Analog Augmented Reality

My exploration of Augmented Reality generated an analog series of collages that utilize similar principles in terms of formal composition. Employing an image of a sculpture as if it were an AR marker, I cut out the shape and slid in its place an alternate image – generally an inkjet proof of a painting or some other piece of 2D studio ephemera. (All of these materials are studio detritus, so there is an element of aesthetic upcycling, as well.)

The visual result is a masked painting that sits in a sculptural space. The painting element of the collage achieves pictorial depth by appearing to exist in the round.

Considered in the vernacular of Augmented Reality, this particular collage strategy represents a bit of conjecture about the functioning of perception. The image that is inserted into an Augmented Reality context exists only in the viewer’s device – their cell phone or tablet.

Metaphorically, I see this device as akin to consciousness or the perceptual apparatus through which one makes sense of the world. In this analogy, the AR overlay might be a scrim of prior experience/expectation that modifies perception. This idea of acknowledging pre-loaded content into image-making also finds expression in my use of magazine pages as a support for painting. Instead of using fresh white paper or canvas – which might imply perfection, or that the image arises out of the void – I frequently use a ground that already supports an image – a populated tabula rasa – to make the point that an image and the perception of an image are conditional and cumulative.

Analog AR: shocked

Analog AR: crawsick

Analog AR: darling

Analog AR: knockkneed

Analog AR: joust

Analog AR: medley

Analog AR: bodies

Analog AR: wheysour

Analog AR: genitive

Analog AR: matris

Analog AR: ashamed

Analog AR: Columbanus

Analog AR: drained

Analog AR: willing

Analog AR: weary

Analog AR: swaddling

Analog AR: palaces

Analog AR: childhood

Analog AR: gabbling

Analog AR: buckled

Analog AR: seeds

Analog AR: randy

Analog AR: feelers

Analog AR: handbook

Analog AR: darkness

Analog AR: feeding

Analog AR: sheltered

Analog AR: itself

Analog AR: delicate

Analog AR: movement

Analog AR: watery

Analog AR: gorescarred

Analog AR: victory

Analog AR: date

Analog AR: fabled

Analog AR: curve

Analog AR: Cochrane

Analog AR: sweettoned

Analog AR: "joined"

Analog AR: "twelfth"

Analog AR: "rib"

Analog AR: "flapping"

Analog AR: "side"

Analog AR: "goats"

Analog AR: "snapshot"

Analog AR: "breastbone"

Analog AR: "unlace"

Analog AR: "exposure"

Analog AR: "unclipped"

Analog AR: "spur"

Analog AR: "face"

Analog AR: "bob"

Analog AR: "roll"

Remade Readymades: "creek"

Remade Readymades: "nodded"

Remade Readymades: "Dieu"

Remade Readymades: "verge"

Remade Readymades: "stars"

Remade Readymades: "rare"

This work was featured on the back cover of the premiere issue of The Stand Newspaper, the latest project of gallerist, artist and impresario for the outsider Lori Der Hagopian.

Remade Readymades: "pope"

Remade Readymades: "rite"

Remade Readymades: "growth"

"erased duchamp"

MoMA’s Dada exhibition (closing Sept. 11), provides the foundational pedestal for a work I’ve long sought to feature. In the great and auspicious tradition of Robert Rauschenberg’s Erased de Kooning Drawing (1953), Marcel Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q. (1919) and, of course, the generator of it all, Leonardo and his Mona Lisa (1503-1507)...I humbly request that the viewer consider today’s post an unmade readymade.

Update: Generous elucidation on this piece at HotLink. Thanks!