weloveyourbooks

check out another great show from Emma Powell and Melanie Bush from we love your books - the show is on the theme of intersect http://rejectamenta.com/wlyb/intersect-2017/  if you want a copy download the jpeg but if you would like a pdf just contact me via twitter @BicknellLes 

drawingtomakesenseoftheworld

more drawings in an attempt to rethink or plan the nets - added the image of book structures so the idea of maybe not making sense in terms of being built in the mind could be a part of the work. As ever the tangram is a way of thinking out this puzzle part of the project.

thefirstmechanicalcut

After much learning with illustrator the lazer cutting tests for the Goldlay Square commission look good - really pleased with how the references have become heightened - the  images of books opening and cell structures 'pop' out of the design. Also when you have a physical thing rather than the digital you really get a sense of the scale. Other physical aspects of its materiality become obvious such as how the design creates excellent shadows.

tessellationtessellationtessellation

Spent the day focused on building Penrose tessellations for the Goldlay Square commission. Working with illustrator to create vector drawings that combine the history of the site - the cell like structures that come from the seed/growth/allotment reference and the open book structures that are derived from the book repository and printers. I really like that the more one looks at the design one can see patterns within patterns and the negative spaces provide a place of play. 

bookartbookartabookaboutbookart

I have a piece of writing in the excellent publication that is the Artist's Book YearBook. unfoldingthinking - Making Book Art with Scientists, is a short piece where I reflect on my recent artist’s residency at the Centre for Doctoral Training in Nanoscience and Technology at Cambridge University, UK. The publication as a whole is excellent - intellegent and incisive texts alongside important information about whats going on in the book art world - pre order here - http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/publications/artists-book-yearbook.html I'm particulary looking forward to reading Egidija Čiricaitė piece which considers In the Space of Time as she is an alumni of the Book arts Course at Camberwell. Meanwhile a weekend of films - The Box - oddly slow low-fi film with a random alien inspired sci-fi moral dilemma at its heart. Their Finest - jolly japes from Bill Nighy and Brits crew. The Dinner - exciting writing exploring what would you give away to do the right thing. Colossal https://solarmoviez.to/movie/colossal-20521/790788-6/watching.html is an intensely dark film about control and power.

growthgrowngrowingcontainer

Working on the background research for Goldlay Sq in Chelmsford. Continuing the idea of information and communication whilst making connections with the history of the site.  This has taken two more paths. In the process of the space becoming a place it was the site of an allotment. I have been thinking about the material contained within plant matter. Looking at cell structures and the process of growth. Words such as storage, connections, food and seed are spinning around my head. This is a fairly underlying concept and is at the root of the idea of existence and evolution - this has taken me into the world of Ernst Haeckel. Information and embedded knowledge has thrown up numbers, patterns and sacred geometry. On the other hand the library storage facility and the idea of book have resurfaced. I started to build and draw book structures whilst thinking about the question - What does information look like? The book as an image standing in for knowledge, a container of information, documented and disseminating. To disseminate is to "spread abroad as though sowing seed. The two ideas mesh and point to fundamentals - the building blocks of the material around us.

anewformofsitting

almost a whole day of hand cutting paper to get an idea of potential shadows in what I am now calling proto crystal seating structures - no not really. Reminds me of Bruce McLean's work - Pose Work for Plinths but possibly more casual!

sunshineonmyshouldersratherthananniessong

some films - If you like your films glacially slow infused with the intricacies of Japanese gangster culture of  respect but interspersed with intense violence then Beyond Outrage is for you. Meanwhile - great John Denver tracks but unsure if all the scrabbling around in the dirt amounted to much in Free fire, I kind of knew it would be but First Kill is just tiresome, The Mummy is just why? 

foldingandfinding

continuing to extend the idea of nets, crystals and systems. A visit to look at the potential of a plasma cutter at http://www.steelsculptures.co.uk/ has led to thoughts of combining the nets with tessellated patterns. The pieces would be a combination of both geometric art piece and seating - shadows have great potential - aesthetically pleasing and useful! Meanwhile collating distances to everywhere from Chelmsford. The signpost/distance idea is fairly straightforward but rather than buying actual signs they could be cut and galvanised to last forever. I love the idea that everyday the individual looking at the posts will consider their physical place in the world, connecting and joining them to others.

netgymnastics

the mental gymnastics that occurs in the mind when looking at a geometry net is intriguing and something that I've spent the day working on. https://www.mathsisfun.com/definitions/net.html  The galena crystal structure was the jumping off point for this work, also the idea of a plan and how it is interpreted - it would be interesting to have the drawings of nets and actual solid structures within the space - there could be a form of game play - working out what the net would make and then which it matches to.

convergentcrystalhistory

convergence - today the various strands of research have merged - from the book repository, thinking about the idea of communication of knowledge and how we communicate - The Marconi Wireless factory is/was just around the corner and I started to reflect on all the places messages were sent to and from and how far away places were/are - signposts - an image from my family album - far right is my Uncle Reg my great Aunt Floss who is sitting on his right, always with her handbag. He worked at GEC and I once made a cats whisker radio set with him - a proto transmitter - the crystal was galena, which has an isometric structure so the idea using symmetric crystal structures to exploring moulds and the positive and negative is in the air.