Elam Open Days: Postgrad show

Window brings you 50 exclusive images from the Elam BFA/Postgrad Open Days. Featuring works by Fiona Gillmore, Boris Dornbusch, Sonya Lacey, Bonnie Somerville, Rachel Wills, Kate Newby, Tim Mackrell, Nick Charlesworth, Majlinda Hoxha, Anna Boyd, Jessica Van Dammen, Guy Nicoll, Angela Meleisea Felix, Sarah Rose, Sam Rountree-Williams, Nell May, Emily Pun, Daniel Munn, Matthew Molloy and Art-is-free.

Pixels to paint: Outsourcing image production

It's a bizaare image: a couple KKK members, Xzibit (of Pimp my Ride fame), and an industrial robot, all set in a forest scene. Just Another Painting restores the traditional patron relationship by commissioning a work - but then twists it, offshoring production to a painter named Jung Min and developing the montage using lo-res shots from the web. Staging the project, the anonymous patron is deliberately difficult, requesting daily work in progress shots, repositioned elements, and even new items added late in the process.


In Dafen, China, it really is just another painting. The tiny village has elevated mass production of oils and famous pieces to a $36 million dollar industry. It's estimated "60 percent of the world's cheap oil paintings" are produced within the town's 4 square kilometres. A good painter can crank out up to 30 pieces a day: Monet's, Van Goghs, or more generic scenes like nudes and military poses. One of the biggest operations, Shenzhen Artlover Ltd, state they wish to "get into the business of oil paintings the way McDonalds got into the business of fast food."

Robotics in art: moving past function

The cybernetic hand moves across the canvas at an eerily constant speed - perfect, flawless. It suddenly stops, dabs a brush into a pot and drags it across the canvas. The piece is the latest example of Simon Ingram's "Painting Assemblages", recently installed at the Adam Art Gallery. For the last few years Ingram has been pursuing his doctorate by investigating artificial intelligence and painting, relinquishing creative control over execution to an industrial machine. Painting Assemblages is a horrifically poor use of old technology - CNC (Computer Numerically Controlled) techniques were developed by the US Air Force in the 50s for metal cutting techniques and are capable of extremely fine tolerances (.002 mm). And that's precisely why it's interesting. "Assemblages" runs roughshod over all the glittering conventions of robotics - a paint splattered machine made partially out of lego that is forced to stand-in for the artist.



Bruce Shapiro has spent the last 15 years in a grey space between science, technology and art. Like Ingram, he's repurposed CNC and motion control for far 'less functional' means. "Sisyphus III", Shapiros latest incarnation of his sand plotter, picks up on Japanese garden and Tibetan sand mandala traditions, generating flawless mathematical patterns continuously. Similarly, his "Ribbon Dancer", inspired by Chinese dance, was recently installed in the Science Center in Iowa, USA. "Dancer" populates the lobby area, drawing dynamic, fluid lines through the space.