A project from last year that I didn’t get around to posting here until now. Follow the link and read the Q&A then click the link to HP’s facebook page to see all 6 downloadable wallpapers.

I contributed some art to this really great collaborative project called “Join the Dots” (the brainchild of Dixon Baxi). Check out the entire project.

Dec ‘10 IEEE Spectrum Magazine.

Editorial Illustration for [Dec10] Scientific American Magazine.
Title: “A Geometric Theory of Everything”

Editorial Illustration for [Dec10/Jan11] Out Magazine.
Title: Alternate Reality–Surveillance Porn after Clementi

New Art Show

The Chinese Encyclopedia

Jennifer Dalton, Mike Estabrook, Chad Hagen and
Paho Mann

Curated by Susan Thompson

Exhibition Dates: November 6 – December 4, 2010
Opening Reception: Saturday, November 6th, 4 – 6.30pm

Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Sunday, 12 - 6pm

For more information and visuals, please contact the curator: Susan Thompson susanthompson1@gmail.com

A character in a Borges story finds an old Chinese encyclopedia that presents a strange taxonomy of animals, dividing them into the following categories:

(a) belonging to the Emperor
(b) embalmed
(c) tame
(d) suckling pigs
(e) sirens
(f) fabulous
(g) stray dogs
(h) included in the present classification
(i) frenzied
(j) innumerable
(k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush
(l) et cetera
(m) having just broken the water pitcher
(n) that from a long way off look like flies

   

This bizarre classification system, or rather the amusement evoked when reading it, was the inspiration for Michel Foucault’s The Order of Things, a work that indicts accepted systems of organizing, classifying, and arranging, ultimately concluding that all organizational systems are just as ridiculous as the list given above. Such arbitrary criteria and absurdly limited categories highlight the ways in which meaning is constructed within traditional categorical systems and ask us to question the meanings that inhere to these accepted systems of thought.

This show calls attention to the various ways in which objects and information are given meaning through association and representation. The artists are interested in how information is filtered and presented. They formulate new structural systems, undermine pre-existing structures, or simply reveal the absurdity of the very concept of structure. They allow for the possibility of new categories to rise amongst the old and fill in the gaps of the excluded by forging new associational axes.

Mike Estabrook illustrates words as they are defined by their Google Images results. “What does “disaster” look like?” he asks, though the answer he presents has been processed through algorithms. Paho Mann allows the viewer to sift through his belongings electronically by making selections within a database. A possible grouping produced by this system might include all items that are the size of a toaster oven and located in the linen closet. The slickly-designed infographics of Chad Hagen seem to make easy sense out of what must be complex data. Only after a few moments does the viewer realize that the colorful shapes don’t actually refer to anything outside themselves. There is order without content. In a game of “would you rather,” Jennifer Dalton makes the viewer self-define by selecting from severely limited (and less-than-ideal) options. Elsewhere, she illustrates the disparity of success between men and women in the art world, giving form to discouraging data.

An illustration I created for the 10.31.10 New York Times Magazine. [right panel]

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