5 Principle Study (3): Connectivity

Inspiration has been taken from works produced throughout the history of art, utilizing both the same and differing mediums that were not present at the time of the first piece’s conception.

Each variation can promote alternative messages, in turn conjuring new emotions just from altering the main focus of the painting/sculpture/photograph either in a drastically huge manner or in a more subtle form.

These key features are all shared and expressed within all the 5 main principles of connectivity; but the features stated above apply especially to the Principle of Recontextualized Ideas and Concepts in Contemporary Culture, and the Principle of Pastiche, Synchronicity or Conceptual appropriation.

I myself can relate more with these principles for my general approach to conceptualizing, designing or jotting out something straight from my head onto paper, or on to a program on the computer, as i will not usually intend to make something that appears to be a direct interpretation of a base piece, but rather create a new and different image that is built upon borrowed elements, most of which contain features that probably do not intentionally belong together when combined straight on with any other subject.

My Sketch (1)

(2)

(3)

(4)

Dali Elephant outside Tate Modern

Temptation of St. Andrew 

Temptation of St. Andrew (Salvador Rosa)

Marcel Duchamp

Eliot Elisofon: Marcel Duchamp descending a staircase 

Eliot Elisofon

Here is an example of the use of borrowed elements in the creation of a new work. These untitled sketches of rather strange looking vehicles/creatures, were designed to develop my initial ideas on unusual and strange forms of locomotion. The idea of many multiple series of legs following in each others path, one at a time and overlapping with each other, derived its conception heavily from the spindly-legged animals of Dali’s “Temptation of St Andrew” piece, who in turn seems to have included the spindly-legged theme from a piece of the same name by Salvador Rosa (1645).

The overlapping feature of the moving legs were inspired by the test footage of Eadweard Muybridge, along with Marcel Duchamp and the subsequent photography of Eliot Elisofon. These features were subconsciously collected, without intended or prior knowledge, and employed within the concept imagery shown.

Damien Hirst "Verity" 

Front view

Side view

Close-up of womb

Soviet militaristic statues

Sword of Qadisiyah (Victory Arc), Iraq 

Nelson's Column 

Robert Clive

A most recent example of how ideas and concepts can be recontextualized to blend with or express current thought processes in contemporary culture is the ‘Verity’ piece just at this time being hoisted and put into place.

Described as “a modern-day allegory for truth and justice”, the statue expands on Damien’s similar creation ‘The Virgin Mother’, This statue shows a heavily pregnant young teen/adult, wielding a large blade in one hand and a weight scale in the other. It is immediately clear that the militaristic features present on the bronze are recontextualized features directly linked to statues that honor those in command, or countries under the rule of a dictatorship. 

The Verity sculpture alters the idea of the blade being a symbol of forced oppression and is instead presented as a opposing element against injustice.  

The last clear element presented shows the figure anatomically cut in half, showing the unborn child within. This feature derives from previous anatomical constructions of the workings of the body, particularly those examining pregnancy and birth. Their context differs from Verity for being merely medical and biological examinations, which for the main sculpture has been infused with the message of early teen pregnancy and child raising, which have increased in the current generations.