Techno Dreaming (2024—ongoing)

A series of HD video works relating to accompanying groups of paintings that imagine a new form naturalism, caught between the real and imagined. The visual fragments that make up these works have been ‘dreamt’ by customised generative AI tools using a database of imagery and video captured first-hand by the artist.

Through a unique process that begins with plein-air digital recordings of flowers, ferns and skies—a thriving Baroque world is created through the many translations between photogrammetry, AI algorithms and physical painting.

These works are presented as HD video works and also distributed on-chain as an ERC721 contract.

Techno Dreaming, 2024. HD video (H.264), 4K. 2min 7 sec infinite loop. Vertical format. Edition of 5 + 2AP

Sky Sculpture (2017—ongoing)

‘Sky Sculpture’ is an ongoing series of works begun in 2017—outputted in various modes such including video, installation, physical sculpture, and AR—and also distributed on-chain via the artist pseudonym Sculpture.eth.

The common starting point for these pieces is a series of 3D scans of sculpted paint, flowers, rock and fauna. These are objects that have been found or sculpted in the geographic location from which an accompanying video and audio recording is taken—elements such as the moving sky and birdsong record that same moment in time. The result is a unique form of contemporary landscape and an exploration of the linkage between digital and physical forms and their various Simulacra. In many of these works a physical incarnation of the same form is created alongside its digital peer—extending the transference of form from physical to digital and back to physical again.

The ‘Sky Sculpture’ works have been exhibited at Art Basel Hong Kong; Art21, Shanghai; Taipei Dangdai; CADAF Paris; SARP, Sicily; and at various galleries in New York, Los Angeles, London, Berlin, Singapore, Sydney, and Auckland. Versions of this project have also been commissioned by Samsung and Eurostar. There is a permanent large-scale sculptural commission at the Ghenthouse in Ghent, New York.

Sky Sculpture (New York/Vienna), 2023-4. HD video (H.264)/NFT, 1920 x 1080. 1min infinite loop. Vertical format. Edition of 5 + 2AP. Installation view (HD projection, water tank), SARP Gallery, Sicily

Sky sculpture (Peony, Vienna/Ghent), 2022, Stainless Steel 30″H x 30″W x30″D | HD video (H.264), 1980 x 1080. 53 sec loop. Vertical format. Edition of 1. Ghent Sculptural Commission, Ghent, New York.

Sky Sculpture (Sterkfontein/Vienna/Sicily), 2022. HD video (H.264)/NFT, 1920 x 1080. 1min infinite loop. Vertical format.
Edition of 5 + 2AP | LED floor and wall screens installation. 6m x 6m

Sky Sculpture (Melbourne/Vienna, October 10, 14:17 CEST), 2021. HD video (H.264)/NFT, 1980 x 1080. 1min infinite loop. Vertical format.
Edition of 3

Sky sculpture (Peonies/Belvedere,Vienna—May 19, 20:37 CEST), 2021. HD video (H.264), 1980 x 1080. 1min loop. Vertical format.
Edition of 1

Sky sculpture (Peonies/Vienna, May 19, 20:34 CEST), 2020. HD video (H.264), 1980 x 1080. 53 sec loop. Vertical format.
Edition of 3.

Sky sculpture (Massachusetts), 2020. HD video (H.264), 1980 x 1080. 1min 20 sec loop. Vertical format & PLA filament, rock, mica. 17.9 x 15.4 x 25cm. Edition of 1.

Sky sculpture (Glimmer), 2020. HD video (H.264), 1980 x 1080. 1min 20 sec loop. Vertical format. Edition of 3.

Sky sculpture #2, 2017. HD video (H.264), 1980 x 1080. 58 sec loop. Vertical format. Edition of 3.

Hot Wallpapers (2012—2022)

In 2012 I created an exhibition titled ‘Hot Wallpapers’. The works created in Hot Wallpapers began with a downloaded set of wallpapers taken from a popular tablet device released in 2012 . Designed to be used as an official preloaded wallpaper set for a Google Nexus 7 Tablet, these default images have become widely shared and recognisable; an aesthetic shared as part of a collective memory.

Using the images downloaded from the default Android wallpaper pack, I created altered painting versions of those images. I then documented those physical paintings and ‘repacked’ the images as a new Zip file. Of course, it was 2012 and no collectors wanted to take ownership of that Zip file. But in 2015 a protocol called ‘Ascribe’ came along and changed the transactional nature of digital files by allowing to ‘register’ works on-chain on Bitcoin creating a kind of decentralised proof of ownership. An edition of the ‘Hot Wallpapers’ Zip file was created and registered on the Bitcoin protocol.

Coincidentally, around this time I had a meeting with a curator about another project. He had shown me his phone and the screensaver was none other than an image from that show- repurposed as a screensaver! So this work had come full circle whereby the ‘digital copy of the physical incarnation of the digital source’ had returned to its native form as a digital screensaver. I offered to send him a copy of the edition, which I did via the Ascribe protocol but he never ‘accepted’ ownership from his side because essentially in 2015 digital ownership and materiality was not a ‘native’ state of being.

Fast forward to 2022 and were are at an art fair together and we get to taking about this. He pulled out his phone and find the email from 2015 still sitting there but the interface for accessing the ownership change had long since gone. So the edition still exists as a registered work on Bitcoin but only one edition transferred ownership and that was to myself as a test.

Ultimately these works will be migrated to Etheruem at some point in the future using the Ethereum address Painting.eth. In the meantime an anniversary set of ‘Hot Wallpapers’ paintings were created in 2022 (from the latest 2022 Android release) to join this archive and create a second ZIP file.

hyper/links (2011—2012)

hyper/links was a series of large-scale wall paintings based on QR codes, the first iteration being present as a solo exhibition at the Physics Room (New Zealand) in 2011. This specific type of two-dimensional barcode has the potential to be read by smart phones, which are enable with freely downloadable software. Once enabled these barcodes direct the viewer to a specific web address. The reproduction of these barcodes within the catalogue documentation allows the reader to activate them. The coding types ranged from standard black and white version (QR Code 2005) to Microsoft’s proprietary version (High Capacity Color Barcode) in CMYK.

Each code referenced an existing artwork archived within a museum collection website—the hyper link directing to a specific webpage. The size of the code as presented in the space is the same as the painting or object that code references. Part of this work is the self-erasure when HTML links are deleted or moved over time.

Other iterations of this piece include Blue Poles (2011), vinyl on wall presented at the Waikato Museum, New Zealand—which was the winning work in the National Contemporary Art Award in 2011. Later iterations include CASS at the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū in 2012.