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| PAUL HUBBARD |
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Paul Hubbard
When the expression and sensibility of sculpture and materials are transmuted hybridization is often the result. The synthesis of disparate objects fuse at this moment, giving rise to emerging junctions, passages and visual experiences, which take on new meaning. These emergent visual pathways begin to initiate the hybrid narrative.
The transmutation of these 'intersections' begins to describe a story. These intersecting layers come together as moments, which create passages to be visually and kinesthetically interpreted by the viewer. The narrative is accessible to the viewer at a very basic sensory motor level of awareness that may transport the viewer or at least encourage them to move through the space. The observer is invited to read the contextual clues so they can navigate the space in a manner in which may comfort their perceptions or confront them.
These multifaceted 'intersections' are particularly interesting moments of transversion when seemingly distinct histories, technologies and philosophies are encourage to converge with each other. It can be argued that it is part of the artist's role to explore and respond to the rapid and overwhelming volume of evidence of new discovery that becomes part of our consciousness. The quantity, availability and speed of this information has become part of our daily experience. We filter this information with increasing dexterity, looking down a headline list of narratives, making decisions as to what is worthy of further investigation.
This information barrage has to be dealt with, requiring further learning and practice to be able to effectively process the information. The seductive level of information, emanating from a universal platform plugs directly into the artist's natural curiosity about the world.
Where are the edges?
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Words encode basic concepts permitting efficiency with sophisticated ideas. With the advances in the digital and virtual media we now have a tool to construct models of the mind to begin to study them from a holistic viewpoint and supported by DNA technology. This hybrid moment has resulted in a number of ground breaking experiments….It has been reported that a British university professor has had a silicone chip implanted into his left writs via the median nerve. Electrodes have been connected and linked to a computer via a transmitter receiver. It is planned to carry out experiments where he is hooked up to an ultrasonic sensor to give himself a bat like sixth sense in order to navigate the real world. The whole process has now turned full circle from externalizing an inward perceptual experience to now wanting to take those advanced technologies and internalize them once more. The dry wired worlds and the wet biological worlds have now converged using new forms of expression developed in an evolutionary chain of events and experiences.
In my own work, I attempt to combine my interests and sensibilities as a sculptor, with the worlds of Alchemy, architecture or a desire to control space, philosophy and the world of scientific discovery. My work is infused with an array of disparate objects and references, from the past and the moment, while maintaining roots in antiquity, I attempt to span into the contemporary. I selectively collect objects and artifacts for which I shape a space to encompass these diverse elements. In carefully selecting and altering the articles of my work, and placing them in context these articles redefine themselves, transforming these multifaceted ideas into one.
The work goes through several distinct evaluation processes similar to those found in alchemy, namely Wet/Dry/Albedo/Citrinitas/and finally Rubedo. These are the clearly defined stages of the laboratory aspect of the alembic process. In the context of this precept, it is inevitable that this gives rise to a plethora of new and sometimes strange entities and metaphors initiated by memory and imagination. From this complex navigation and fusing of experiences new narratives are formed, multiple realities are open to a range of interpretations. In making the work, I am always very aware of the important part that is played by the observer when challenged to find his or her own narrative pathway.
Quantum physics appears now to indicate that the role of the observer in an experiment is vital in determining its outcome. Even to the point of suggesting that the experimenters have the ability to actually manipulate matter and events through the use of strong imagination. This seems to indicate that physics is now beginning to adopt an ever-growing conceptual element. In 1982, this was demonstrated in a ground breaking experiment by a French physicist who demonstrated through the use of models, that physics cannot avoid the uncertainty principle. Put another way, they cannot separate the consciousness of the observer from the events being observed. This means we are now in a position of being asked to see reality in a very different way, where the consciousness is paramount in understanding what we currently call reality.
The Alchemist therefore lives in a world of poetic possibility, in which the ability of things to transform is only limited by his or her own imagination and vocabulary. (Sean Martin, Alchemy and the Alchemists)
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