opening of ‘what’ on Friday April 12, at Back Lane Studios
Many thanks to all who attended and to Ellen Moorhouse who has allowed me to use Back Lane Studios to stage this show.
I think the opening was a real success. There was at one point I think about 20-25 people and many friends including a friend from way back in high school (c. 1990). I presented my slide show which I was really nervous about – but it went fine once I got started. People requested the spinning branch videos. I played a few from my ‘High Park Branches’ You Tube playlist which gives a good sense of the different kinds of sounds and audio compositions generated for this project.
I also played the installation recording videos:
The second video is the second set of audio sounds that I can load into the installation and it forms a different composition, ‘continuous tones’. It was inspired by what you hear in the spinning branch video at the top of this blog post. The audio for that one is like a sketch – it is a multitrack recording that I played by hand on a keyboard, whereas what you hear in the second installation video, though it sounds a lot like the sketch, is completely generated by the interactive software. I had to make a lot of adjustments in the software to make it sound right. The tones are triggered by branches colliding, just like with the other piece, ‘branch strikes’, but I had to, for example, extend the time between collision triggered tones to make it sound right.
In the first installation video, ‘branch strikes’, the sounds used are samples made from recordings of hitting branches against each other in High Park. The tones in the second video however, are made using real-time synthesis in Supercollier – something that that software is particularly well designed for. I looking forward to exploring more of this.
pre-opening walk-through
Here’s a quick video touring the set up show about an hour and a half before opening. This is certainly not the first time I have set up one of my own shows so I am getting better at making sure that all the work done on time. There was an incredible amount of work that went into this one and I am so glad to be on the other side. This is my first show in Toronto and I wasn’t sure what to expect but there were a lot of friendly faces there and it was all very pleasant and enjoyable and golly, I even sold a couple of prints.
One woman at the show remarked on how my work spans many different media. The large wall in particular shows a bit of this – the 3D models on the left, the resulting prints on the right, and some large scale paintings of results in the center. Along with that is the interactive installation, audio albums, and videos/animations, which are all integral to the process. It is a bit of research project.
This show is about selling work too – something that has taken me a long time to embrace. I have paintings in every price range: $5000, $500, and $35 for the any of the prints – and I have tons of them. Buying a print is a great way to support what I do and you get a cool thing in return. I have to say that I am very fond of these prints. They might not make me a lot of money but I make them really because I think they look good. I also make paintings out of the some of the images that I use for prints. All the images are screenshots of running software (online or standalone) or from computer animations (Blender). This is part of what I do to support the development of these artwork/software projects like ‘High Park Branches’. I found a good local printer, Red Hot Printing near Landsdowne and Dupont. The ink and paper quality are excellent – the colours are sharp and vivid. It wasn’t easy finding a good printer or a printer that I could work with. Print houses, of course, cater to large scale printing jobs for commercial enterprises, not independent artists printing small runs so they often are not very receptive.
Here are three examples:
(click on images to go to the things)
Here are some pictures from the event via Abby Bushby:
Abby and Rene – the two people who own and live in the house I live in the basement apartment of. I have been there for seven years now and they essentially have let me run my art practice out of the apartment. I have completed some of the most important work I have ever done there including learning several computer languages, completing many art projects which include all the media discussed above, and of course, setting up and preparing for this show.
my mom and Ellen Moorhouse who runs Back Lane Studios.
Massive thank you to Doris Purchase for helping with the set up. She is a professional artist living in the area and often shows out of Propeller Gallery in the Queen West area. As someone who knows what they are doing (she also works at the AGO), she offered plenty of valuable advice and insight – super duper helpful.
Some more shots from the opening – photos by Pauline Gill.
Suzanne Farkas
This the watercolour painting I made for Abby and Rene in 2019 drawn from a photo I took of their back yard. I gave it to them as a way to say thank you for the amazing opportunity to live and work out of the basement apartment in their house. Honestly, even being in their presence is a gift – they are brilliant, kind, and creative people and I am so lucky to be living there.
The two large ‘results’ paintings – the way branches are left after a session with the interactive installation.
These are prints of sixteen of the 3D modelled branches (the final, seventeenth, is on the right end of the wall).
I am working on a couple more videos that will show the interactive installation in action and a slideshow of all the prints, paintings, and descriptions. This will be in my next blog.
what and High Park Branches
things:
newmedia #audioart #generativeart #mediaart #openframeworks #blender3d #mediaartist #3dart #canadianartist #forestart #highpark #interactiveinstallation #newmediaart #complexsystems
One reply on “turboshow incredi-tour”
I am in Awe Rob.
Congratulations for the many ways you have produced innovative, beautifully
inspiring, art that will be a collector’s treasure.
Love Dad