Update and hello Lokofoto

Hi,

Its been a bit quiet on here for a few months now for a few reasons.

1. I have been working really hard.... seriously

2. I have been developing new a new painting series ( progress pics coming soon ) &

3. I have realised one of my ambitions - to launch an internet startup with worldwide potential ; www.lokofoto.com

 

 

Lokofoto is stunning photographic prints of places you love. We are creating the worlds greatest collection of location photography and want to shake up the decorative photography market.

All the photos on Lokofoto are submitted by photographers and available for sale as prints. Each photo goes through an entries section where they are voted on to ensure only the best photos make it into "The Collection"

We focus on location so that you can discover the best photos of places you know and love.

Check it out and let us know what you think.

Thanks
Daire

Jack White school of business

Hi,

 

I haven't been posting on here for a while, simply because I have been occupied with different projects - mainly Lokofoto.com. Inititally I intended this to be a journal of my own work, but the recent drive towards launching Lokfoto has occupied most of my creative efforts and I didnt really feel like posting html/css designs and code. Maybe I will in future. So, in short I may start psoting here not just my creative work (in their ever expanding mediums), but also interesting articles and snippets from art, design, technology, photography & entrepreneurship - all things that are on my mind. I'll try and arrange some tagging structure to categorise content.

 

Anyways...., here is an article I came across from Sean Blanda's blog. It is about Jack Whites take on creativity and business. Here are a few take aways from it.

 

Constraints produce creativity -

 

"The White Stripes have build a strong, but limited framework for their music and their business. Much like good business can boil down their messaging to a simple phrase1, creativity is best produced when faced with strict limitations. The White Stripes only have two members, limited color scheme and (for a while) only used analog equipment."

 

Your profession is not a cartoon

 

White talked abut his love of theatrics holding down his early business ambitions as an upholster. “I was an apprentice for years, but when I opened my own place, I just didn’t have that love for money that’s necessary to run a business. I was so into the cartooniness of it.”

 

Worth a read : http://seanblanda.com/blog/feature/the-jack-white-school-of-business/

Quote of the Day

Q : What makes a great artist ?

A : A great agent .

            -Charming Baker

Exhibition in Moxie Studios - Friday 29th April

/*Reminder*/

I am having an exhibition to night in Moxie Studios, Lad Lane, Dublin 2 {off baggot street}. This is part of the "Play" series run by the studios. There will also be work from Derek Fitzpatrick. Exhibition runs from 6pm till 10pm tonight .

 

Music and Bar ! All welcome. The barbecue may even make an appearence !

More Info - www.mox.ie

 

Hope to see you there

 

 

Exsibit.com - Experience art online

At the weekend I pitched exsibit.com at the Dublin Web startup weekend.

IM THRILLED TO SAY THAT WE WON !




What is exsibit.com ?


For Art Lovers

 exsibit.com will be the place to discover art exhibitions that are happening around the world. We will provide art lovers the platform to discover art and experience art online like never before. We will translate the intimacy of a gallery experience online. exsibit.com will allow users to build up taste for what they like and can recommend upcoming exhibitions they may be interested in. exsibit.com will be the much needed online centre for the art world. Importantly exsibit.com is about discovering the art world in the present, it is a utility to understand the art world as it evolves.

 

For Galleries

Exsibit will give galleries the tools to create great online exhibtions. We will give galleries the ability to create and maintain engaging exhibitons online, something which at present would cost thousands of euro's  from a web design company. Not only does exsibit give gallery owners these innovative tools to use cheaply - it also joins them into a worldwide network where art lovers can discover their gallery.

 

For All

Imagine the enjoyment and excitement of gallery hoping through an artistic neighbourhood, finding galleries and discovering new artists. Now imagine the neighbourhood is worldwide. That is exsibit.com

 

Here is a link to an article on the DSW and also exsibit.com

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/start-ups/item/20634-startup-weekend-winner-in/

Sign up to exsibit.com to be alerted of new developments and to get early access !

I hope you will be part of our vision.

Interactive Films ?

With the widespread growth of the internet and increasing speed of broadband will our future movie/film/tv experiences be experienced through the internet ? Well yes and - already a lot of people have been viewing media in this way for quite a while. Services like google tv , apple tv, Netflix are precursors in a major shift to Internet based film and video. Well is that an imporatant development in the future of moving image or simply an address change ?

 

This type of fusion opens up possibilities for more interaction with moving image. Imagine a possible hybrid of gaming and movies. What if we could control movies, choose what we see rotate camera angles, skip between charachters at different times. I have been developing a artistic/technology project around similar concepts and recently stumbled across these cool 360 degree interactive panaromic videos from a Vancouver based company. Will this be the way we can view movies even events in the near future. I'm betting yes.

 

 

 

Make sure to drag and rotate your mouse to explore the landscape.

Visit Galleries/Museums on the net ?

Is this the new way we will engage with art. A rule it seems with art is that you must see art in person, in the gallery space or museum. I am sure the average person views more art through a computer screen than in galleries. But what if art galleries are virtual, and the work is made specifically for these digital spaces. Will this be the accepted way to attend exhibitions ? . Not sure, but interesting...

The Adobe Museum of Digital Media (AMDM)

"The museum's first exhibit features work by Tony Oursler, an internationally recognized artist who uses a synthesis of digital mediums — sound, light, video, installation, performance, and electronic entities — and often incorporates human faces."


The Flow chart style layout here brought me back to my "Studio Wall Idea Generation" post a while back >

Studio Wall Idea Generation

 


Adobe Museum of Digital Media

 

"The Adobe Museum of Digital Media (AMDM) is a unique virtual space designed to showcase and preserve groundbreaking digital work and to present expert commentary on how digital media influences culture and society.

The museum is an ever-changing repository of eclectic exhibits from diverse fields ranging from photography to product development to broadcast communications. To inspire fresh conversation on the constantly evolving digital landscape, exhibits are overseen by guest curators, each of whom is a recognized leader in the field of art, technology, or business.

The AMDM is a space unlike any created before. Because it is entirely digital, it is an ideal gallery for displaying and viewing digital media, as well as revealing the innovation and artistry within the work. It is open to the public 365 days a year and is accessible from anywhere in the world"

 Click here to Visit the Adobe Online Museum

Studio View before Christmas

Here is a view of the my studio before I left for Christmas. It has also become the temporary home of my bike for a while, due to icy road conditions.

 

The Painitng on the wall is the piece I was working on before the Christmas Break, It is entitled "Funeral" and is the first in a series using Northen Ireland troubles images as a starting point. It mainly explores the effect a conflict can have on people and place as they progress forward into the future. It is layered or infused then with additional elements drawn from many sources, such as contemporary culture and celtic mythology. This layering stems from the concept of "Super hybridisation" ; the idea that modern people are becoming a hybrid due to Globalisation. The proliferation of communications, technology and the internet all facilitate a rapidly evolving people. I'll post more scripture on the concept as the series moves along.

 

 

"Nuke" Raises 2nd Highest Amount at Scoop Foundation Auction

"Nuke" went under the hammer on The 3rd Of October in The Ormond Wine Bar to raise money for the Scoop Foundation. ( http://www.thescoopfoundation.com/index.html )

It Raised the second highest amount on the night, behind a piece by London Based Cork-Man, Conor Harrington ( http://conorsaysboom.wordpress.com/ )

The Scoop Foundation are attempting to raise funds to build a much needed primary school in Cambodia.

 

Studio Wall - Idea Generation Centre

I often use my Studio Wall as a sort of sketchbook . Ideas are logged directly on the wall first and then expanded on later in a sketchbook. Often the wall itself begins to look interesting as an art piece itself. I have recently been researching and developing a project direction under the themes of conflict and contemporary cultures. In order to clarify my thinking and establish the direction I was searching for I reverted to an old design favourite - the "Spider Diagram" !

An ambition of mine is to have this as an interactive brainstorm wall, where every section is linked to articles, images, video etc with users capable of posting comments and links to yet unfound resources helping me out with avenues I may not have travelled down myself. My programming skills are not up to par at the minute for that so, I may be waiting a while (or maybe some kind hearted programming hero will help me out !)

 Anyways, click on the image to download a large image of the idea generation wall.

 

 

www.daireirwin.com

Conflict - Riots

I have started a new painting, again working on the theme of conflict. I'll be taking pictures as it progresses and posting them on here for anyone who is interested in seeing the development of a painting as well as the finished resolution ( I always am !)

In most of my Works, i generally use a 3 step process > Analog Sketches, Digital Sketches and Final Painting.

Analog utilising traditional means ; pen and paper - hand sketching etc. Digital being : a combination of computer programmes such as photoshop/3ds max etc to arrange a composition and compose elements of the piece. Then finally the painting itself. Usually with I start with acrylic, filling in the basic colours and defining proportions before moving onto oil to achieve the detail and a finished resolution.

Click on the image below to link to the gallery.

 

Go to Riot Progress Gallery

 I am currently about half way through now and will be posting more work in progress photos in the gallery as it develops.

Nuke Girl

New Painting exploring conflict.

 The Sublime beauty of the explosion, a conflict of the grotesque and the beautiful.

Detail

Turner Low_Res

A while ago I started an experiment to explore the influence of pixelation on Painting. We view the majorit of the art or images we see on a computer or on television, rarely seeing the actual work in person. I decided to reveal the elements that make up all digital images - pixels. I chose to recreate a rare self portrait of Turner as the subject - to draw a lineage beyween the old and new - paint and pixel.

 

 

Art, like any information, is consumed.

I began thinking about the place of art in the information era.

CHRISTINA GRAMMATIKOPOULOU explores these idea’s well in her article – Beyond Materiality: A digital revolution in life, art and logos. I let her do the talking….

“Our lives: photos, books, music… memories, personality, are now crammed into a tiny hard disk. They can be multiplied, distorted, enhanced or be forever erased

In a parallel course, the artistic object strays out of museums, art spaces and high-class collections in order to become a desktop image, a saved file, data flowing on the Internet; every user can get it and transform it. Art becomes more accessible than ever.

A computer translates any kind of information into numerical data, saves it and subsequently reconstructs it in an understandable form that reproduces the familiar form of a photo, a video or a printed text.

However, a digital photograph -or a digital video- is very different from an analogical one: it’s not the registration of light onto film, but a synthesis of elements called “pixels”; the pixels correspond to numerical values according to their color and their place in the picture.

In other words, what we have is not a copy or a registration of reality, but a reconstruction of what’s visible “

It is this notion that we see a copy –  a constructed illusion – regurgitated through digital trickery. I have recreated the illusion we see online revealing the pixels in paint . Reconstructing the codes the computer tells us is an image

The subject is Turner, in a rare self portrait. There is a dialogue to be explored here between the natural and the digital. Turners landscapes, captured and regurgitated on- screen in miniscule squares. Also, Turners paint is captured digitally and I have captured the digital representation with my own paint, adding a further step to a well known cycle.

 

 

 

 

Each square was painstankingly mixed and Painted on to a complex grid layout. Each squre is 1cm squared. Final size is 160cm x 122cm.