Flat Earth News

Devotees of my work will surely remember my seminal Flat Earth installation and accompanying screen-printed book that I made at the end of 2015. Since then ideas about Flat Earth theory have been nagging away in my mind like some kind of well-meaning but irritating acquaintance so I have decided to explore it further and make a more resolved and visually satisfying project.

The main bulk of my work this year is 4 projects - 2 per semester - so they're supposed to be fairly weighty. For my first project of the year I decided to make a newsletter based on the Flat Earth News which the Flat Earth Society published in the 70s-90s, Reading the newsletters I was struck by the ridiculous phrasing and naive graphic design and thought it could be fun to make my own version as a sort of parody.

I started doing more research into Flat Earth theory and thinking about various subscription-based and fringe publications. I tried some risographs and stencil screenprints

I was struggling a bit to focus my ideas so decided to make the first edition a "Broader Horizon" issue and started developing some garish visuals and ideas which were quite in keeping with my installation. I was becoming frustrated with it though as I was finding it difficult to make anything that actually looked good, then I had a crit and completely psyched myself out about the whole idea, feeling that it wasn't enough, and veered very off course.

I did loads of research reading some articles and a collection of articles in book form called Lost At Sea by Jon Ronson. In that I read an article about a man who reinvented himself as a soul singer called Mingering Mike and made cardboard records, record sleeves, and recorded tapes spanning an entire fictional career. This got me thinking about outsider art which was interesting, learning about people with an uncontrollable urge to make things without necessarily intending anyone to see them. This made me feel pretty bad considering I had been sitting about for weeks doing virtually hee haw in an attempt to come up with something really original and smart. The more you think about creativity the more it can completely elude you, and the act of making can spark ideas, so I decided to revert back to my artists' block go-to and make some collages.

I was thinking about dimensions and flatness and made a collage with paving slabs which I thought was quite effective:

It was the only thing I'd done so far which I found visually rewarding so I got more photos of pavements and started playing about with collage screen-prints:

I'm pretty happy with how they look so far - I feel much better about the project now that I actually have something to show for it. Now I just need to work out how to bring together all the separate elements I've been thinking about into a final piece.

Art and Science - Flat Earth Installation

Art and Science exhibition was on Monday! Making the installation itself took a fair amount of work and took me out of my comfort zone venturing into the woodwork department. I didn't know how it would look all together until I assembled everything on the day of the exhibition and I was pleasantly surprised - while it's garish it isn't as horrendous as I'd feared which is the main thing.

The installation uses primary colours plus black and white. I decided to exclude other colours as a reference to exclusion of evidence and I actually really like the way it looks. All the elements focus on the idea of Zetetics - trusting your senses above all other evidence which ties in nicely with my visual way of thinking about things as an artist.

I also edited the conversation between David and Adam to manipulate their words and make it seem as they were in support of flat earth theory.

The installation got mixed reactions probably due to the "eye-catching" nature of it but I love the way it looks and I'm really proud of it! It was nice to work on a larger scale and I feel I definitely challenged myself producing some of the elements. All in all a good semesters work!

Art and Science - Flat Earth Project

This semester has been a bit different as I've been doing an elective module - Art and Science - alongside my core illustration work which has made a nice change. It took me a while to get into it as there was no brief for the module which was initially intimidating for me as a designer, however now I'm really enjoying the freedom that's given me.

Initially I did quite a lot of research. I spoke with a couple of scientists - a biochemist working on sleeping sickness and a physicist who specialises in ultrafast photonics.

I enjoyed talking about physics as I loved it at school but I didn't want to do anything too serious for the project. I went to see the Turner Prize exhibition in Glasgow and was inspired by Bonnie Camplin's installation. I liked the idea of finding evidence for something and that people can prove anything if they omit certain facts and highlight others. This sparked a memory of an article I'd read years ago about the Flat Earth Society who are basically just a group of people who believe the earth is flat. I started looking into flat earth theory and thinking about how you could go about proving it.

I spoke to David (the physicist I had had an initial conversation with) about it and obviously he was pretty flabbergasted at the whole idea and really struggled with how he would go about finding evidence for the flat earth. I then recorded him and his friend Adam (another physicist) discussing how to prove that the earth was flat.

I considered what visual evidence you could use in support of flat earth theory - most of it pretty simple - for example, everyone is standing up, water is level etc (flat earth believers don't believe in gravity). I started working on some acetone transfers with screen prints using photos I'd found in encyclopedias and my own scribbly diagrams and writing.

I decided I wanted to create an installation of flat earth theory incorporating the recorded conversation with my prints and objects. As the final exhibition for the module would be in the life sciences building which isn't an ideal space I decided to create a wooden structure which I would be free to paint and stick things onto so I didn't have to compromise my idea.

scale model