Introduction to the work

The contingency of the creative act and the potential of the repetition are core concerns in my work. Using different methods of mechanical reproduction, from photographic reproductions of artworks (as a readily available material, form of mediation, and zero degree expression of photography) to more recent devices including paint mixing machines and word analysis tools (which belong to post-fordist shifts in consumption and labour and consumption, encountered mass-customization and information analysis), my practice explores mediation, possession, and quiet gestures of interruption.

Going beyond the simple appropriation of material as a form of remixing or a questioning of authorship, my work takes the form of delicate and simple gestures which can be both radical in their intent, and playful in their rupturing of our relationship with the object and photographic image.

The Photographic Reproduction

The photographic reproduction is a major form of communication of the artwork, one which is notable for its mutedness. Under normal circumstances the photographic reproduction silenty displays the work, forming in effect a direct window to the object (its appearance being, in effect, a sign of failure). By repeating specific gestures on photographic surfaces, my works using photographic reproductions (which forms a large part of my earliest work) examines and reworks the photographic image. Our relationship to it is active, and not passive, and by subtle interferences on the photographic image, the photograph becomes visible as an object containing an array of decisions, variables, and alternative narratives. A major part of this engagement with the photographic image affected by the notion that the reproduction, as an object distinct from that which it represents, allows for a description of both past, present and future histories of the work, as well as unimaginable and inplausible new extensions of the work. This continues what is described by Bruno Latour in his description of the migration of the aura in contemporary technologies of image reproduction.

Mass-customization

Most recently, this work has expanded out to look into devices (some photographic or optical, others simply mechanical), which are implemented in the creation of mass produced goods with a difference: the turn towards the customized mass-production processes, which promise forms of individuality to the consumer. These comes with their own restrictions, and this custom/mass production paradox is explored by utilsing processes and placing stress on the capabilities of the process to deliver both accurate and yet individual results (an example of which would be using spectrophotometer colour scanners and paint mixing machines in DIY stores to try to recreate the distinctive International Klein Blue colour patented by Yves Klein in the middle of the century (and thus challenging the wisdom of this gesture of commodification) - see the project DIY IKB for some of these outcomes.