|
||||||
|
THE BRISBANE
COURIER MAIL Published: 11 Oct 2017 City is a Canvas for Curious Minds |
||
THE RUMPUS The Clockwork Job Thief by HANNAH Published: 19 March 2019 The Clockwork Job ThiefNearby, a ballerina by artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman spins on its formed toes. Her elbow joints reveal silver mechanisms under her polished white skin. When her arms begin to move in and out of balletic port de bras, they do so as fluidly as “Spring” unfurls. As I watch, I see a hint of what’s to come: robots mimicking, perhaps exceeding, the liquescent agility of a human dancer. The ballerina is named “Coppelia One,” a nod to a ballet in which a female character impersonates a clockwork doll just after it s reclusive maker, Doctor Coppelius, attempts to bring
her to life with a magic spell. In the ballet, Swanilda
(and the real dancer playing her) mimic the awkward,
staccato movements of a windup toy. Drake-Brockman’s complex kinetic sculptures, often
equipped with motion-capture cameras (as seen in Shimon),
display something called emergent behavior,
self-generating motions that spring out of the machine’s
own systems rather than out of human programming. As the
complexity of a cybernetic system increases, so too does
its capacity for emergent behavior. The AI robot is the
fully automated automata, no hidden man working a chess
panograph, no programmer choreographing each step.
|
||
BORED PANDA Pixel Pond Helps Sick Kids Get Well Published: 21 March 2018 Pixel Pond Helps Sick Kids Get WellArtist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman created this interactive light pond for the Perth Childrens Hospital out of 2,080 pixel tubes. This artwork, called “Surface” is part of the “Healing Environment” of the hospital. Even a child in a wheelchair can interact with it! “Surface” has sensors so when you move underneath it a “virtual stone” is thrown into its “virtual pond” – causing light ripples to spread out and combine. Sometime a virtual beachball is rolled in instead. This artwork gives kids a pond to throw stones into, right in the middle of the hospital! “Surface” is also the largest interactive light matrix
artwork in the world – at over 10 meters long by 4 meters
wide, with over 16,000 pixels. |
||
MASHABLE These cybernetic sculptures need human interaction to come alive. by NIKOLAY NIKOLOV Published: 21 June 2018 These cybernetic sculptures need human interaction to come alive.
|
||
ART OF THE TIMES THE POWER OF SIMULATION: SEEING OUR HUMANITY IN A TECHNOLOGICAL WORLD by MEGAN REED Published: Fall 2018 The power of simulation: seeing our humanity in a technological world |
||
JUST LUXE Man, Machine, Viewer, Object: The work of cybernetics artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman by Published: 28 June 2017 Man, Machine, Viewer, Object:
|
||
BELLUS MAGAZINE The Creator vs. The Created: Geoffrey Drake-Brockman by LAURA SHIRK Published: 25 April 2018 The Creator vs. The Created: Geoffrey Drake-BrockmanBefore finally combining his top two interests: art and
programming, Geoffrey Drake-Brockman consciously separated
one from the other. As different as black and white, he
believed that they represented something opposite in life:
aesthetics and shared experience vs. technical and
singular. Over time, themes such as computation and
simulation started to appear in his work and he broadened
his way of thinking. The artist asked the question: what
is it that makes an individual? With a background in
computer science, he went on to become a cybernetics
artist specializing in large-scale public installations.
Bringing together art and technology, he creates work that
initiates dialogue between viewer and object and interacts
with the audience. By representing human emotions in a
technological context, the Australian aims to connect with
people across the globe. |
||
NJTV - NEW JERSEY
PUBLIC TELEVISION Kinetic art moves in exciting ways at the Morris Museum Published: 16 March 2018 Kinetic art moves in exciting ways at the Morris Museum |
||
E-SQUARED MAGAZINE Geoffrey Drake-Brockman - Cybernetics Artist by EMILY Published: 11 Oct 2017 Geoffrey Drake-Brockman - Cybernetics Artist |
||
DIGIMAG JOUNAL Mirror Beings - Robot Complexity, Myths, and Simulacra by GEOFFREY DRAKE-BROCKMAN Published: 3 Oct 2017 Mirror Beings - Robot Complexity, Myths, and Simulacra |
||
THE WEST
AUSTRALIAN
Sky artworks all aflutter by Published: 24 May 2017 Sky artworks all aflutterThe bendy inflatable tube men used for roadside advertising were one of the unlikely influences for the star attraction of this year’s City of Perth Winter Arts Season. Perth artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman’s large-scale installation, titled Sky, comprises 32 vertical fabric wind plumes that can rise up to 5m high. Installed in the heart of the City at Forrest Place, the interactive sculpture uses a similar technology to the inflatable men to evoke Perth’s big beautiful skies.Pedestrians will be able to stimulate its sensors and set off the air-jets, creating waves of motion across the 20sqm matrix of fluttering blue and white plumes, which will also be illuminated at night. “It took a lot to get the flutter right. I had to make about eight different prototypes and tried them with different motors and different lengths of fabric,” Drake-Brockman says. Known for his large-scale public installations — which includes the robotic sculpture Totem at Perth Arena — cybernetics artist Drake-Brockman says Sky was also informed by his 2005 sculpture Floribots. Installed at the National Gallery of Australia in Melbourne and Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, Floribots featured a matrix of 128 robotic flowerpots that grew and bloomed origami-like flowers in response to motion sensors. When the City of Perth commissioned the public outdoor piece three months ago, Drake-Brockman wanted to go big, which is when he had the idea of using the technology behind the “corny yet oddly mesmerising” inflatable bendy men. “I like to use something that’s familiar and then swing it somewhere slightly different,” Drake-Brockman says. “The Floribots flowers were inspired by paper fortune tellers, and the blower tubes in Sky are a bit like the bendy men they have at car yards.” The eight microwave sensors around the sculpture’s edge have a range of about 3.5m. When Sky senses people nearby, it will “dance” in response. “If it sees you it will provoke a motion response causing new undulations and wave-patterns to propagate across the matrix ... with inspiration from the sky and the way the weather operates,” Drake-Brockman says. “One thing I discovered with the Floribots artwork is that people would often walk up to it and get fascinated ... They’d freeze and just watch it. “But the artwork can’t see you unless you move. Once you freeze you disappear from its view. “I occasionally remind people if you want it to react to you — move.” To launch Sky and the Winter Arts Season on June 2, choreographer Kynan Hughes has created a free one-off seven-minute performance called Winter Shadows in response to the sculpture. Dancers from Perth’s STRUT Dance will wear purple and silver to represent a winter storm blowing through the moving sculpture, which will be synchronised to the music. Sky is at Forrest Place from June 2-15. Winter Shadows takes place on June 2 at 7.15pm. The 13th annual Winter Arts Season takes place from June- August. See visitperthcity.com from June 2 for the full program. |
||
RTR FM -
ARTBEAT
Look Up To The Sky This Winter by MISTY FARQUHAR Published: 2 June 2017 Look Up To The Sky This WinterSky, an interactive instalment that uses lengths of fabric to respond to your movements, acts as the centrepiece for City of Perth’s Winter Art’s Season this year.The piece features 32 blue and white fabric elements with individual air jets that launch into the air in mesmerising waves. Artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman joined ARTBEAT to talk about the piece. Sky will be running in Forrest Place for two weeks, Tags In This Story: Artbeat, Forrest Place, Perth Winter Arts Season, Sky |
||
PRIMO LIFE
Taking Flight by Published: June 2017 Taking Flight
|
||
CNN's GREAT
BIG STORY
Art of the Future Produced by Published: 3 November 2016 Art of the Future: These Interactive Sculptures Respond to YouGeoffrey Drake-Brockman makes cybernetic sculptures that appear to come alive with human interaction. Using his background as a computer programmer, this Australian artist makes work that moves, twists and even changes colors in response to a viewer’s movement. For Brockman, it’s this conversation between his art and the audience that makes his work special and engaging in a whole new way. |
||
THE WEST
AUSTRALIAN
Makers cut their cloth to fit by Published: 13 July 2016 Makers cut their cloth to fitA strong line-up of local artists has explored the sewing machine as a device that works upon the imagination as much as it does upon social relations.... The needle and the story of its conception forms the basis of a kinetic work by Geoffrey Drake-Brockman. He has crafted a structure atop a sewing machine where pressing the foot drives six enlarged and flattened needles that pierce inwards towards a central point. This work, called Howe’s Dream, is based on the story of American inventor Elias Howe. His invention of the sewing machine in 1845 is said to have been inspired by a dream about being attacked by cannibals rhythmically jabbing him with spears with holes in their heads. Drake- Brockman’s curious contraption efficiently abstracts this story in an aesthetically satisfying way. ... |
||
ABC RADIO
NATIONAL
Where art and robotics collide: Geoffrey Drake-Brockman Interview with CLAIRE NICHOLS Published: 14 May 2016 Where art and robotics collide: Geoffrey Drake-BrockmanVisual artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman explores the relationship between man and machine in much of his work.His solar-powered spinning ballerina, Solar Jayne, pirouettes at the touch of a button. The giant yellow archway, Counter, literally counts viewers as they walk through the piece. Drake-Brockman uses his expertise in computer science and visual art to create his unique interactive pieces, and says beneath the candy-bright colours, there's a touch of gothic horror about the works. 'Those wonderful stories of Frankenstein and Dracula, they inhabit my work at some level,' he says. |
||
PERTH NOW -
SUNDAY TIMES
Geoffrey Drake-Brockman reflects on Looking Glass at Linton and Kay by TANYA MACNAUGHTON Published: 6 May 2016 Geoffrey Drake-Brockman reflects on Looking Glass at Linton and KayMANY will be familiar with Geoffrey Drake-Brockman’s work without necessarily knowing his name.Totem, or what has affectionately become known as ‘the pineapple’ to those visiting Perth Arena, is one of several public art commissions by the Perth artist. After spending his youth in Canberra, an 18-year-old Drake-Brockman embarked on an eight-month hitchhiking tour of Australia that finished when visiting family in WA and he decided to stay. “I started studying at UWA, initially physics but that turned into a computer science degree,” he said. “For a long time I made the deliberate decision not to use technology in my art; I resisted using it until years later when I went to art school at Curtin University and did a Masters in visual arts, where I studied art theory. “It led me to think about how the concept of technology could be interesting in visual art and having engaged with the concept, the logical next step was to use it.” Drake-Brockman,who has an industrial warehouse studio in Nedlands, said he then found himself in a catch 22 with his ambition to secure large public art commissions using robotic and optical technologies. “You can’t get a public art commission until you’ve already done a public art commission, so that seemed like an impenetrable closed shop at first” he said. “I was working with another artist called Richie Kuhaupt and we came up with a proposal for a commission initially where I grew up in Canberra. “That was my first public art commission and once you have one, it’s easier to get another.” Drake-Brockman has since created Totem, the ascending Spiral at WA Police Headquarters and interactive light sculpture Luminous at Chinatown in Northbridge, plus works for Sculpture by the Sea, including Solar Jayne, inspired by WA Ballet principal dancer Jayne Smeulders. His latest foray finds Drake-Brockman stepping back into a commercial gallery with exhibition Looking Glass, something he has not done in 19 years. “Public art commissions have kept me busy and supplementing that was institutional exhibitions at PICA or the National Gallery of Australia,” he said. “I just thought it would be nice to go back to an old idea I hadn’t tried for a long time. “There are about 30 works with static sculptures, interactive installation and 12 new paintings that I’ve just completed in the last few weeks; it’s the first time I’ve made paintings in about 20 years.” The paintings have a strong geometric theme incorporating mirrors, flat surfaces and colour, and have been described by Drake-Brockman’s partner and Brazilian singer-songwriter Juliana Areias as “multi- dimensional paintings”. Areias sang her original song Belas Artes, meaning ‘Fine Arts’ in Portuguese and composed about Drake-Brockman, during the exhibition’s opening this week at Linton and Kay Galleries Perth, Level 1/137 St Georges Terrace. Looking Glass exhibition is showing until May 22. Photo - Artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman at Linton ans Kay gallery. Photographer: Andrew Ritchie |
||
THE WEST
AUSTRALIAN
Through the looking glass by WILLIAM YEOMAN Published: 30 April 2016 Through the looking glassFew people in Perth will be ignorant of artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman’s imposing yet playful public art, kinetic or otherwise. One has only to think of Perth Arena’s yellow and purple Totem, lovingly dubbed Perth’s own “Pineapple”. Or his Solar Jayne, a life-sized robotic sculpture modelled after WA Ballet’s Jayne Smeulders and part of Cottesloe’s Sculpture by the Sea 2014.But how many have seen Drake-Brockman’s futuristic, technology-driven work as a prime example of Shakespeare’s idea of art holding a mirror up to nature? Now, in his first commercial exhibition in over a decade, the man who initially studied computer science because he believed art couldn’t be taught (he soon saw the error of his ways and attended art school) presents Looking Glass, a major survey of Drake-Brockman’s work across multiple media including sculpture, painting and installation. “Having a a gallery exhibition like this allows me to put the full continuum of my practice on show, and hopefully create some links that people can see between the public art and the studio art, Drake-Brockman says. Among the works on display is a spectacular new series of circular, square and triangular Portals which incorporate mirrors while echoing the art of hard-edge abstraction. “A looking glass is an archaic name for a mirror,” Drake-Brockman says. “The ‘paintings’ are mirrors. Yes, art is automatically a mirror. But putting a real mirror in there forces the issue. It implicates the viewer directly and quotes them back to themselves, if you will.” Perfect for the age of the selfie, one might say. The exhibition’s title also recalls Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass. But the connotations are more complex than that. “Mirrors do lots of wonderful things,” Brockman says. “They can be portals to different realities, like the one Alice passes through. They can recall a futuristic super-technology world and the super-reflective chromium surfaces you always see in science-fiction movies.” Technology, of course, is another main theme in Drake-Brockman’s work. “I’m intensley interested in technology and it’s always woven into my work, either literally in terms of electronics or conceptually in terms of the direction that the work suggests,” he says. Given the swift changes in science and technology over the decades Drake-Brockman has been making art, it seems natural to assume his work would have evolved with it. That, however, inverts the reality, much as a mirror can. “The evolution of technology doesn’t necessarily change the conceptual space because that can be in advance of what’s currently technologically possible,” Drake Brockman explains. “Just think of science fiction authors such as Arthur C. Clarke, who predicted geostationary sattelites long before they became a reality. Certainly, advancing technologies are very noticeable when you’re going about implementing a particular technological trick. Things which were once difficult and expensive to achieve become cheap and easy. “But the conceptual range of possibilities doesn’t change.” And what of the different possibilities afforded by public art? “All my works are thematically linked,” Drake-Brockman says. “What the public art does is provide an opportunity to realise those themes on a larger scale. It also provides a large audience.” Different again is the kind of audience one gets by exhibiting in Sculpture by the Sea. “You put a sculpture in front of 100, 000 people, right in the middle of their domain: that’s non-public art with high visibility,” he says. “Basically, the more people interact with my work, the more value I get out of watching it and seeing the possibilities.” Looking Glass runs at Linton & Kay Galleries, 137 St Georges Terrace, from Monday-May 22. Picture: Iain Gillespie |
||
PERTH NOW -
SUNDAY TIMES
Geoffrey Drake-Brockman launches Chinatown’s new lights by VETTI KAKULAS Published: 22 September 2015 Artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman launches Northbridge Chinatown’s new lightsBLADE Runner — the 1982 science fiction film featuring Harrison Ford — is the inspiration behind Perth’s newest public art installation. Illuminated artwork by award-winning artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman lit up Northbridge’s Chinatown on Friday night. He is best known for his Totem artwork, nicknamed the Pineapple, outside Perth Arena and the Spiral outside the WA Police HQ in Northbridge.The Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority and the City of Perth have worked together to give the Chinatown precinct a facelift. Named Luminous, the piece includes five, two-metre spherical lanterns mounted on six-metre tall poles. Mr Drake-Brockman described his creations as “complex, origami folded patterns” of orange, purple and red metals. “My reference was the movie Blade Runner set in a futuristic Chinatown world, where there are these overhead advertising blimps inviting people to come live off-world,” he said. “So my overhead spheres are like invitations to come live on different planets.” Each lantern has its own computer and four motion detectors, which respond to human movement in their immediate vicinity. “If a lot of people cross by it enters a more chaotic light pattern,” Mr Drake-Brockman said. “I’m very pleased with the finished outcome. It’s highly visible and for an artist that’s a great thing.” Located on the doorstep of the Perth City Link project, the MRA expects thousands of people to pass through Chinatown’s Roe Street precinct each day. Photo - Artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman in China Town Northbridge with his light sculptures. Photographer: Bohdan Warchomij |
||
JOONDALUP
TIMES - COMMUNITY NEWS
Interlace - The artist comments on his own work by GEOFFREY DRAKE-BROCKMAN Published: 27 August 2015 The artist comments on his own workAS this interactive water sculpture was taking shape in my studio, quite a few people would come in and remark upon it.A friend of mine said that they (the sculpture’s fonts) looked like alien mushrooms. Somebody else said they looked like robot legs. Which disturbed me a little bit because if they’re the legs where is the robot? Also if they’re legs, they have very petite ankles and rather thick thighs. Somebody else came in and said ‘is this made in China?’ And I said ‘no, it’s made in Western Australia’. And I think that points up one of the great aspects of a project like this where an organisation like Joondalup commissions a site-specific work to be made using local artists, subcontractors and so on. We get something which is not only unique and conceived for us, for this location but where so much of the ideas, the process, the skills, the work stays here close to where it will be enjoyed. And I think that’s a wonderful thing. I don’t call these elements robot legs or alien mushrooms, I call them fonts. The idea behind that word is that they are sources in some sense not necessarily of milk and honey but perhaps sources of experience or enjoyment for people who come to this place. The blue colour is meant to be a quotation of our beautiful West Australian sky spiralling down to the ground so we can enjoy it. The mirrored surfaces are there to reflect the viewer back to themselves because this work is very much about involving participants in an interactive kind of exchange or composition. The name of the work is Interlace. Thus it is very much about weaving and hopefully weaving participants into a composition of some kind. The little wind sensor on one of the fonts will close down the art- work if there is any wind at all. Otherwise the water jets will blow off course. When the work does start… it will become receptive to human motion. And you can see these black sensor boxes (above the fonts); they are mainly sensitive to movement on the outside periphery of the sequence of four fonts. So if you’re standing in the middle, it can’t see you. Thank you very much to Joondalup and all its representatives for this opportunity. Photo - Artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman stands amid his sculpture. Picture: Martin Kennealey. |
||
JOONDALUP
TIMES - COMMUNITY NEWS
Inspiration flows by JUSTIN BIANCHINI Published: 13 August 2015 Inspiration flowsA WATER sculpture is set to be unveiled in Joondalup’s Central Walk. Designed by artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, Interlace consists of four polished 2.4 metre high stainless steel sculptural fonts.Triggered by passing pedestrians, the interactive sculptures quietly propel jumping jets of water between the fonts without reaching the path or pedestrians below. The sculpture, which will be located at the cross-section of Central Walk outside Joondalup Art Gallery, is part of the City of Joondalup’s public art program and will be programmed to operate between 7am and 11pm. Drake-Brockman described Interlace as an artwork with a mind. “It incorporates a computer running custom software and has four sensors to detect human presence,” he said. “The computer controls when and how the laminar flow fountains operate and it has the aim of ‘weaving-in’ its audience into an interlaced composition. “ Joondalup Mayor Troy Pickard said the City hoped the work would reinvigorate Central Walk. A project to enhance the area has also included landscaping, signage, CCTV cameras, fairy lights, bins, seating, planter boxes and new lighting. Mr Pickard will unveil the sculpture at Central Walk on August 25. Photo - Artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman in front of the as-yet-unfinished Interlace water sculpture. Picture: Yvonne Doherty. |
||
ART PUBLIC
Geoffrey DRAKE-BROCKMAN, Readwrite (2014) by HERVE-ARMAND BECHY Published: June 2015 Geoffrey DRAKE-BROCKMAN, Readwrite (2014)Readwrite is a cosmic-ray activated robotic artwork by Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, located in Perth, Australia.Readwrite is installed on the NEXTDC Data Centre in Malaga, Perth, Western Australia. It is 10m long and features a grid of 24 pneumatically-actuated 1.4m wide diamond-shaped flipping elements. Dance sequences on Readwrite are triggered by charged "Muon" particles. Muons are terrestrial Cosmic Rays generated in the upper atmosphere by interactions with high-energy particles from distant supernovae and black holes in active galactic nuclei. Readwrite has four Muon detectors, mounted at its corners. When a Cosmic Ray hits a detector, a wave motion sequence begins from that point. Other choreographed behaviours occur depending on the frequency and spatial distribution of the Muon flux. Readwrite only reacts to the rarest incoming Muons - those that are travelling parallel to the Earth’s surface. Readwrite was installed in January 2014 and has been in near-constant motion since. It may be the largest terrestrial automata activated by stimuli of extra-galactic origin. The Readwrite control algorithm is a modified version of the code from Geoffrey Drake-Brockman’s earlier work Floribots, and thus retains elements of the emotional modes of that work (bored, excited, etc.) - which were originally modelled on the behaviour of the Artist’s sons at toddler age. Readwrite is the latest in a series of robotic works by Drake-Brockman that explore the potential for emergence in relationships with machines. The Artist notes that his background in Computer Science informs his project to create automata, which he explains further in his 2013 TEDx talk, for details see www.drake-brockman.com.au |
||
ASCI ART
SCIENCE COLLABORATIONS
Geoffrey Drake-Brockman - human/robotic nature by JULIA BUNTAINE Published: February 2015 GEOFFREY DRAKE-BROCKMAN - human/robotic natureGeoffrey Drake-Brockman’s art addresses the social impact of technology through geometric and color-based composition, as well as electronic interactive systems. He seeks to create autonomous works that support open-ended dialogues between viewer and art object. Socio-historically, he views himself as a technological determinist. He utilizes methods from computer science and designs his projects in terms of state mechanics, computability, and orders of complexity.Q&A Interview: JB [Julia Buntaine, Feature Member Editor @ASCI]: Your work is characterized by the incorporation of robotic technologies to create interactive installations that deal with subjects such as nature, learning, behavior, and the body. When did you begin to pair robotics and these subjects, and why? GDB: [Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, artist]: I was exploring possibilities for working with 'chatterbox' origami forms back in 2000. I liked the chatterbox as it's a simple childish toy that anyone can make, but it has some quite complex geometry in terms of its range of spatial transitions, and carries interesting cultural overtones. For example, it can be used as a fortuneteller and I wanted to activate this culturally charged form with technology so it could interact with an exhibition audience. I had a clear notion that the artwork should 'reach out' to communicate with its audience in the 'real world', and robotics was a way to achieve this. I experimented with adding robotic activation to the chatterbox, and found myself drawn down a path that led to the creation of a work called Floribots. JB: In your piece "Coppelia Project," you speak to both the limits of humanity and robotics by creating robotic dancers that imitate human dancers, based on the original "Coppelia" choreography of a dancer playing robot. Can you talk a bit about the interactive elements of this work, and reactions from your viewers? GDB: The four Coppelia Project ballerina robots are designed to interact with each other, as well as with their human audience. The robots communicate with each other over a wireless network, and can share cybernetic ‘intentions’ that way. In contrast, their sensory connection with the human audience is more rudimentary. Each robot has four infrared motion detectors that allows her to detect human activity levels, but any subtlety of the 'state' of the audience has to be inferred by her software. Interaction with humans is further complicated in this work because these robots are anthropomorphic, and are based on a body-mold of the wonderful ballet dancer Jayne Smeulders. The 'uncanny valley' is deliberately evoked, and people are attracted and repelled at the same time. In presenting this robotic piece alongside human ballet dancers, questions are raised in the mind of the audience, such as: are robots going to replace ballerinas? and can a robot ever be truly graceful? JB: In Floribots you created an installation of robotic flowers, each imitating the cycle of life in growing and blooming. Acting as a unified field of flowers, the audience influences the 'hive mind' behavior which adapts itself over time. Having only given this installation simple programming capable of adaptive learning, what surprised you when it was finally up and running? Did it have any behaviors you didn't expect? GDB: I was rushing to finish Floribots before the deadline for its first exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia. I only had a few days to finish writing the software at the end of the process, so it wasn't until the exhibition opened that I actually saw Floribots fully realized for the first time. The installation was a matrix of 128 robotic origami flowerpots with over 4,000 moving parts. The thing that struck me initially was the sound. When the robot flowers in Floribots transition from bud to bloom, they make a soft 'whoppp' sound, but when all of them are rhythmically opening and closing, the sound composition becomes surprisingly intense. As the exhibition progressed, what really caught my attention was a whole range of unanticipated artwork behaviors. Floribots was programmed to adapt its behavior over time, reacting to audience input in a limited number of ways. However, as the author of Floribots' software, I soon saw autonomous behaviors manifest that I could have sworn were not possible. After a while, I came to regard these behaviors as 'emergent' - developing from potential that's inherent in the complexity of the artwork-audience interaction system itself. Images: Floribots installation by Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, 2005, origami, lacquered hardboard, robotics, 8m x 4m x 1.5m The Coppelia Project by Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, 2015, robotics, dimensions variable Totem by Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, 2012, aluminum, steel, robotics, laser projectors, 3m x 3m x 11m |
||
HILIKE -
ELECTRONIC LANGUAGE INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL (FILE)
GEOFFREY DRAKE-BROCKMAN - The Coppelia Project Published: January 2015 GEOFFREY DRAKE-BROCKMAN - The Coppelia Project
The Coppelia Project is inspired by the story about a
clockwork girl from the 1870 ballet ‘Coppelia’ by
Saint-Léon, Nuitter, and Delibes, based on a story by
Hoffmann. It also draws the commonplace metaphor of
clockwork music boxes, with the little ballerinas that
pop up and rotate in front of a mirror when you open the
lid. Coppelia is part of the traditional classical
ballet repertoire and is performed frequently by ballet
companies around the world. It belongs to a small group
of enduring stories in Western Culture that directly
address the limits of humanity when confronted by our
creations. The Coppelia story is unusual in approaching
this theme through love and attraction, rather than
horror and revulsion, as emphasised by Mary Shelly in
‘Frankenstein’. The Coppelia story deals with some of
the issues at the edge of humanity; machines
interchangeable with persons, love and attraction
confused at this boundary. |
||
THE SYDNEY
MORNING HERALD
Record-breaking numbers and heights at Sculpture by the Sea by LUCY CORMACK Published: 24 October 2014 Record-breaking numbers and heights at Sculpture by the SeaAs the 2014 Sculpture by the Sea exhibition celebrates the 1000th artist to have featured in the event, one exhibiting artist is hoping to set a record of his own. He just needs the help of exhibition goers to pass through the arch of his artwork 999,999,999 times.Geoffrey Drake-Brockman's Counter does exactly what it says on the box. Each time someone walks through its infrared beam, the solar-powered counter goes up by one. Now showing for the fourth time in its fourth location across the world, he is hoping to well and truly pass the record of 288,601 in Aarhus, Denmark, to one less than a billion, whereupon it will tick back to zero. "The positive is to participate in the social order, to stand up and be counted, to make your life count. The negative is just to be reduced by a machine to a number in the database. People can make the choice to be counted or not." Counter is just one of 109 sculptures from 16 countries now perched along the coast from Tamarama to Bondi for the 18th annual Sculpture by the Sea. Image: Geoffrey Drake-Brockman: one in 999,999,999. Photo: by Steven Siewert |
||
TIME OUT SYDNEY Sculpture by the sea 2014 Published: 23 October 2014 Over 100 sculptures transform the
Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk into a temporary
sculpture park. Sculpture by the Sea is one of Sydney's
key annual arts events, drawing around 500,000 to the
coastal walk from Bondi to Tamarama to enjoy
site-specific sculptures by top artists and emerging
talents from Australia and abroad. This year's
exhibition features over 100 works, 37 of them by
first-time exhibitors.
|
||
THE WEST AUSTRALIAN WA screen awards see new vision by MARK NAGLAZAS and CLARISSA PHILLIPS Published: 10 July 2014 WA screen awards see new visionA
crucial part of the classing up of the WA Screen Awards
- glamorous new venue (the State Theatre Centre),
high-profile host (Claire Hooper) - is a new statuette
for the winners designed by one of the State's leading
sculptors, Geoffrey Drake-Brockman.
Drake-Brockman says his design is based on the process of vision, which is appropriate for an award acknowledging achievement in the screen industries. "In vision you always have light passing through a lens. The light is then focused on to a surface which could be the retina of the eye or the photo receptor in the camera. The process is the same," Drake-Brockman explains. "The other reference to vision is that the three colours used in this statuette - red, green and blue - are the optical primary colours. These are the colours that all colours are broken down into for photographic and video recording." The techno bent of Drake-Brockman's WASA statue is nothing new for the Dalkeith-based artist who is best known for incorporating robotics into large-scale public artworks. His most-famous piece is the 10.5m pineapple-like installation outside Perth Arena whose 108 aluminium panels open and close like petals in response to people walking past. While he is working on a considerable smaller scale with the WASA statuettes, Drake-Brockman says he was afforded the same freedom to create as he generally enjoys with his other commissions. What makes the project unusual for the sculptor is that he has not just designed the WASA prize but is manufacturing 30 statuettes for the various categories. "My son has been helping me make the statuettes. I think he will be anxious to get back to school," Drake-Brockman laughs. Miranda Edmonds, co-director of the short Tango Underpants, and Sean Tinnion, who is nominated twice in the best original music (short form) category, are among the WA filmmakers who will be hoping to walk away with one of the Drake-Brockman statuettes. This year the Film and Television Institute, which runs the WA Screen Awards, received an impressive 448 entries from 172 entrants across 143 screen projects. This year's most heavily nominated film is Antony Webb's The Fan. Other films with multiple nominations include Roderick Mackay's Factory 293, the Sam Worthington surf movie Drift and horror flick Sororal. |
||
NORTH COAST TIMES Butler station work running to schedule by LUCY JARVIS Published: 25 March 2014 Butler station work running to schedule IT may look finished, but there
are still several months of work to be done before the
first passengers board a train at Butler. Public
Transport Authority spokesman David Hynes said the $240
million extension was on schedule to open to passengers
by the end of this year.
... Mr Hynes said all carparks and the station’s bus interchange had been completed and landscaped, and they had installed a public artwork titled Rain on Water, designed to mimic the effect of raindrops falling on a still water surface. Artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, who specialises in optical illusions and robotics, designed the colourful 38m-long aluminium and acrylic work, which spans the width of the station. Artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman with Rain on Water at Butler railway station. The artist also created the Totem robotic artwork outside Perth Arena (nicknamed The Pineapple) and Spiral for the WA Police headquarters. |
||
ABC NEWS Solar Jayne by Geoffrey Drake-Brockman at Sculpture by the Sea at Cottesloe Beach By EMMA WYNN Published: 11 March 2014 Solar Jayne by Geoffrey
Drake-Brockman at Sculpture by the Sea at Cottesloe
Beach, 7 March 2014. Solar Jayne by Geoffrey
Drake-Brockman is a solar powered kinetic sculpture, the
figure is based on a body mould of Jayne Smeaulders,
principal dancer at the West Australian Ballet.
|
||
ART PUBLIC Geoffrey DRAKE-BROCKMAN, Totem. Perth (Australia) by HERVE-ARMAND BECHY Published: November 2013 Totem is a permanent interactive
robotic installation by Geoffrey Drake-Brockman,
located in Perth, Western Australia.
At 11-metres tall, with 108 reconfigurable petals and three laser projectors, Totem is one of the world’s largest and most complex interactive artworks. The work responds to pedestrian movements and is sensitive to environmental conditions. Totem was commissioned in November 2012 by the Government of Western Australia for the pedestrian plaza adjacent to the Perth Arena entertainment stadium. The work incorporates a laser projection artwork titled "Translight" that creates nightly a variable “geometric narrative” light composition on the Eastern wall of the Arena. The kinetic responses of Totem vary depending on pedestrian activity-levels, as sensed via its six microwave motion detectors. The work can assume regular, symmetric configurations as well as entering chaotic transitional states. Totem has been nicknamed "The Pineapple" by the people of Perth. It is the latest in a series of robotic artworks by Drake-Brockman that explore the potential for emergence in relationships between machines and people.The Artist notes that his background in Computer Science informs his project to create automata, which he explains further at his recent TEDx talk, for details see: http://www.drake-brockman.com.au/TEDx.html |
||
X-PRESS MAGAZINE EYE4 ARTS THE COPPELIA PROJECT - MUSIC BOX DANCERS By CHLOE PAPAS Published: 8 may 2013 |
||
RTR FM The Coppelia Project By ANDY SNELLING Published: 2 May 2013 The Coppelia ProjectMechanical magician Geoffrey
Drake-Brockman was with Andy Snelling on Morning
Magazine. The artist behind Perth Arena’s robotic
‘pineapple’ will unveil his latest six-year mechanical
endeavour tomorrow. Entitled the ‘Coppelia Project’,
its Geoffrey Drake-Brockman latest artistic extravaganza
– again with a mechanical feel – but one with a sense of
dance. It’s modelled on Principal Dancer of the West
Australian Ballet, Jayne Smeulders. But how so? |
||
THE WEST AUSTRALIAN Coppelia Salon by DI BAUWENS Published: 11 May 2013 Coppelia Salon
|
||
THE WEST AUSTRALIAN Mechanical dancer a life work by STEPHEN BEVIS Published: 19 April 2013 Mechanical dancer a life workGeoffrey Drake-Brockman, the Perth
artist behind the robotic "pineapple" sculpture outside
Perth Arena, is close to completing another grand
obsession - a robot ballerina. Modelled and programmed
on the body and moves of WA Ballet principal artist
Jayne Smeulders, the robot is the first of what
Drake-Brockman intends to be a troupe of four cyber
dancers.
The Coppelia Project is inspired by the 1870 ballet Coppelia about a clockwork girl and is one of his art projects looking at how humans interact with machines. The four ballerinas will have a robotic skeleton inside a fibreglass shell that allows them to dance en pointe. Drake-Brockman said the robots were spooky and beautiful, like big ballerina music boxes. "I want to create the tension between the familiar and attractive and the disquieting, other reality of cyborgs and created beings," he said. "By dealing with robots at an artistic level, we can better work out how we feel about them." The first robot will give a dance at the artist's Nedlands studio as part of a 19th-century Paris-themed salon evening on May 10. Drake-Brockman began the project seven years ago. He is using the crowdfunding site IndieGoGo.com to raise nearly $33,000 to complete the ballerinas next year for an exhibition and a ballet for human and robot dancers. Drake-Brockman's work includes Floribots, a collection of 128 motion-sensing robotic potted flowers and a yellow walk-through "people counter" at Sculpture by the Sea in 2011. |
||
TEDx PERTH Created Beings by GEOFFREY DRAKE-BROCKMAN Published: December 2012 Geoffrey Drake-Brockman - Created Beings
Geoffrey Drake-Brockman - Robot Maker |
|
The Perth Pineapple, Corn Cob or Banksia Cone, call it what you like, Geoffrey Drake-Brockman’s Totem draws on sophisticated robotics and schoolyard origami to make a memorable piece of public art.
“I think that it is great that it has its own nickname,” Drake-Brockman says of his 10.5m installation outside the Perth Arena which is already engaged in a Twitter duel with the green James Angus sculpture in Forrest Place dubbed the Perth Cactus. “As an artist, you want your work to enter the public consciousness.”
Six years in the making, Totem is a dramatic monument of 108 yellow-and-purple aluminium triangles. A towering high-tech version of the playground paper-craft game chatterbox, its moving panels are programmed to open and close like flower petals in response to people walking past.
Operating to a complex computer program, Totem had a mind of its own and the “petals” could form hundreds of thousands of unpredictable configurations, Drake-Brockman said. “Once the algorithms have been written, it is set free and then it responds to its own environment,” he said. “It has its own sensors and is able to tell what is going on around it and then it does what it wants to do.”
To cap it off, Totem also shoots geometric laser projections onto the wall of the Arena at night.
The Dalkeith artist has used the chatterbox idea in a previous artwork called Floribots, a collection of 128 potted, robotic flowers equipped with motion sensors.
Born in the 1960s rocket research hub of Woomera, Drake-Brockman has fused the exploratory wonderment of science and art since abandoning a full-time career as an IT professional in the 1990s.
“I always thought science and art were endeavours which were self-justifying; they didn’t need to be justified in terms of anything else or any particular benefits they would bring. I thought they were sources of beauty and absolute knowledge, I guess.”
His artworks include several laser installations, the Coppelia Project series of robotic ballerinas modelled on WA Ballet star Jayne Smeulders, and a big yellow walk-through counting machine at Sculpture by the Sea in 2010.
Though high in technology (a bank of computers sit in its “head”), Totem required relatively low maintenance and ought to be resistant to “excessively vigorous interaction with the public”, Drake-Brockman said.
“The way it develops will be influenced by the people who engage with it if it is to act as a totem, as a marker of a spot, an attractor of people. If people say, ‘Let’s meet at the Totem or the Big Pineapple’, I don’t mind. “The idea of a totem is somehow to reflect to a society something of itself back.
“That is my ambition for it -
we will see how it works out.”
LIKE a mad scientist concocting a
potion with equal spoonfuls of splendour and horror,
artist Geoffrey Drake-Brockman has been crazily busy at
work in his Nedlands Perth laboratory, or rather,
studio. Now, after seven long years, he is ready to
unveil his masterpiece: an exquisitely unsettling robot
ballerina that dances en pointe.
“She is beautiful but the robotic appropriation of the
human body is disturbing. To balance on the cusp of
those two themes is what I am after,” Drake-Brockman
revealed.
“The aim is to engage with an audience by intriguing
them and making them look a little longer. As an artist,
you always want your work to endure, not just be
dismissed in a moment, and I’m hoping there’s enough
here in my robot to keep people interested for some
time.”
The startling work, or doll, as Drake-Brockman calls it,
was inspired by the clockwork girl from the 1868
Coppelia ballet by Delibes.
“She is a real human ballerina, obviously highly trained
and very graceful, and she tries to act in a robotic
way, jerkily moving her limbs. “I always found that
extraordinary because as far as I know it’s the only
moment in classical ballet where the dancer deliberately
tries to lack grace, so it stuck in my mind. “I thought
I could invert that idea by making a robot that is
pretending to be a ballerina.”
The Dalkeith homegrown visionary, also responsible for
the ‘pineapple’ totem outside Perth Arena, had some
valuable help with his ambitious design.
“Fortunately, West Australian Ballet was very
cooperative and by extraordinary coincidence happened to
be producing a version of Coppelia at that very time,”
he revealed. “I was able to employ dancer Jayne
Smeulders to assist me as my model. I took photographs
of her in various positions so I could understand the
movement requirements for the robot and she posed for a
body mould standing en pointe continuously for
two-and-a-half hours. “Even though she is a fabulous
athlete and has been a ballerina since she could walk,
this took her to the edge of her endurance. “Jayne will
be at the launch so everyone can see the flesh and blood
original side by side with the robotic version.”
Geoffrey Drake-Brockman with the first Coppelia robotic ballerina. Photographer: Andrew Ritchie
THE NEW YORK TIMES
Using
Illumination to Truly See
By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO
Published: 28 December
2003
ALTHOUGH mostly in the dark, ''The Luminous Image VI'' at Collaborative Concepts here is all about light. Organized by Franc Palaia, the exhibition brings together two dozen national and international artists making photo-based artwork in which illumination is an integral element. Contributions range from light boxes and video projections to illuminated photo sculpture and window transparencies.
''The Luminous Image VI'' is the sixth in a series of exhibitions of art using light organized by Mr. Palaia since 1996. (Bar one, in Italy, all these exhibitions were in galleries and museums in the United States.) This is by far the largest installment in the series, and with so many stylish inclusions I'm guessing it's among the best.
So what have we got? First up, this is the kind of exhibition that encourages thoughtfulness. That means you've got to work a bit, to spend time with the artworks to understand what's going on. If that seems like an imposition, and it is, sort of, then rest assured that most pieces repay patient viewing. Some you'll even want to see again.
Nina Katchadourian's video ''Endurance'' (2002) is thoroughly captivating. It consists of an enlarged close-up of the artist's open mouth, with one of her central teeth serving as a projection screen for film of Sir Ernest Shackleton's doomed (1914-1916) Antarctic expedition - part of the film shows his ship being crushed by ice. The video lasts 10 minutes and the artist keeps her mouth open the entire time.
Ms. Katchadourian's comfortless pose is an act of endurance. She is in pain, as witnessed by her contorted face and the repeated sounds of slurping on the video's minimal soundtrack. Pools of saliva build at the edges of her mouth, eventually spilling over. We are meant to empathize with her stoicism, mirroring that of the explorers.
Equally enthralling is an installation by Richie Kuhaupt and Geoffrey Drake-Brockman. ''Essentialiser'' (2003) consists of a darkened wooden cube crisscrossed with lasers arranged in a grid, meaning that anything in the cube is embedded in a matrix of little cubes of red light. Activity inside the cube is monitored by an infrared camera, and then displayed inside and out as a laser-generated model on feedback monitors. It's all very complicated.
Mr. Kuhaupt's and Mr. Drake-Brockman's futuristic installation is perhaps the freakiest work in the exhibition. I say that not for what it is, but for what it represents. Here, the body is mapped and then reduced to bare geometrical data. It is the electrical equivalent of cloning, with the laser beams transforming people into coded information and then creating virtual replicas. Is that scary? I think so, or maybe I've been watching too many sci-fi films.
Projection and visual reproduction are also central to Debra Pearlman's installations. Of the artist's three works in the exhibition, the best is ''Sleep'' (1990), a sandblasted image in glass set into a tabletop placed above a mound of sand. When light is shined through the glass, the shadow of two children appears on the sand. It is a subtle, clever work.
Peter Sarkisian is perhaps the best-known artist in the exhibition. His ''Book Series #28'' (1997) uses a video monitor concealed in a pile of books beneath a magnifying glass. The video image, visible through the magnifying glass, matches the missing section of the image on the cover of the book, in this case a classical painting of a naked woman. Every now and then, the woman's hand moves between her thigh and mid section. It's creepy.
Various kinds of light boxes (popular these days with artists to display photographs) can be found in the exhibition. Examples include David Michalek's photographs of homeless people, Elizabeth Cohen's and Michael Talley's X-ray photographs, Greg Geffner's 3-D stereoscopic light prints, Kristin Anderson's digital portraits with moving text, Kiki Seror's X-rated cyber sex stories. All are clever, engaging, and well made.
Sensual and lonesome, Shimon Attie's projection photographs kept drawing me back. One of them, ''Untitled Memories'' (1998) shows a prosaic apartment scene into which a reclining male figure has been projected. He is lying on a bed, drinking beer and watching television -- his fuzzy reflection all that can be seen on the television screen. It's an unsettling image, one that gets more and more intriguing the longer you look.
Finally, John Kalymnios deserves mention. At first, his light box images of clouds appear fairly unremarkable. Look closer and you'll see the surface is actually a piece of carved Corian plastic. The Corian has been expertly carved using a fine laser directed by a computer, with each image requiring hours of work. Without doubt, these works are among the most poetically beautiful and technically ingenious in the exhibition. And that is saying something.
''The Luminous Image VI'' is at Collaborative Concepts, 348 Main Street, Beacon, through Feb. 2. Information: (845) 838-1516.
Photos: ''Married by Dusk, Killed by
Dawn (one thousand and one nights)'' by Kiki Seror,
left, is part of an exhibition of artworks using light
at Collaborative Concepts. ''Essentialiser,'' top right,
is a futuristic installation by Geoffrey Drake-Brockman
and Richie Kuhaupt. Below right: ''Untitled Cloudscape
#1 & #3,'' part of a series by John Kalymnios.
|
||||||
|