Art Projects from SPEARSPEARSPEAR

Assorted works by the GHOSTSHRIMP. collective, best known for designing the backgrounds (and some characters) for Adventure Time. All of the works done were made on commission for assorted purposes, such as penguin publishing advertising, book covers, show flyers, and album covers. NOTE: To anyone interested, it sounds like this group has an amazing artist retreat every year that involves wilderness training, cabin building, drawing skills, outdoor adventures, campfires etc. The head mentor this year is Kent Osbourne, the lead writer for Adventure Time. Applications are due soon for August 2015, so check them out.

Cover to “Last Kind Words: 1926-1953″, a compilation of early Delta Blues Artwork by Chris Johanson Note 1: I originally picked up this record as a fan of blues from this era and region (”Last Kind Words” being one of my favorite songs), but it wasn’t until I took THeories of Art Practice that I was introduced to Chris Johanson’s work. Long story short, even happier to own this record now. Note 2: This image does not do the piece justice, since it’s hard to make out what is written in the speech bubbles. Some bubbles are lyrics to songs featured on the record, others are Johanson’s usual acid-based wisdom. Here are some examples: “Don’t let nobody turn you around” “No kind words no where”                                                                           “Money can’t buy your soul”                                                                                 “Death is only a dream”                                                                                           “I am like some kind of log rolling”                                                                         “Salvation”                                                                                                               “Cat or is it a fish I don’t know what the hells going on anymore” “It is hard to leave you” “I’m going” “I see you” ...and many more                                 

piece for upcoming “Samurai!” group exhibition at the Worcester Art Museum piece by James Jean found in High Fructose

Latest painting by David Choong Lee

by Robert Williams from “Slang Aesthetics!” show in LA Found in High Fructose

Here is my first successful VHS tape loop. I haven't been able to get any other loops to work since, and the VCR you see here has since died, so I've been delayed. Send me your VCRs please.

Cover to Miracleman #15 (Nemesis) - John Totleben 

In Response to Charlie Hebdo by Robert and Aline Crumb (2015)

Poster by +HIRS+, incuded in the spit cassette with SLOTHSPRING

Swamp-Thing in Gotham - John Totleben

Makeshift Tri-pod: putting books to good use

I hope to explore the world of interactive comix in an upcoming project. Inspired by Chris Ware's work ("Building Stories" can be seen above) and the work of Michael Deforge ("Ant Colony", "Adventure Time", etc.) I hope to make stories without specific beginnings and endings, nd have the comic itself be a physical space. I imagine individual panels that are first shown in a linear sense, before all of the individual panels mix together, spreading from the walls to the floor to the ceiling in chaotic ways. Building Stories exemplifies a story with an original structure; that of a building. Here, the building itself is the main character, and every inhabitant of the building is a memory or an emotion being expressed. 

Battleworld 2015 unveiled, ushering in the end of the Marvel universe (by Jonathan HIckman)

Here is my senior thesis film, an experimental short dubbed ARCANE. I wrote, directed, acted, and helped to design the atmosphere and props for the piece. This film is the first of a series of short films, sculptures, and mixed media works that work primarily with degraded footage and sound (much like an old home movie made sometime between 1970 and the early to mid 90's). I'm very interested by the works of Harmony Korine (Gummo, Trash Humpers, etc), and his focus of revealing human despair and struggle through home movies as a kind of gothic catharsis. I hope to explore this condition as well, by exploring the unknown and the unconscious relationships humans create with false realities. I hope to manipulate the image in order to create an uncomfortable, almost phantasmagoric, self-reflective experience for the viewer.

CELLULOID ABYSS post 3: While making figures out of packing tape and VHS tape hasn't been too difficult, the real challenges are still to come. The first is creating a frame that will hold up working TVs as heads. The second is how material will actually be screened on said TVs. The simplest solution while sticking with my analog/VHS theme, would be to record and edit-in-camera on a VHS camcorder. The limitations for this are that there will be a specific length for each video, and they will start and stop. If I'm interested in making the videos continuous, I will need to reconfigure both the VCR and the VHS tape to play on a loop. After conducting some research, this is much easier said than done. Most online instructions I've found have been specific to Cassette looping, and have stated that the process of looping VHS is "impossible." The video above proved everyone wrong on that, but doesn't provide any explanation other than it is possible to do. If anyone knows how to perfect this process let me know, otherwise, I may be looking for an easier solution.

CELLULOID ABYSS post 2: Another major influence on my upcoming sculpture piece is Cronenberg's 1983 bodyhorror film, Videodrome. Without going into too much detail on the plot, the film explores the role that Television and VHS play in day to day life and how people's obsessions with sex and violence can be used as a form of societal control. The television screen is central to the plot, and as reality becomes more disfigured, so does the TV screen, morphing into living flesh (seen above). In my sculpture piece, the figures made from VHS and Televisions will be watching a human television face, that is also a living embodyment (a screaming, melting flesh face). I hope to communicate the pivotal role media has played in shaping our minds, and vice versa. 

CELLULOID ABYSS post 1: My original inspiration to create human statues with television heads came from Brian K. Vaughn's ongoing comic series, Saga. The series includes a ace of robots with Television heads (exemplified by Prince Robot IV, above). The images displayed on the television change drastically depending on the emotion or tone displayed by the character. This idea pushed me to think of ways to manipulate TV's and VHS in order to display changing images that could represent thoughts or emotions