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!