Animal Traits

:Across the world scientists and biotechnology companies are rushing to patent hundreds of new genetically engineered animals. Patents are about profits - providing monopoly rights to exploit inventions. So scientists claim to ‘invent’ animals, who’s genetic makeup they have interfered with, in order to profit from their production:

Penquat

Abstract visual form of a squat penguin. It is black and white and cannot fly. The spelling is only slightly different from the real thing.

Ball point pen on paper

Animal Draw Gallery - art4oka.com

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“Mum, that thing’s in the garden again!”

“Oh what a silly lad? That’s your new pet!”

“But Mum, why must I have such outlandish pets?”

“Well, it’s because of your Daddy’s job.” She said, hoping to satisfy the inquisitive child. He wasn’t having any of it.

“Yes but why? Can’t you just explain?”

“Well it’s like this son, you’re Daddy’s a genetic scientist, which means he experiments with D.N.A”

“You know what that is right?” She checked eager to go on. He just nodded eager for her to go on.

“…..and basically he can get his material from virtually anywhere, any part of any living or dead matter and change it’s D.N.A structure, and thus increase both the physical and the mortality aspects of it’s being. In short he can adjust life and possibly make life and clone life forms. The field he is working on at the moment is a new area of research, which will open up all sorts of possible dimensions to this. Needless to say it is still in it’s early stages. That’s why he is never in these days.” She paused. “He just likes to bring his work home with him. We thought you would be pleased, you know, it is something the other kids don’t have.” She paused again.

“Yes Mum, but what’s death for?” He asked.

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I have seen articles where scientists have manged to graft a human ear onto the back of a mouse. Another article described giving bio-luminescence genes to mice which end up with the ability to glow in the dark. spider silk making D.N.A. has be added to goats and spider silk is then extracted from their milk. Xeno-transplantation harvesting internal organs of genetically modified animals for the use of humans. If one is clever enough an octopus chicken could be invented and of course patented. It would have many edible legs and could be stored in a very small space.

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Strong abstract image, derived from a yak and musk ox. Heavy pen marks and balanced colours. The long, heavy coat of the beast protects it from most of the harsh weather. Is it hard to be happy when you are so cold? Many of my “animal” drawings and paintings are not accurate representations. I feel it is a different challenge to try to capture the animal’s trait.

Yaksad

Acrylic, conte crayon and ink pen on paper

Animal Traits Gallery - art4oka.com

Too Much Time With The Computer

I originally thought it was the promised land. Endless creativity glimpsed at, imagined and relished. No more paint splatters on clothes, stained carpets and squeezing my painterly creativity into a small room. Photo manipulation and abstract digital artworks. All the possibilities contained in a small, well lit box, endless hours staring and clicking, barely moving and sometimes blinking, it proved to be a non physical alternative to painting. Never having the true experience and never experiencing the truth.

This hypnotising digital despair was amplified ten fold by the realisation that I could produce multiple musical tracks of original sounds and therefore make my own music with a few clicks of a mouse. Music has always had a huge influence on my life and now I was able to create self influencing musical creations and or landscapes, audible painting. Capturing individual elements and editing/ manipulating them to fit into my acoustic vision. Five years of this intense computer faced entrapment. Learning how to use the software, experimenting with sounds and my listening, producing volumes of digital data that needed storing in tiny places. Hardly creating anything physical save a few quick sketches in response to the sounds and writing twisted, misaligned poetry of guilt and regret.

Below are a few examples of that time. I have moved on from the constant creative interface. I severed my digital dependence. Looking back and viewing then as a different me. Now, years after, the bombardment of virtual communication is constant, tools of make believe necessity. I post and subscribe and my search history is monitored. Now is not the time to be distracted by the chaff rooms. Entertain my brain and not adjust my eyes. Checking frequently if anyone has sent.

Stuck and Needing to Shout

Acrylic and chinagraph pencil on paper

Sound Inspired Gallery art4oka.com

A pixelated environment:

We sit in front of a glass screen for information, instruction and experience.

A Misplaced Love Poem:

There you are sitting confidently

Across the room

Casually observing all

Leaving nothing to the imagination

Unimpressed by it all

You are quickly blinking at me

Or is it me, who is blinking at you?

Your radiance it glows

Upon my face

As I gaze back, and moan

The lights are on

But nobody is home

Focus

My feet are sore from sitting all day

My brain is anguished for being so lazy

My eyes are de-focusing from not seeing anything else

Digital Recording

Acrylic and chinagraph pencil on photographic paper

Sound Inspired Gallery

art4oka.com

RSN Random Sequence Narrative

The thought starts when I laid out a selection of unrelated photographs, together like this they take on a sequence, a series of pictures firstly related because of their position, secondly formed into a sequence only by the viewer. The viewer is trained to view the otherwise unrelated images in this way (left to right, top to bottom.) In this case each image represents a time, or a stage in the sequence or story. Our reading of the images creates an automatic in built path of recognition of otherwise separate, chaotic or confusing image; we are constantly searching for understanding or maybe a narrative of some kind.

As the photographs were laid out at random the images started to inform each other, just because of their position in the sequence. Dark extreme close ups next to lighter abstract shapes, each in turn creating positive and negative spaces in the sequence. I was beginning to read the images as a story, a natural response, as if they were pictures in a book. Unrelated non-sequential abstract images. Narrative without a point. (Below is an example; though not with the original artworks that were exhibited with the "After it had Rained" story. The images below are from the "The Story Part 1 - 10" sequence and are available in the "On Photographs" gallery at art4oka.com

After It Had Rained

The two boys were just sitting by the roadside, it had rained about an hour ago so the reddy brown dust that was normally by the road had been turned into a thinish mud. As the boys sat there sheltered from the sun under an overhanging area of the hedge, they talked about what people actually meant when they said things . As one of the boys was speaking he poked at the ground with a stick that he had found earlier in the day, it had been used for many things during the course of their journey, now it was being poked at the soft earth, making shallow marks in the damp dust. The boy seemed distracted as he poked and spoke. After a little while the subject of conversation changed quite naturally. A cyclist rode past, he didn't notice them, it made no difference to them, his bicycle did make the bicycle wheels on wet road noise which reminded them of something.

The boy without the stick got up and started looking for one amongst the hedgerow. The stick he found wasn't as long as the other boys but he was shorter than him by a few inches. After showing the other boy who was still resting in the shade, he started scraping the ground nearer to the road with his stick. The boy under the tree watched a bird a few yards further down the road, pecking at the soil for grubs which had come to the surface to feed on the minerals that the rain had washed from the road, he could hear his friend scraping away in the soil as the bird flew away. He stood slowly and stretched, as the roar of tired muscles faded in his ears he heard the other boy calling him, who was standing proudly over where he had been scraping the ground. Where the sun had dried the surface of the soil it was its normal reddy-brown colour, but where the surface layer had been scrapped away it was a dark, deep brown, his friend had drawn the outline of a car with windows, door handles and even an aerial.

"I wish I had a camera." Said his friend. As he looked down the road again, the bird had landed and was pecking at the earth again. "What good would that do?" he responded still looking at the bird, the bird flew off as a car passed quickly on the road behind them, he was unsure whether his friend had heard his reply. He turned and looked at the other boy, they were both smiling, they walked down the road as the drawing faded in the sun, the damp soil beneath the surface returning to its usual reddy brown. The bird had landed again, this time where the boys had sat and was feasting on a pale worm as the tapping of the boys sticks became louder.

(Original story by Jonathan Oakes Copyright 1998)