(missed) Crit notes & proposed work for end of year exhibition (June 17-19 Plymouth Uni) 31/05/22

UPDATE 10.6.22

I have played about with the sound for exhibition videos. Its included with the TECHNOLOGY film and will play for all the screens. Best listened to on stereo headphones/speakers.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/2273c2_872875610ca54b9bafa6106ed8e746e3/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

My leg sculpture & film "Transhumanism & Cyborgism: The Art of Extension"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhdML4K0CxQ

has been the bulk of my work this year but the film has been edited into 4 short looped films for the end of year exhibition. (However I would like feedback on the full length film at some point please.)

I have used my own body as subject to reflect my thoughts on how humanity is in a continual state of transformational flux and how contemporary technological reconfiguration is affecting us physically and mentally. I have created a forum where discussion can take place around these subjects. Link for Forum

I think my artist statement sums up where I am at at the moment:

Aldous works as a multidisciplinary artist exploring the boundaries of what it is to be mentally and physically 'human' alongside humanity's obsession with evolving beyond its current limitations, especially by means of science and technology. Working within the conceptual terrain of transhumanism and cyborgism, he employs physical structures and prostheses, processual audio and visual material to immerse an audience within the blurry area between human and machine and our inevitable transcendence and connection with technology. His work is exploratory, embodied and powerfully performative, using his sculpture as subject and sounds from his materials and tools, augmented by manufacturing techniques to stretch the limits and senses of the human to create an audio joyride of visual imagery. Aldous creates debate for technological ontology to be questioned and shared.

Proposed Exhibition pieces:

Leg Sculpture: "Transhuman" approx w600xd1200xh800mm

Arm Sculpture: "H+arm" approx w600xd700xh300mm

Molten metal painting: "Transform" w640xh000mm

Video: "SEA" on flat screen

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/2273c2_3a956d199a374c22b909edb221aaca72/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Video: "TREES" on flat screen

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/2273c2_b3f176c3b9c64557bb9778b4ac24a9c1/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Video: "TECHNOLOGY" on flat screen

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/2273c2_a5c89b6f20a84d39bcfe003de079762f/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Film: "AUGMENTATION" on flat screen

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/2273c2_fd8dffb7eeec46efbbfd5d92f91e60a5/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Contemporary Studies:

This Chapter "Mutations" from Natalie Herschdorfer's book Body 2022 has had a profound effect on my perception of photography and its ability to combine art with journalism, especially in the viewpoint that artists act as wonderment operators and signallers to the rest of the viewing/listening world. I would like to draw your attention particularly to the work of French photographer Matthieu Gafsou https://www.gafsou.ch/hplus and his Exhibition "H+" (Symbol for Transhumanism) and I recommend his virtual tour https://www.rencontres-arles.com/en/expositions/view/229/matthieu-gafsou and the work of Aziz + Cucher https://www.azizcucher.net/ . Gafsou looks at trans/posthumanism questioning the future of the augmneted human from a photo/journalistic/documentary viewpoint. Whilst Aziz + Cucher offers us a dystopian vision of these new bodies by looking at the potential consequences of a cyborg future where identity and distinctions between human and non human are erased.