I've decided to use electroplating technology to further my ideas about energy flow and transfer. I often draw three dimensionally with clay and so it makes sense to me to think about how I might bring fired clay into the electroplating process. I have now found out that in order to create a surface on my bisque fired ceramics that can undergo electroplating, it is necessary first to coat them with something that can carry an electric current. Looking at industrial processes this seems quite difficult as you need to submerge your object in a bath of electrolytes which then act as catalysts to enable nickel to coat the ceramic material. Once this is done it can be electroplated with the metal of your choice. However I am going to try and short circuit the process and use a graphite spray to coat unfired ceramic material. However there are various sorts and so I am trying a couple of different ones out in order to see what works and I have ordered more graphite power, so that I can also try rubbing it into the surface of forms more directly and then using the spray as a final coat. I like to use graphite as it seems to fit into the extended idea of drawing and I have used it in the past as a lubricant during casting, coating the interior of a plaster mould with graphite powder, so that the cast object could be released easily. I was at that time casting in lead, and it was about 50 years ago, so I'm interested to see how graphite application has changed over the years. Graphite is a crystal allotrope of carbon that can conduct electricity and in order for it to do that, graphite powder can be mixed with a binder such as an acrylic glaze to make a conductive paint. Apparently there is a commercial version of this material called 'wire glue' available which is used for no-solder electrical connections but I'm initially going to look at graphite spray as I want to keep the surface as thin as possible, so that the texture of the fired clay is not lost. As I'm very much a low technology person I shall just play around with these elements until something happens, it being for myself a process emanating from a form of thinking closer to alchemy than chemistry. If you want to try electroplating yourself there are lots of 'how-to' videos out there.
How to do it at home electroplating videos
However I'm also thinking of diagrams about how electroplating works and how these can be developed metaphorically; in this case I'm thinking about Benjamin Brett's diagrams that emerged from his explanations of the geometry of the unconscious. These thoughts sit alongside memories of Dada diagrams, that remind me that the diagrammatic form is a very persuasive form of visual rhetoric and that we should be able to play with it.
Benjamin Brett
The unconscious geometry of the liquid electrolysis of thought
Francis Picabia, Portrait of Marius de Zayas, 1915
Francis Picabia was a car fanatic, he had the money to buy them and they fascinated him. The diagrammatic drawing 'Portrait of Marius de Zayas' is a crazy diagram of a car's electrical circuitry. The two headlights that hang like bells are linked by a black line circuit diagram and a spark plug is connected into a red line version. Schematic electro-mechanical components and circuitry vitalise a women's anatomy and corset in order to give life to a portrait of the Mexican multi creative Marius de Zayas. Yes of course its nonsense, but it is a nonsense that arises out of an understanding of Pataphysics. Pataphysics has been described as the branch of philosophy that deals with an imaginary realm additional to metaphysics. It has also been described as a "philosophy" of science invented by French writer Alfred Jarry, and it is intended to be a parody of science. Difficult to be simply defined or pinned down, it has also been described as the "science of imaginary solutions".
I like the fact that I have had to mix up a solution in order to achieve my electroplating idea and that I am also trying to acknowledge the science of imaginary solutions.
The electroplating is only one part of the sculptural 'solutions' I'm trying to work with, as I'm trying to build objects in a similar way to how you might write a novel. I've been reading Ali Smith again and I love her way of weaving various stories together and how some voices might just have a page within which to articulate a thought and this can be interjected into a main story line or simply put there as a sort of marker or breathing space that allows another idea to emerge. I see no reason for sculptural objects to also have that sort of complexity.
Drawings for sculpture made to be shown at night
You can just about see that fish tanks sit beneath these drawings for sculptural objects. The images are an attempt to depict how they would be seen at night; these are objects/situations that are designed to both reference furniture and animal forms, the idea being that they give birth to new forms by various processes, including electroplating. I am thinking about this as a type of morphogenesis, or the shaping of organisms by a metaphorical embryological processes of differentiation. The process uses the development of ideas according to the genetic “blueprint” of the initial 'potential' organism, (a drawing) and then it becomes about adapting each object to whatever environmental conditions emerge in the studio, or wherever else I'm drawing or making these objects.
The forms were initially thought through as a series of drawings, but they are now emerging more on their own volition as objects down in the studio. All of them had to be in some way connected to an electrical power source, either to drive an inserted component, such as a TV or computer screen, or to power other things such as crystal sets or an electrical plating set up.
Drawings of ideas for furniture/animal objects
I have already drawn an animation that is designed to be run on embedded screens that sit within these constructions and this has been passed on to someone else who will 'upgrade' it from hand drawn cells to CGI using sophisticated animation software. Both versions will eventually be played on the embedded screens. The final sculptures will then become 3D realised diagrams, sort of sculptural versions of Kurt Vonnegut's idea of diagrammed stories.
I'm not really a sculptor, even though I'm a member of the Yorkshire Sculptors Group. I tend to think as a drawer, whether I'm painting or making. This is why this blog is called 'Drawing', although more and more things are touched upon that might not come under the umbrella of 'drawing', in my mind they emerge out of the practice of drawing as a way to externalise thinking.
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