"What inspires you? Why?"--these are common questions that an artist hears sometimes all to often, but they are questions that ought to be answered. Claiming the title of an artist almost immediately warrants these questions to be answered. So what inspires me you say? Well, a hell of a lot of things inspire me--new things almost everyday, but I don't have the will power nor does anyone reading this blog have the time in their day to sit and read for hours about what intrigues me in the most finite of detail. So, for the benefit of you readers and myself alike, I've broken my inspirations down to a core of three: Science Fiction (as a general genre), Cinema, and Philosophy
Science Fiction
Science Fiction
The genre of science fiction intrigues me so very deeply. I can remember being a child and looking at the covers of my Dad's sci-fi novels and films; wondering, at the young age of eight, what it might be like to exist in that world. Beyond the compelling imagery that books and films like, Robot Visions, Dune, Blade Runner and Alien, had as their cover art, the content that I discovered in the genre of sci-fi compelled me further as I matured. Narratives of first contact with extra-terrestrials, robots gaining consciousness, and coping with time dilation--these stories, while dealing with inhuman components, all dwindle back down to a central question of what it mans to be human. The metaphysics of the genre is very human indeed. The concepts that sci-fi undertakes are concepts that I too undertake into my art practice. I believe that people should be cognizant of humanity's interaction with emerging sciences and technologies and how these new developments are altering the evolutionary processes of our species.
Cinema
Cinema
Film has always been a huge part of my life and more recently I have been incorporating it into my art practice. Particularly, what I enjoy so much about film is the way in which a cinematographer can capture the scope of a moving composition. Formally speaking, the work of Director of Photography, Freddie Young in Laurence of Arabia (1962) [right image] has influenced the compositional components of my art. Additionally, film has a way of capturing vast ideas and composing them into a frame of time to which a viewer can involve themselves in. Then, upon the film's end, one can take these ideas with them and ponder the concepts on their own. I try to utilize this method in my art. My paintings and sculptures tend to take on large humanistic concepts and theories, and I don't expect a viewer of my work to grasp the concepts right away. My hope is that, through viewing my work, I've planted an idea in one's mind through the uses of visual images and objects and now it's the viewer's job to arrive at their own distinctions--I'm only creating a visual framework to lead you to new conceptual distinctions.
Philosophy
Philosophy
My most recent inspiration is Philosophy. Along with my Fine Arts degree, upon graduation, I'll also be receiving a minor in Philosophy. My academic knowledge of Philosophy has indubitably changed my life views as well as my art practice as a whole. What I particularly take interest to is the ethical issues that arise with emerging science and technology. For example, could, in the near future, a computer evolve to be sentient? And if so, does this machine have rights, equivalent to that of a human? If one takes the time to research what computer scientists and engineers are up to at leading research facilities across the world, a conscious computer is not too far from becoming a reality. By integrating classical ethical theories in the likes of Kant [left image] Hume, and Mill and placing their theories under the context of emergent technologies, you get a cook-up of a conversation that can get heated pretty quickly. By integrating these ideas into my visual art, I am attempting to create a dialogue about ethical issues that are not too far off in the distance. In my recent Thought Experiment, series I've been realizing that these subjects (artificial consciousness, creating sentient machines, mapping the human brain to refute the existence of free-will, etc.) are uneasy to many onlookers. These are touchy subjects because they force one to rethink what they've previously understood to be human. This uneasiness to my work's concepts, contrary to what one might think, is inspiring me more--the reactions make me want to push the ideas further. I think that the fact that, when someone sees an artwork that questions the existence of free-will and has a negative reaction to the idea, tells a lot about who that person is and what it means to be human.