These psychedoodlic haikus were created for a group exhibit in Montreal entitled Gene Swarm.
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For a PURE experience download meme_swarm.pdf (2.6 megabytes).
Oogle the images then come back here for all the natty background info.
Highly recommended.
Gene Swarm was curated by Rupert Bottenberg and held at Le Kop Shop, Montreal, Canada, during November 2006. The participants were Luke Ramsey, Billy Mavreas, Rupert Bottenberg and Marc Ngui.
Images are available for sale. Scroll down or click for purchase details.
Images can be viewed larger; click any poster for a 600pix wide image.
See a larger version of poster #1.
Capeless Thor fends off the advances a goofy hydra.
The background to this image is a painting of Vesuvius erupting by Joseph Turner.
Detail of the poster.
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See a larger version of poster #2.
A melting Michelin Man exhales a sickly Oscar the Grouch as the cast and set of Burgertime commingle with 3D figurines from The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch figurines. The sky slick is excerpted from the photograph Nickel Tailings No. 36 - Sudbury, Ontario 1996 by Edward Burtynsky
Detail of the poster showing some of the Bosch figurines.
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See a larger version of poster #3.
The Centaur of Attention was inspired by David Andrew Sitek whose wantonly masterful digital audio manipulations have inspired the collage nature of all these images. This poster was guest colored/collaged by Magda Wojtyra.
Detail of the poster.
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See a larger version of poster #4.
The typography of the word "Evolve" references the evolution of the alphabet from early Phoenician runes to New York wildstyle graffitti.
A young Neith, the Egyptian predecessor to Athena, rides forth astride her mechanical owl, Bubo. Bubo is the R2D2 character equivalent in the Clash of the Titans.
The pink purple jelly fish creatures floating around "Evolve" were coloured using the objects in Still Life: Five Glass Surfaces on a Tabletop a prizewinning digital visualisation of mathematical equations.
Detail of the poster.
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The snowy mountains in the background are borrowed from North Shore, Baffin Island I (1925 - 1935) by my favourite group of seven artist, Lawren Harris. The watermelon spirit features tattoos inspired by Beneath the Great Wave by Hokusai.
Detail of the poster.
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The title of this piece is another way to say "I love you".
The backgrounds and textures in this image were all generated from scratch. The textures on the two central figures were derived from photos of magma and volcanic rock via Google image search.
Detail of the poster.
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See a larger version of poster #7.
The word "Make" in the poster above is a hand rendered version of the logo of Make Magazine. Make Magazine is devoted to a DIY(do it yourself) approach to technology. Check out their "Maker's Bill of Rights".
The background texture is a digital mashup of a photograph of a reusable holographic foil gift bag.
The figure in the poster, detail above left, wears a mask inspired by the Prototypes of New Understanding masks by Brian Jungen, another inspiring Canadian artist. The Prototypes on New Understanding masks are made from flayed Nike Air Jordan running shoes.
This poster is based on a simpler diagram, image above right, commisioned byJoel Katelnikoff, to illustrate his writing A Note on Kites and the Human Sense of Reality: Ten Philosophical Premises Prefaced by a Haiku (note_on_kites.pdf, 30 KB).
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See a larger version of poster #8.
This image is redrawn from a portrait sketch in an old notebook. The hair texture is from press photographs of Junichiro Koizuma, ex-prime minister of Japan. The text is a hand drawn rendition of a Gothic script called Fraktur. The shirt texture is a collage of an orchid photograph found through Google Images.
The sweater was a gift to me from Sue St. Denis when we were room mates many years ago in Windsor, Ontario. The house on Kildare Road where we lived was later demolished to make way for a funeral home parking lot. The sweater is old and mangy now and still has its feel good powers.
And that gaze? That timeless smile? The face, background and wonderful chiaroscuro was borrowed from none other than the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci.
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See a larger version of poster #9.
This image derived as the last line from this sketchbook rant - Tractas 20. The background is composed of scanned autumn leaves from the lovely Strathcona neighbourhood in Vancouver, which borders the notoriously drug-addicted neighbourhood of Hastings and the Main Street drag.
Detail of the poster.
back to topGene Swarm is a term gleaned from one of Terence Mckenna's many monologues. It refers to the flow of genetic information on the earth over millenia as it would be perceived by a consciousness capable of observing events unfolding over extremely long time scales.
Mckenna's point was that individual species (never mind individuals) would exist only as flickers of flesh while the genetic information would be the continuous elements combining and recombining, dancing each other in and out of prominence as environments changed and evolutionary forces selected the most appropriate combinations. This idea of observing evolution at a bio-molecular level over geologic time seems to have been impossible until the 20th century.
The title Meme Swarm was generated when gene was switched to meme as a way of emphasizing information content over biological process.
back to topEach image was first drawn with ink on paper, scanned at a high resolution and digitally coloured and collaged. Many images use classical and famous paintings as backgrounds and these are noted below. Other elements used include personal photographs and images gleaned off the web, also noted below, and patterns and textures generated specifically for this project.
For display at the gallery, the posters were printed on metallic Kodak photo paper using a QSS-3101Digital machine from Noritsu.
Support the artist - buy hard copies of Meme Swarm.
The output is a laser exposure on metallic photo paper that achieves a level of detail sharpness and colour clarity that has to be seen to be believed. In other words, stupendously fantastic. The metallic paper reflects colours through the photographic gel colors for an additional depf of field effect. Very nice, indeed.
Prices
$150 for each 8.5" x 11" poster
or
$900 for the full set of 9 plus 2 bonus cover images.
(See the covers in meme_swarm.pdf.)
Sizes
In addition to the size and prices above, larger versions of the print are also available. Let us know what size you would like and we'll calculate the pixels and send you a quote.
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Please email the details of your choices and shipping address and we will ship you a PayPal invoice. Once paid, allow 2 to 8 weeks for delivery.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. This system does seem to represent a fresh approach to copyright that is motivated more by sharing and learning than ego and greed.
