pix

This work, although I’m enjoying the conversation and the making, I must admit, hasn’t been going so well in my head, because I couldn’t seem to fit it in right. I was shuffling around it a bit. I couldn’t seem to find an emotional connection with it. I was finding that difficult. As an intellectual exercise it was fine. I was thinking, producing pieces of work that skirt around and inch towards, and look ok…

BUT…

Then, thanks to Aristotle “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”… I had a bit of an epiphany. As is my wont, I returned to that which I understand: clothing. I zoomed off to the charity shops at 4.30 Saturday afternoon, with a clear idea in my head of what I wanted to make. Well I say make, but before the make is the un-make.

Now my question is this…

Is this going to get thrown into the air by Bo and shot, with accusations of “comfort blanket”?

Possibly.

(Now, if I could accurately predict which pieces of work would elicit this response, I would not need his criticism would I?)

But I’m doing it anyway. Because in my sketch books for a long time now have been explorations into the dismantling of clothing and the reassembling. So it fits me. I think it didn’t fit so well with the work I was doing towards my MA, because that was down a different emotional pathway/theme. But the deconstruction/reconstruction~degeneration/regeneration idea is perfect for it. So I have trawled through to see what has been said about it in my notes. To be honest, not a lot. I suppose this is what sketch books are good for. To park the fleeting idea for a while, see what happens and what connections are made between pieces of work. To enable a re-visit when the time is right. The idea I have now isn’t the same as those that were drawn and annotated. It is a new idea, but draws upon a train of thought not quite derailed.

I am happy that it fits, I can see it working in terms of the aesthetics. For the first time in a while I am content with this work. Just need to make it now.

Bo, I read below, is indeed looking at the pixel closely, he’s being very scientific, rational… dare I say it… male…?

My “perceived view of the surrounding world” is somewhat different, I am a different animal.

I’m zooming out again, having magnified and got closer, and finding frustration… my thinking about pixels is now more metaphorical, allegorical even. Blame Aristotle. I’m thinking of people as pixels, how we stand as individuals but our lives cause us to cling together: partners, families, teams, friends… the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. This is where the baby clothes fit in. The smallest person has an effect…. Change or add one pixel and everything is different.

Collaborate with another artist… everything changes…

To pinch Bo’s words, then deconstruct and reconstruct the sentence: “The artist defines a person as: – the smallest element with uncontrollable colour and brightness in a society or family group”

Now if you will excuse me, I have some baby clothes to destroy.

I have been at the stage where I was ready to put in my hand as the artist and try and establish some order to my research and thinking. I can now create my own images and deconstruct from those through accidental process, rather than using Elena’s work as my starting point.

I discovered an interesting new app that lets me identify each individual pixel’s colour and quantity, which means I can properly disassemble an image, know its make up and reuse those blocks to create something completely new and different without affecting the DNA of the source.

But this got me questioning; what in fact is a pixel? I guess prior to this point I’d just compared it to some similar units. I’ve blogged them previously… but I suspect I jumped in way to quickly. Pixels aren’t simple at all… devilish little creatures, if they exist…

Do they exist? Because you see I discovered something I still can’t fully explain…

I found on Wikipedia whilst researching colour vision an image that has now become the focus of my work (image 1). Wikipedia describes it as follows:- this image (when viewed in full size, 1000 pixels wide) contains 1 million pixels, each of a different colour…

But when I opened this image in my pixel viewer app on the iPad and counted the top left hand box’s pixels across, there were only 61! So I rechecked on the second box… 61! For the information to be correct on Wikipedia each box should have had 100 pixels…

So what was going on?

I tried again on my new retina display iPad. This time only 45 pixels across??

What was going on?

The dictionary defines a pixel as: – the smallest element with controllable colour and brightness in a video display, or in computer graphics.

Was my predicament down to screen resolution? If so, logic suggests that with the right resolution, pixels would cease to exist. Doesn’t it? Using my new app I was able to view the image the way it was supposed to be seen… I was able to increase the pixel count and view each one of the million pixels individually…

My partner’s father had come to stay with us… another scientist… and whilst discussing this work he pointed out that other animals had different colour spectrums to ours and that they saw colours differently to ourselves. Of course, in my distant past I’d been taught this… I remembered the essence of what he was telling me… but…

“Though the raw information is important in that it provides a basis for any further brain processing, once a picture is formed it moves on to the rest of the brain and is compiled with all the other sensory information that an animal has taken in. The end product is a perceived view of the surrounding world, otherwise known as an umvelt”.

A perceived view? Are pixels perceived views dependent on screen resolution? That would change things… the invisible/non existent made visible. That would allow me to play with their structure and shape wouldn’t it?

My comparison became the snowflake. A single ice crystal… each completely different… fingerprints. That would allow me to design my own pixels… make them appear…

I started creating sketches, running the Wikipedia image through some of my randomizer apps, then altering them deliberately. New apps came up that allowed me to start numbering individual pixels; further research into the colours different groups of animals see migrated into the work, altering compositions. Now I had the blocks numbered I was able to deliberately choose their positions and then repaint in yet another app.

Spectrum pixels were born…

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Bo, it was Aristotle who said:

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”

See?

I told you there would be more questions.

I look at the nature of my tools: my stitch is my pixel, my building block. What am I building then?

My work up to now has been more emotive, life driven, influenced by the personal. Sometimes uncomfortably personal. Because, to me, it is the personal that makes the work universal.

How do I make this personal?

This may be why I am less confident here… maybe the reason I’m struggling is the lack of emotional content. At the moment it is an interesting intellectual exercise…. But I’m not feeling it….

How do I get feely with a pixel?

Do I need to find the soul of the single stitch for this to work for me?

I am being prodded out of a smugness in my own ability to articulate.

I need to think and talk this through a bit…

Why do I stitch?

One stitch is me?

One stitch is useless?

Join a union!

Safety in numbers

Strength in numbers

The semiotics book I’m reading may help. I just need to work out what my signifier stitch has signified.

(I had intended at the beginning of this venture with Bo, that we would take it in turns to post. Turns out the blog reflects the relationship accurately… I talk too much rubbish, blurting it all out. He does the thinking, filters out the good bits and says it properly)