Skip to content

System and Chance

This theme dumbfound me at first, and after a few different ideas i came up with this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellismartin93/sets/72157629131516997/

The link directs you to the images made from burning different candle wax onto canvas, i first melted the end of the wax letters and stuck that to the canvas and lit the string and let it burn away and melt into whatever it would. I also tilted the canvas to see how the wax would move. I then decided to do something on a larger scale and used card with a candle attached above and used a blowtorch, melting it and letting it drip onto the card below making whatever shape it desired.
I decided this wasn’t as thrilling and imaginative as i had thought before i started so i chose to start the project again.

I started this by dropping food colouring in my sketchbook and then closing to create a mirror image of the colouring, creating a random shape.
From that shape i looked for something within and developed from there on.

Systems and Chance

Systems and Chance

Systems and Chance

I have created two A3 drawings using a system which involves a random number generator to determine composition and to some degree, the content. This gave an element of chance as I could not be sure what they would turn out like. The black and white drawing has used less chance as I controlled this one more myself.

Final Piece 1- Self Portrait and Others

Final Piece 2- Leah Jane Blake

Systems and Chance: Self Portrait

I began this project by taking a photo of myself everyday. From one of the photos sparked the idea of creating a series of self-portraits that would show movement. This is the outcome…

Systems and Chance-Face’s of Islington

Final Piece

More photos from the same series

Stalking Mrs C

Stalking Mrs C Slideshow

For my Systems & Chance project, I took a series of “surveillance” type photos of a friend over the period of a few days & decided to present them as a slideshow.

Systems and Chance

Daffodils and Tulips
Daffodils&Tulips/QuickTime/9.20MB/4:28minutes

Flickr Photographs

Daffodils

Tulips

Daffodils and Tulips

Systems and Chance
A set of photographs, taken over the duration of 9 days showing the life cycle of a bunch of daffodils and tulips. I used QuickTime to create a 5 minute slideshow showing some of the beautiful photographs I have taken of the daffodils and tulips from the beginning of their life right till the very end. I also created a set of three photographs which show the flowers day by day (left to right) over the duration of 9 days.

System and Chance


Grid/QuickTime/38MB/0:03secs


Growing trees/QuickTime/2.37MB/0:01sec


Growing trees 2/QuickTime/1.88MB/0:00sec

Blink and you’ll miss it!

These are three very short videos in a stop motion animation showing the progress of the iPad applications ‘Arttree’ and ‘Substrate’ these are both random generation apps that are given a certain set of instructions to use to help them generate images.


These are photos taken in the same place on the same day with pictures of a selected location of things in the area.


\

My theme was popular culture mixed with textile. I wanted to bring something with traditional backgrounds and run them alongside something relatively modern. I started by drawing and sketching in my sketchbook and then applying the illustrations I had created to a textile base. My main technique was embroidery, which is quite a traditional application of stitch work. The first piece of embroidery I did for this project was stitch onto cardboard, I wanted to make a contrast between the perfect line created by the thread and the rough almost scrap of the cardboard. I then went on to stitch onto more cardboard and I eventually progressed onto fabric. Embroidery is mostly seen as a twee hobby, I wanted to add a darker edge to the technique, not reinventing it but taking something traditional and changing it into something that was non traditional, something that wouldn’t necessarily be linked to embroidery and textile.

Discord & Decoration

The initial theme I chose was Discord. Discord relates to a lack of harmony in the world around us, a disagreement among those expected to cooperate or a cacophony or jarring of sound. Conflict can arise when discord is stirred between religions, communities and within ourselves. Discord can lead to chaos and different forms of discord are often presented clearly in nature and its representation in art. From quarrelling neighbours to political regimes that provoke uprising, discord in our world has led in some nations to all out war.

I began working with the issues of discord and translate them into something beauteous. Busy patterns of wallpaper or fabrics layered together, to shapes created by light and shadow, the colours and patterns of objects: the shadows they make, and the spaces around them, have inspired many to utilise these traits in creating a decorative piece.

Combining these themes of Decoration & Discord, I initially wanted to communicate important issues through a visual design and/or repeat pattern. But to aestheticise violence, bloodshed, disorder or brutality raises other issues. Others may interpret this work to be something of deeper meaning, rather than something that just pleases the eye. Papered walls have always ‘talked’, but the involvement of contemporary design engages the viewer in a radically different dialogue – one that employs some aspects of the traditional visual language of wallpaper, but also uses its power to challenge, oppose and disturb.

Wallpaper’s perceived function is thereby subverted, causing anxiety and unease. However, in using wallpaper to reflect Western culture I aspire to reveal an uncomfortable truth or, by repeating them, rendering them acceptable.

I have found a selection of images and photographs from the media coverage within the past year that depicts varying scenes of disruption or devastation. By either re-appropriating these scenes or creating new designs from elements within them, I have created a series of repeating patterns.