140 Characters or Less.

This picture above is 140 Characters or less. During my routines for making, producing, thinking about making and creating, I find myself reverting to this ‘doodle’ as a critique of our current relationship, but more so, our dependency on devices.

140 Characters or Less is a concept.

 

The stylisation fits with how my hand moves in real-time. The study of how we move in this work highlights culture affecting nature. I’m thinking of producing some Rachel Whiteread style print (see fig. 1) where a thin layer of laser cut wood is pressed onto printing paper. Although simple outlines, a ballpoint rolling across a surface, lines converge, cross, and overlap do so in the same way, we do when we meander and roam or navigate the busy streets. This connection is vital if we see ourselves physically changed in our posture and approach to daily living, walking, and standing.

 

We cannot consider what it is to have a relationship with a screen without understanding its dynamics, the purpose of technology in our lives and the onset of the 4th industrial revolution, which is built upon both complicit and passive permissions to feed the algorithms. Algorithms that will advance what the British government describe as “The Fourth Industrial Revolution is of a scale, speed and complexity that is unprecedented. It is characterised by a fusion of technologies – such as artificial intelligence, gene editing and advanced robotics –blurring the physical, digital and biological worlds. It will disrupt nearly every industry in every country, creating new opportunities and challenges for people, places and businesses to which we must respond.”[1] So, in the way that previous revolutions have opened us up to new ways of being, we already can see that from an ontological perspective, we can symbolise the effects produced by that which not only informs our lives but also affects how we even stand.

Fig. 1, Rachel Whiteread

Ringmark (2010)

0.8mm laser-cut stained-black plywood mounted on Heritage Conservation board

61 x 53 cm

[1] H M Government, Policy paper, Regulation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Department for business, Energy and Industrial Stratergy,