SCABs

Abstract communication – By @shein_dean

By Dean Shein

 

Abstract communication

 

Greetings,
The other day I sent Marc a scab that’s focus was more about how letters and text can be viewed in artistic form. Using symmetrical letters as a continuous rhythm I believed that the synergy was palpable… and it was….
d b  d b  d b  d b  d b  d b 
d b  d b  d b  d b  d b  d b
d b  d b  d b  d b  d b  d b 
d b  d b  d b  d b  d b  d b
d b  d b  d b  d b  d b  d b 
d b  d b  d b  d b  d b  d b
The only problem was…
I failed to communicate!
Unlike Dave Trott’s X among O’s, the message in my work was subjective and only made sense to me. Troubled by Marc’s blistering response my defence mechanism immediately kicked in, however with some time to reflect I realised how right he is.
At the moment I am inspired by the Russian abstraction art form of Suprematism. What moves me about this art form is the way I observe this craft. My current way of thinking allows me to tap into deep connotations and semiotics. SCA has definitely helped unlock this. Ideas and allusions that come to mind when I view, for example, Kazimir Malevich’s ‘The Knife Grinder’ appear to make so much more sense now. Although, It’s not that before, this work didn’t resonate with me… I might have seen sharp green curvy cylinders and dull grey edges as a child and I would have noticed the plethora of colour. The mechanic patterns… But I wouldn’t have had a clue about what they stood for.
The green cylinders might represent systematic machines… They could represent ‘The Singularity’ is near… The green cylinders could be valves, banished to repetitive motion, playing a vital yet melancholic roll as they keep the machine churning. The grey edges could represent industrialism… Their form to me represents the very beginnings of the Bauhaus movement… Brutal, stubborn and cold. Maybe the grey edges represent Escher’s ‘Penrose Stairs’…
As a child ‘The Knife Grinder’ might have represented a scary man, or a monster. But now, by thinking deeply at what these colours, shapes and forms symbolise, images of a metallic communist society come to mind. A man that’s broken… Robots triumphing over humanity… And yet still he is grinding knives in this hyper post capitalistic world. A primitive old entity, noticing the wealth of change that Toffler predicted, but helpless and stuck in the static of his jaggered motion.
 
My current abstract artistic obsession has lead me to form an interest in Italian Futurism. This  expression placed an emphasis on speed… These artists realised that a radical shift in technology was not just nearing… It was here. Their young minds, filled with fuel… Infatuated with speed machines zooming around an Industrial city.  Maybe this was their way of representing the exponential rate of change.
Heavily inspired by motion, Giacomo Balla chose the automobile as a symbol of speed. His piece entitled ‘Abstract Speed + Sound’ drew heavily on Futurist founder Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s meditation: 
 ‘The world’s splendour has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed… A roaring automobile… that seems to run on shrapnel, is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.’

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