Powering the Cloud explores the connections between new media technology and archaic power, looking at geology, resources of power, materiality of technology and the geopolitical concerns with our future use of technology. I am interested in creating images through the construction and deconstruction of digital photographs, coding and unintentional errors that occur in our technological experiences. The work will consists of digitally rendered sculptural objects made from coal from a local quarry in Scotland, combined with my glitched photographic works. 

Powering the Cloud

Inspired by digitally rendered designs in previous collections of work, these are the first editions of my 'Digital Fossil' sculptures created using resin and bronze materials cast from found rocks. The digital glitch element has been added to the resin sculpture on a laminated film.

Sculptural Works

I propose to create sculptural works in direct response to geological and urban landscapes. The idea that these large digital fossils from the future stand deliberately in awkward and unhelpful situations means that the viewer is not only encouraged to notice them, to be seduced by the digital visuals but equally consider an awareness of the impact our technologies may have on the landscape and environment around us. 

I am interested in finding locations that have a historic or geological interest where once there may have been a bunker, a disused quarry, a commercial data factory, a prehistoric cave or an archaeological site. Derelict sites with remains of industry, especially related to technology, would be really interesting to respond to creating installation work perhaps with sculpture, projection and sound work combined.

Modern architecture and busy city streets could also be another location where future fossils could turn up unexpectedly, trying to blend in and react with the power, energy, light and constant digital engagement suggesting a battle between the natural world and technological culture. These varying landscapes would affect how the sculptures are constructed and presented either remotely or placed back into the landscape the original source material came from.

Fossilised Technology - Urban

I propose to create sculptural works in direct response to geological and urban landscapes. The idea that these large digital fossils from the future stand deliberately in awkward and unhelpful situations means that the viewer is not only encouraged to notice them, to be seduced by the digital visuals but equally consider an awareness of the impact our technologies may have on the landscape and environment around us. 

I am interested in finding locations that have a historic or geological interest where once there may have been a bunker, a disused quarry, a commercial data factory, a prehistoric cave or an archaeological site. Derelict sites with remains of industry, especially related to technology, would be really interesting to respond to creating installation work perhaps with sculpture, projection and sound work combined.

Modern architecture and busy city streets could also be another location where future fossils could turn up unexpectedly, trying to blend in and react with the power, energy, light and constant digital engagement suggesting a battle between the natural world and technological culture. These varying landscapes would affect how the sculptures are constructed and presented either remotely or placed back into the landscape the original source material came from.




  

Fossilised Technology - Nature

The following collections of digital collage works create a visceral interpretstion of fossilised technology and future dystopian landscapes of digital culture. They explore the technological sublime and its contradictions with nature creating hybrid ecologies. 

These works have been created digitally using photographs and digital sofware programnes to intergrate layers, texture, colour and line. I would like to develop these collections by using alternative printing techniques such as screen-print or riso printng and to explore the concept of the ‘bad copy’ and degradation of the digital to complement my sculptural artefacts. Using these techniques would, through purposeful repetition, erase detail and fade colours representing how materiality of technology would change and adapt over time to the environment.

Further development and experimentation with print, etch and collage also creates opportunities to replicate natural formations, erostion and wrapping of layers over time through dendrochronology.


Techno Fossils

My practice began creating work with new media technologies through the construction and deconstruction of digital imagery, coding and unintentional errors that occur in our technological experiences. I question the shape and form of digital culture and how this could be represented when it’s forced to slow down making us pause. I create work that goes against a logical order, that interprets the moments a ‘pure’ digital system can stretch, navigate and reveal its nonsense within a physical space even away from switched off devices. My research has developed through ongoing explorations connecting digital culture, ecology, geological deep time and the future use and sustainability of technology.  

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The Beautiful Error