Previous AA2A Artist

David Dixon

Year:
2009-10
Project summary:

Stepping into the AA2A scheme has provided me with food for thought from the outset. I’ve been trying to create a specific video installation for a couple of years now, but a lack of resources has stood in the way. Now that I’m in the position to revisit this project, and bring it to fruition at last, it’s interesting to compare how my ideas have changed over time, and in which ways the emphasis has shifted. In my studio practice I am interested in the relationship between the external world and ourselves, and the way this relationship is framed in art and science dialogues. Impermanence and Uncertainty have been central to my work for some years now, and I frequently build my installations out of extremely fragile materials such as quartz dust, using its potential to be damaged to frame the work as a process rather than a discrete object. This particular project will explore the fallibility of knowledge, and will be a self-generative work based upon a system of repeated filmings and projections. I’m increasingly interested in the breakdown of control, and I anticipate that this work will satisfy this in suitably unpredictable ways. Using specially designed tools, I aim to create a table-top geometric image from coloured particle media i.e. quartz dust, dyed rice-flour. This work will be unfixed, only existing for the duration of each ‘generation’. After this it will be destroyed and swept up. By building a specially designed cradle above the work being made, I aim to simultaneously film the work that is being made, while projecting earlier versions on top if it. As the versions begin to overlap there should be an increasing parallax error, which can be fedback into the artwork, increasing the distortion of the work and the unpredictability of the outcome.

''Which way is up' 2003'