co-operation with the Berliner Festspiele, September-December 2006.



its the supporting book to a collection of Rebbecca horn's work.


Official Website http://www.rebecca-horn.de/pages/biography.html


The official website has no information about the body extension concept.
Going to dig a lot deeper.

Stelarc and body extension using technology

http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/

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"At the November 1995 Telepolis 'Fractal Flesh' event, Paris (the Pompidou Centre), Helsinki (The Media Lab) and Amsterdam (for the Doors of Perception Conference) were electronically linked through a performance website allowing the audience to remotely access, view and actuate Stelarc's body via a computer-interfaced muscle-stimulation system based at the main performance site in Luxembourg.

Although the body's movements were involuntary, it could respond by activating its robotic Third Hand and also trigger the upload of images to a website so that the performance could be monitored live on the Net. Web server statistics indicated the live event was watched worldwide.

During the Ping Body performances, what is being considered is a body moving not to the promptings of another body in another place, but rather to Internet activity itself - the body's proprioception and musculature stimulated not by its internal nervous system but by the external ebb and flow of data.

By random pinging (or measuring the echo times) to Internet domains it is possible to map spatial distance and transmission time to body motion. Ping values from 0-2000 milliseconds (indicative of both distance and density levels of Internet activity) are used to activate a multiple muscle stimulator directing 0-60 volts to the body. Thus ping values that indicate spatial and time parameters of the Internet choreograph and compose the performances. A graphical interface of limb motions simulates and initiates the physical body's movements. This, in turn, generates sounds mapped to proximity, positioning and bending of the arms and legs.

The Ping Body performances produce a powerful inversion of the usual interface of the body to the Net. Instead of collective bodies determining the operation of the Internet, collective Internet activity moves the body. The Internet becomes not merely a mode of information transmission, but also a transducer, effecting physical action.

The performance was carried out with the assistance of Gary Zebington (programming and graphics), Rainer Linz (sound design), Dmitri Aronov (Unix ping software), Mic Gruchy (video) and the Merlin crew in general. The artist has also consulted Adam Burns (Pegasus), Andrew Garton (Toy Satellite) and Andrew Pam (State Film Centre). Thanks also to the Digital Aesthetics Conference organisers and Artspace."

The short of this is a visual performance using the aid of cybernetic like technology to help create a piece controlled by it's audience.

Various muscle stimulating machines move the user "Stelarc" from controls that the viewers control.

impractical when the user has no control but the visual output created must be very interesting indeed.

Technology has come a long way since two way radios but principles of body extension have existed since the day man decided that a club was better than beating their food to death with fist's. even if simple it is still an extension of one's self and a step further for mankind to use this self improvement.

for my work its not something i have explored, this lack of control, I find it a little frightening and uneasy to deal with. But on my quest for knowledge one must know every aspect of body extension.

Also, we just had an earthquake. wile writing this I almost got the impression that my destiny to defend the earth from hell spawn zombies had begun... still 4.7, not bad eh.

Body Extension. Making the normal better, weird and artful.

http://art.alfred.edu/divisions_concentrations/foundation/album/BestofFoundation/body-extension.html

The first 13 images are body extension.
there is no information regarding these pictures but it is evident that these works were created by students from some university or college. and this show of work has a few good examples of body extension. Image 11 is particularly interesting as it shows an extension of the arm, impractical but nether the less viable as an extension. I guess practicality and art should not always mix. But for me an element of practicality should have always been a section to cover as I intended this to be the amour of the post apocalyptic future and having very impractical armor would have resulted in a fast death of the wearer and thus defeating one of it's two main functions.
This for me would be unacceptable, so practicality was always a key factor.

Lets get this show on the road... eh :)

Ok not really sure how to word this, but basically I am going to link other artist's that relate to my work.

http://bodyextension.blogspot.com/

This is Paola Anziche art form of sculpture
this site references to my idea of body extension, this is basically what armor is, may seem like a simple version compared to the conceptual body extension that Paola covers. But in essence armour is just an extension of self inprovement from damage that a body might take in a combat situation.
she really bends the idea of body extension and plays on what it means to have body extension and what it can mean, sometimes a little surreal.

This quote basically sums up her views on body extension and the environment that these pieces exist.

"Starting from a reflection on spatial, social, emotive distances which mark our "habitat" (living enviroment) the students will develope a "wearable sculpture", something that can be identified with a need, and, at the same time,that will analyze the living space/room. Try to think about the kind of space that everyone (as a person, as a citizen) needs within a city, in relation to public spaces that are at disposal, as well to those spaces that lack, trying to cope also with (typically) urban and/or sub-urban situations."