human : artist
Derby Daze [squareformat] is a collection of square-format images attempting to capture the dynamism and sense of speed at track level in roller derby.
This EPUB version is available on the iTunes / iBooks Store, and can be read on Mac or iPad. It includes the ability to show or hide image metadata globally, or on an image-by-image basis.
A busy week in every way. Here’s the latest state of the UWS piece:
Now I’ve got to figure out the armature, and then do the other side.
The update to The Metaning went live, and progress has continued on Derby Daze.
The big task this week was working on a new grant application. Fingers crossed, it’ll get me the finance to make my work for Sculpture By The Sea.
Matt Godden is an Australian artist with a wide-ranging practice covering sculpture, photography and graphic novels.
He explores various ideas through these different mediums. In sculpture, his work is primarily concerned with concepts of restriction and the enablement it provides, and the material beauty of obsolete discarded technology, especially when used in an organic context. His photographic work has varied from the visceral and personal of his medically-themed Nervous Spaces project, through to a long-term obsession with uncovering the unseeable geometry of urban landscapes, as revealed in panoramic imagery. In graphic novels, Matt takes advantage of the opportunity to combine unambiguous narrative with imagery, exploring ideas about technology, society and the possibilities of a post-biological human future in Surfing The Deathline, and the experience of the artist in the autobiographical work The Metaning.
Matt has a Bachelor of Fine Art in Sculpture from the National Art School, where he was awarded the Sydney Olympic Park Sculpture Residency, and is a past recipient of the Australia Council’s ArtStart Grant.
His background is in design, mac-geekery, and education – including teaching at the Art Gallery of NSW as a part of the 2007 Osamu Tezuka exhibition.
2018
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2007
2006
St Vincent’s Hospital
St Vincent’s Private Clinic
Various private collections
2013: The Australia Council ArtStart Grant
2011: National Art School Sydney Olympic Park Sculpture Residency
2009: National Art School Second Year Art History & Theory Prize
2007: Ledger Awards (peer-reviewed Australian sequential art awards) for work published in 2006. Finalist for:
2002: TAFE Sydney Institute Cultural Diversity & Harmony Digital Arts & Media Prize
2019: Artist In Residence, Noosa Library Makerspace.
2018: Artist In Residence, Cooroy Library Makerspace.
2012: The Armoury, Sydney Olympic Park.
2013:
2012: Bachelor of Fine Art – National Art School
2003: Certificate IV Workplace Training & Assessment – Pivotal (Aust) Pty Ltd
2002: Certificate IV Digital Arts & Media with Distinction – Design Centre Enmore (TAFE)
1995: N.E.I.S Small Business Management – The Centre for Wholesale & Retail Training
1992: HSC – A school I’m not going to give credit to.
It’s been a great week for progress. I’ve picked up a whole bunch of extra motherboards from a couple of suppliers and commenced work on the UWS sculpture. In addition to this, I bought all the fixings used to connect them together, and learned a new aesthetic principle to guide my further works. The way my circuit board works are held together, is with thin threaded rod or long bolts, with nylock nuts and washers. These terminate in little dome nuts on the outward viewer facing surface. Previously, these were all the same outer size, however the bulk dome nuts I ordered from a local bulk supplier were a whole spanner size larger on the outside, while having the same inner thread size. I thought this was going to look unbalanced, but when combined with the washers they supplied, which were also larger diameter, it actually works a lot better. What had previously just been a functional support which ended in the dome, now has this deliberate appearance where it’s thickest at the end, and then tapers down through the nylock nut, to the threaded rod.
Just one of those wonderful surprises that turn up when unlooked for.
Due to the new arrivals of numerous blue motherboards, my plans for the colour scheme of the work have changed somewhat. I’d previously planned to have a tree with purple leaves, sitting on a patch of gold, with black & green as the rest of the colours of the rock. Now that I’ve got ten blues, four purples and a red, the plan is to have the tree grow out of the red one with the purples around it, radiating out to blue. The leaves now can be gold, which makes a certain sense as they’ll be the most beautiful, eye-catching part.
Other developments, I’ve submitted an update to The Metaning, which enables panel numbering via a setting that the user can switch on or off – better yet, the setting is remembered between reads.
Another project on the EPUB front, my first book of roller derby photography is in development – Derby Daze [squareformat], a selection of images which worked in the square cropped format.
It’s been a fantastic week. I’ve found a new source for computer motherboards, who’s happy to keep stockpiling for me, and I finally cracked a web design thing I’ve been meaning to learn for a long time – using jQuery to set and retrieve cookies.
What this brings is the ability to do things like switching between versions of artwork within The Metaning, as well as globally switching things like captions on or off. Having implemented the captions changeable version, the effect is subtle, and beautiful, with the numbers fading in as the page flip is completed.
I’m starting work on another photography EPUB, this one packaging he square cropped images from the roller derby shoots I did.
I’m also close to locking down the final form of the UWS sculpture.
A frustrating week of trying to get the computer motherboards from the local repair guy. After multiple trips around the block to his shop, the effort finally netted a grand total of 3. I need to find a better and more efficient way of doing this, though I suspect going to the computer shops is still going to be the way to get the materials I need.
With a little over 2 months left to complete the work, I think I’m going to stop working on Surfing The Deathline 4 for a bit, and get the UWS sculpture out of the way, at least so that I’m not worrying about it.
So the plan for now is:
Once that’s done, I’m thinking that I’ll start releasing an episode of Surfing The Deathline every month, which would give me 3 months to get book 4 finished, and take me through to the end of the ArtStart grant.
The other big news is that I’m going to New Zealand in April for 3 days, to visit Gibbs Farm, one of the largest private outdoor sculpture collections in the world.
Occasionally, I like to engage in a bit of recreational tech prognostication, and with the current hubbub over what Apple will do next, it seems there’s a considerable slice of the world who thinks the next big thing is a “smart” watch.
This is dumb.
Brutally dumb.
Apple, in its current aesthetic is a premium product company. If they are going to make a product, it will feel like the most materially luxurious version of that product. Hence the metal and glass design language they’ve adopted over the past few years.
Here’s the thing, most people don’t wear watches any more. They’ve become an enthusiast device, and the premium end of the market is mechanical. Mechanical to the point of fetishising that very nature, so that whole new classes of designs and movements are being invented, creating even more baroque ways to enable accurate progression via purely mechanical means. The joy of the modern watch is to wear a mechanical engine on your wrist.
That leaves the other wrist. Whatever Apple is working on, will be something you’d keep on your wrist while NOT wearing a watch. It will not be a portal to your phone, it will probably not have a screen at all. My bet, it’s going to be a motion recorder, like fitbit, which allows you to log and stream all your movement for interactivity like a wiimote.
More importantly, it also acts as a wearable passcode key for all your devices. Your mac unlocks when you approach, and locks again when you leave, your phone and tablet unlock when you pick them up, and it talks to iBeacon-using smart house devices (ie those who will fill the void left by NEST becoming a pariah for joining Google) around your house for smart house integration. iBeacon will be the new feature for home environment and control devices, the way AirPrint became a must-have for printers. It’ll be waterproof, and charge inductively.
There is no “how do I tell the time on my wrist” problem to be solved. There is no “how do I get a small music player for while I’m exercising” problem to be solved. There is no “I want to see my email but not take my phone out of my pocket” problem to solve, no actual people think like that. All the “problems” current smart watches “solve” were invented post-hoc purely to justify the concept of the “smart watch”.
Whatever it is, it won’t solve a glaring problem you, or anyone else thinks you have. It will solve problems that were so constant, so low level so much a part of the background friction of your life, that you never recognised them for what they were.
Here’s an article on an Apple patent for for doing one of the things I mentioned.
A productive week. Work has continued on Surfing The Deathline book 4, and I put a submission in to Allen & Unwin to publish a print version of The Metaning.
Unfortunately, the recycling company I was talking to about getting computer motherboards didn’t have any available, however my local computer repair shop does have some. So, I’m going to be able to pick a bunch up from him next week. I also hauled all my leftover boards up from the garage, and was shocked at the treasure trove I forgot I had. In addition to a bunch of dark green, I’ve got a couple of gold, some orangish-black with gold tracery, and 4 in iridescent pinkish-purple, as well as a whole bunch of little cards. I also managed to snag a couple of metres of heavy duty multi-strand solid core copper wire, which I’ll be able to use for the anchors at the base of the pipes making up the tree.
It’s like christmas. So, theres a bunch of cleaning to do on them, and I can start with arranging to figure out the basic shape for the work.
Progress made this week on the eWaste issue. I may have a line with a supplier who asked me to send them a list of what I needed, and they would see what was possible up the line. Hopefully that’ll yield something.
Most of the week has been spent on Surfing The Deathine cleanups on the large roughs, which has seen a lot of progress after laying fallow for ages.
