HEY APATHY! a brief article about comics, kids and the apocalypse ( my life's work)

HEY APATHY! SURREAL ART

“HEY APATHY!” is an ongoing artistic investigation into the city , people, nature, technology and the overall mechanics of being. In the initial ink drawings the metropolis is revealed as an ominous gear propelled by an endless sea of faceless denizens. In more recent artworks, the city remains a giant gear, only now it is all the different kinds of people, not anonymous cogs, who fuel the machine. In order to achieve such realisations I developed a particular artists process involving public interventions, gallery exhibitions, street performances and ultimately new media installations. Through this combination of fine artworks, interventions, merchandising, and multi-media technology, I have created an extended narrative analysis of life in the city in the hopes of inciting dialogue and initiating change. For my next project I intend to express the unique findings of my anthropological experiments through the creation of a multi-screen, hand drawn animation designed for installation at the Urban Space Gallery, (401 Richmond Street. Toronto Ont.) The importance of this artwork will be examined through a brief analysis of my overall artistic initiatives, the technical relevance, and cultural significance of the proposed artwork.

In pursuit of edification, “HEY APATHY!“ aims to develop artworks of social importance as a vehicle for instigating mass dialogue. When I started the project (2001) I used to represent the city as a lifeless entity corrupted by alienation, anonymity, and misdirected commercial ideologies.. At this time I was working out of the seclusion of a suburban basement studio and came to the conclusion that in order to best understand the phenomena in question it would be necessary to externalize my inquires. The plan being to immerse both the artworks and myself publicly in an attempt to answer the questions: “WHAT IS THE CITY?” , “WHO ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE?” and “WHERE DO I FIT IN?“. I have since executed this “Unconventional Interview” through numerous public exhibitions, street art performances, outdoor projections, and wall murals. These interventions have permitted me to meet and converse with thousands of people from all over the world, and of all walks of life. As a result the investigation has led to increasingly intricate discoveries about architecture and others, and ultimately more accessible artworks such as comics, merchandising and animations. Today the experiment is primarily concerned with the creation of drawings that are simultaneously intellectually provocative as well as accessible to younger audiences.

Throughout the entire project, a trend of increasingly accessible, public , and multi-media presentations has evolved. In order to communicate to on a broad scale my investigation consists of live performances, print publications, and new media projects with an emphasis on public interventions and exhibitions.

For the proposed media arts installation I intend to extend my combination of art and popular culture, by creating a unique and socially significant animated artwork. The hand-drawn animation will be presented as loop or “Living Painting” on a large format flat-screen , exclusively designed for exhibition at the Urban Space Public Gallery (see C2 for details). The technical process will differ drastically from the “Cell” or “After-Effects” industry standard. Using the research, craftsmanship, and methods of presentation associated with fine artworks, I will assimilate the popular technology necessary to discuss humanist topics of great concern by means of an abstract , yet accessible, animated language.

A fine balance of global issues and playful optimism is apparent in all of my artworks, an invaluable technique in the alchemy of connecting with both the public and the intellectual. In this constituently technological age, it has become second nature for the artist to adopt, infiltrate and subvert the mainstream. To an artist interested in mass communication, the probabilities of new media exploration facilitate necessity. The proposed animation will critique and subvert popular media, compare, contrast, and combine classical and commercial art forms, and most importantly, invite younger audiences into an alternative stream of communication. Potentially a pinnacle achievement in my aggressive attempt to reconfigure pop, art, technology, and self.