Thursday 5 December 2013

Drawings for Silk Screen





Silk Screen

Our new project is a silk screen based brief looking at the theme of protest. After much research i decided to look at the necessity of protest in modern society and how people  in my own country seems to have forgotten the importance of this.

My work is a  response to Ireland's recent economic recession and the apparent reluctance of the nation towards protest or demonstrations. This reluctance is in direct contrast to the nation’s cultural heritage as the pioneers of revolutionary protest methods such as the 1913 lockouts and innovators of peaceful consumer activism such as the act of boycotting.  Pride in ourselves as a nation, working class ideals and our wiliness to make our voices heard were the driving forces behind such innovate and organised demonstrations. We can see a striking polarity with these acts within our society today. We are all willing to speak to each other on the subject of our discontent yet there are very little of us willing to make our voices heard in the form of protest, walkouts or boycotting. In my research I am inquiring if our nation’s cultural identity and therefore our nations pride is diminishing.

The symbol of the stag is a traditional symbol of Irish pride. In this work the use of the stag was used to represent not just the diminishment of this nations pride but also, as the stag was once the image imprinted on the Punt, as a symbol of the decline of our economy. This is also the case with the image of the stags skull married with the Gaelic word for pride ‘BrĂ³d’  The news headlines are from various national newspapers which relate to my topic of investigation which we as a nation seem to ignore daily. This work is the first in a series in which I will continue to investigate.

Thursday 14 November 2013

TURING



Charcoal and pencil drawings of Alan Turing




Alan Turing - Drawing and Digital

A few images based on drawings of the pioneer of the modern computer, Alan Turing.

Briefly put Turing was an English mathematical genius who famously cracked the Nazi enigma machine codes and in turn wrote unbreakable codes for the Allies during WWII. He pioneered computer programming and is believed to have been among the first to formulate the idea of Artificial Intelligence.
Soon after the war he was persecuted because of his homosexuality.He was convicted  in the U.K. for "Homosexual Conduct" in 1952. He was forced to endure chemical castration as a "treatment" which, as a known side effect, led to him to have extreme bouts of depression. Two years after his conviction Turing apparently committed suicide by taking two bites from an apple which was dipped in cyanide.(this has been rumored to be the inspiration for the Apple Industries logo)
Turing, despite being awarded an OBE for his wartime work, was obviously not appreciated in his time . My previous investigations led me to look at AI which led me to research Turing. In my investigation i couldn't help but wonder, if there ever is a true A.I. how would it view someone like Turing? Would he be just a step in AI evolution or would he, as the father of computer programs, be viewed as a sort of demi god?