Obfuscation Series

Brownsword was nominated by Maj Sandell, Director of Konsthantverkscentrum to undertake a three month research residency at IASPIS (The International Artists Studio Program in Stockholm).

Practice-based research generated during this period was influenced by the limitations of resources and workshop facilities. The only 'tool' onsite was a laser copier which Brownsword used to explore ideas surrounding the 'unfaithful' copy from a variety of perspectives. Digital meshes from a variety of 3D models of 18th century Staffordshire ceramics that typify periods of cultural borrowing, and clays ability to imitate other materials (such as silverware), were magnified and printed through the laser copier. Images were superimposed upon other images through a process of multi-pass printing leading to slippage and the disruption/obliteration of the image. 18th and 19th chinoiserie patterns were also digitally removed from the object and used in conjunction with the data meshes to create a palimpsest of intersecting images and forms.

This exploratory period was instrumental to concepts realised in 'Obsolescence and Renewal', providing an innovative methodology that was transcribed into other materials and archival print.

'The recovery and analysis of past material culture through a reengagement with archives, museum collections and redundant technologies has pre-occupied much artistic practice in recent decades. The visual and sensory characteristics of objects rendered meaningless through historic cultural appropriation and assimilation, are reactivated and transformed through digital. The voids and vestiges from positive/negative iterations of these objects, aim to expose tensions between presence and absence. Embracing the slippage and limitations of technology and materials evident in these various modes of reproduction, aim to harness these deviations to create simulacra that lose connections with their original to achieve their own autonomy – or as Baudrillard claims, ‘copies without originals’.

‘Unfaithful derivatives’, aim to assign new value through their material translation, and interpretation beyond connotations of obsolescence. By deliberately corrupting iterations of the copy, I hope to dismantle the dogma of standardisation imposed by tradition, whilst retaining a familiarity to social memory and regional shared identity'.