Automatic Convulsions is a salute to Surrealism. It constructs certain dangerous situation of being on the edge through a truncated floating model. In his book Manifesto of Surrealism, André Breton thus describes the automatism: “It could, on the contrary, only serve to justify the complete state of distraction which we hope to achieve here below.” The surrealists proceed along a narrow ridge on a cliff. Reaching the furthest point without crossing the limits is an extremely risky balance. It is also craziness, just like the civilized world before it collapses.

Bu Num Civilization Site simulates modern civilization and technology to become a completed historical event. While referring to the social circumstances and the meaning of the era, it also embarks a large-scale imagination and creation of history. BM 27 Bu Num Stone Tower is layered with 36 stones of different sizes. The long shaped ink rubbings were taken from the center stone panel on both sides of the tower. They depict the relationship and creation process between nanoscience and plants, which is my imagination inspired by the visual cyberspace and micro technology. The square ink rubbing was taken from the top of the stone tower. It consists of a double-layered square roof and stone tile slopes. Both the top and the bottom of each layer contain graphics made with bas-relief. The graphics were created by converting my own snapshots into computerized random codes. I took part of the codes, and engraved them with calligraphy font. This ink rubbing also symbolizes the digitalized and random coded version of my self-portrait.

Surpassing Space intends to express the span of space. It is the characteristics of multiple space presented by the interlacement of the two-dimension and the imaginative spaces. It transfers borders to different dimension through the movement of wave, and introduces the medium of space.

“I know where my home is, but to whom does the city belong?” This is the dialectics between people and social spaces. We live in the colorful city, which is composed by many “homes,” the living spaces of human beings. The city is full of different values, cultures, dynamics, and potentials and therefore it can show its uniqueness. The city has many “homes,” old, new, warm, and changing, each can develop its own story. Compared to the lifeless buildings, the concept of “home” can make us rethink the city and the life, It provides us a different perspective to look at things, and to cohere people to subvert the world. The city is colorful because of its “people”.

Chu’s work explores the connection between form and color of painting. It discusses the possibility of abstract painting by overlapping and collocating multiple surfaces. It blends color planes and strokes with high painterly into geometric designs, and focuses on the layers of abstract forms and color in space. The geometric shapes divide the painting into different color planes, which let different colors and technics collide and blend. His work also employs different contrasts to decompose and reconstruct a harmonious personal aesthetics. ngs, and to cohere people to subvert the world. The city is colorful because of its “people”.

Animal Farm is based on Chou’s five-year-long photography project that involved a large team and significant funding. In this project, he turns to zoos as his muses and sites of actual photo making, where vivid tableaus are created to suggest the sumptuous yet often baffled life of modern civilization. Theatrical sets were fabricated against the zoo environment, where the actors played their assigned roles as photos were taken at dawn and dusk. By so doing, Chou inserted surreal theatrical scenes and lifelike vernacular spaces into artificial enclosures in which wild animals were brought together and domesticated. Absurdity and displacement were emphasized as the artist situated humans among animals that were reminiscent of specimens. The home now looked like a cage, while the border between manmade interiors and the wilderness became blurred.

Chen Hui-Chiao first started using ping pong balls in her art work in 1997, and since then they have become the main media of her creation. In mathematics, Euclid wrote discourses about spherical geometry and number theory, pointing out that the sphere is a perfect symmetrical body in three-dimensional geometric space. In physics, spheres are rolling objects that collide or accumulate and occupy space. In Chen’s works, “spheres” symbolize planets that revolve on their own axis. The “moving spheres” are also an allusion to the reform movement, in the sense that reform is an important force promoting the development of society and civilization. In other words, movement is a process of change that lies in between potential and reality.

www.esculturasblanch.es Elena Blanch González was born in Barcelona in 1960, currently lives in Madrid. She completed her master degree in Internet and its Applications in Teaching, and received her PhD in Fine Arts and Sculpture from Complutense University of Madrid (CUM). Blanch was Director of the Department of Sculpture and is currently Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts, CUM. She is professor of drawing, sculpture and artistic techniques since 1985. She concentrates her teaching career with the study of new materials and the use of new technologies in the practice and teaching of art. She is also a member of an investigation group named “Art, Science and Nature”, formed by professors from different disciplines that study the connections between science and the humanities through different artistic languages, and whose aim is to improve the knowledge of both. Blanch has published diverse books about schulture: Fundamental Concepts of the Language of Sculpture, Procedures and Materials in the Sculpture Work, amongst others; and the relations between art and different disciplines: Coming Closer to Myths through Urban Iconography: from Cibeles to El Retiro, Drawing in the Air, Une approche du sculpteur Baltasar Lobo and The Mythologisation of the Homeland in Numismatic Europe since the Creation of the Euro. She has also completed numerous textbooks, such as Introduction of Sculpture: Informatized Evaluation of the Subject and Medals: Informatised Evaluation of the Subject. Combining her teaching and management career with the creation of artistic works, she also obtained various prizes and has participated in numerous exhibitions, both individual and collective.

www.chriswainwright.com Chris Wainwright is an artist and curator whose interests are based in environmental photography and performance. His recent solo exhibitions include: “We Are All Stars”, Nihonbashi Institute of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan, 2016; “First and Last”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, Taiwan, 2015; “Points of Departure”, Fotografins Huis, Stockholm, Sweden, 2014; and “A Catalogue of Errors”, Daiwa Foundation, London, 2013. His recent group shows include: “What Has To Be Done” (artist and curator), Today Art Museum, Beijing, China, 2017; “Ocean Imaginaries”, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, 2017; “A Small Constellation of Photographic Evidence” (artist and curator), Chang Art, 798 District, Beijing, China, 2015; “Troubled Waters” (artist and curator), Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts, Taipei, Taiwan, 2013. He recently co curated a major international touring exhibition for Cape Farewell called ‘U-n-f-o-l-d’ that profiled the work of 23 artists addressing climate change. The exhibition was shown in Vienna, London, Newcastle, Newlyn, Liverpool, Chicago, New York and Beijing between 2009 and 2013. His work is held in many major collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The Arts Council of England: Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. The Polaroid Corporation, Boston, USA, and Unilever, he is previously a member of The Tate Britain Council, London and is currently Professor and Chair of Fine Art at the University of the Arts London and a member of the Board of Directors of the Today Art Museum, Beijing.

The work is based around four of the artist's own photographs of Sunderland. Each image is titled after a film that came into the artist's mind as he worked, sometimes prompted by the image itself or more obliquely from the condition of reverie during the working process.

After devoting myself to art creation for nearly 40 years, I intend to pursue the truth through the creation process, and to awaken the deep self. I diverted the story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in which Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion went on their adventure to look for wisdom, kindness, and courage. I think “wisdom”, “kindness”, and “courage” are innate characters, but it requires refinement, hardship, and searching to reach the core quality of truth. I integrated the concept and style of the Tibetan Buddhist painting, thangka, with the visual of animations to narrate the details of Dorothy’s journey in my memory.

My work explores the growth and decline of life in nature. It presents the transmutation that the Universe experiences in the process of decomposition and composition through the marks similar to those left on the gravels caused by whether erosion. This forms the natural law that depicts the interdependence of objects. I intend to place the concept of my creation between big and small, complicated and simple, imagination and reality. I also attempt to convert the 2D prints into 3D. To enrich the elements and the space volume of my works, I transfer the texture of 2D prints onto the surface of 3D paper pulp. Through the tension of fibers, paper pulp and graphic patterns are joined closely, which forms a conversation between them. These 3D prints that exceed and expand time and space are the center of my creation.

We Are All Stars is a diptych consisting of two photo based inkjet prints. The first element of the work was a performance on Nebama Beach in the Kamaishi area of North East Japan, an area devastated by the earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The performance was by a group of young people returning to the beach for the first time. They made drawings of stars with lights that was recorded digitally on camera as a night time long exposure. The title We Are All Stars relates to the people lost at sea by the tsunami and never found. The local survivors imagined that they became the stars in the night sky that were so bright and clear on the night of the tsunami. The second part of the diptych is a screen shot of the night sky in the same location of the performance on 3 March 2011. The final work, displayed finally as digital prints, has involved, drawing, performance, satellite and downloaded images, web images, and inkjet printing.

My recent photographic print work is created from X-ray images, which are developed from commissions with various radiology departments and museums. The images begin as basic X-ray files which are digitally transformed, and reconfigured. I am interested in making visible the inner history of objects, looking beneath the surface, re-working the black and white images to transform them into unforeseen, elusive images. Brownie 127 Camera is the X-ray scan of my first camera with images taken using the camera of the television broadcast of the moon landing in 1969. Duchamp’s Suitcase is one of a series of X-rays of my suitcase taken to Northwick Park Hospital. The image resembles Duchamp’s Large Glass.

Pardo Brothers are followers of the special Spanish Realism line (Realism of Madrid) and have certain, unquestionable connections to technical and aesthetic philosophy. Throughout their natural evolution, Pardo Brothers have purchased different paths but at the same time, they have kept "reality" as a focus of their work, reaching valid and common conclusions that are centered on this realism outside of fashion and strategies of the art market. The epicenter of their thinking has focused on the important Spanish Tradition (Golden Age), specifically the artist Diego Velázquez. It connects in the same way with the Spanish Informalism with Lucio Muñoz and the contemporary artist Miquel Barceló. The work, being currently testimony, which is developed in two very specific and essential places: the Fine Arts Faculty and their work space (study).

Neither forward nor backward. She was walking towards herself; as a nest is built, or an onion is peeled. Drawing, weaving, entangling it until would be found. Missing myself, but only sometimes.

My personal interests have led me to the study of the architectural form and its relations and mechanisms within the whole of the city. Penetrating deeply into the city and its surroundings, I draw at all times and in all places. I consider this as a necessary training whose value lies first and foremost in the idea that each cultural circle has its own forms and a sense of proportion that is unique. In my work, I always consider that the maximum light dwells on the white and that, with each intervention trying to make progress and to provide precision and atmosphere in the drawing, something important disappears: light. And yet, the loss of light is what makes the reality of the world appear before us. “Terror is white”. The first impression should also prevail in the final result, and during the creative struggle between matter and light, I strive to maintain evidences of every single stage.

1971 is a piece that revolves around the concept of memory as creation of novelty and reality by itself. Based on the approach established by the philosopher Henri Bergson (1859) around the concept of memory, a concept in which memory collects and preserves all aspects of existence. Bergson considers that we do not go from the present to the past; from perception to memory, but from the past to the present, from recollection to perception, and it is that perception itself what creates this piece of dots as an image-memory, being unpredictable, indeterminate and enabling free and creative action. And we could ask, what is the purpose of these images/memories? When they are preserved in memory and reproduced in consciousness, don’t they detract the practical character of life itself, blending reality with dreaming?

A Silent Symphony was created by utilising an old piano roll with preprogrammed music recorded on perforated paper and over-scored with site specific ink drawings made by suspending a pen from the roof of the interior of a ship as a drawing pendulum onto the support tracing the movement of the vessel in relation to the wind and the tides or the wake of passing vessels. The resulting prints are not mimetic of the elements but a residue, an artifact of the transient presence and absence of my fluvial existence, a marking of the passage of time now made visible thus creating a palimpsest of a musical movement now stilled.

Johanna Love uses photography, print and drawing to explore notions of disappearance and visual emptiness. She is interested in images that generate visual paradoxes, most often using landscape images, to explore readings of loss, the indefinable and the unknown, whilst simultaneously provoking perceptual imagination. What drives her current work is a fascination with how tiny specks of dust – what seems most insubstantial – has the material power to fascinate, to generate and to sustain thought.

This work takes on the exploration of “ruins”, “home”, and “dwelling”, which the artist started in 2007. It reflects the actual living situation in the current world, to be specific, Taiwan, with an objective semi-documentary. Martin Heidegger claims that we should reflect on the influence of technics and technology, and human beings should awe to the greatness of nature. In his words, “poetically man dwells”. That is, the sky, the earth, God, and human coexist in harmony. However, such Eutopia is still an ideal situation too hard to be understood. This work was made of nearly a hundred photos taken in the same spot. The collage of the unpopulated zone produced between movements created this surreal image: there are parasols, beach chairs, backpacks, and flip-flops, but there are no people.

Yao “reincarnates” classical Chinese paintings with his personal life or real stories. He converted epic classical poems into autographic narrations. In this work, forged landscape paintings take the position of usurper to challenge the orthodox works. Traditional landscape paintings are mostly presented as woodcut or watermark prints. Through his collaboration with Huang Chun-Yuan, Yao concatenates the techniques of silkscreen and the Needle-pen Splendid Landscape style that he created. He tries to explore special qualities and the layer system through casing, and to expand the possibilities of traditional landscape paintings.

Taking a Print for a Walk Chris Wainwright Identifying and re-positioning contemporary printmaking practice naturally embraces the engagement with a set of discourses around developments in technology and various means and methods/modes of production. In particular the process inevitably includes a re visiting of the highly influential essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin (Germany, 1892-1940) in 1936. It makes particular reference to the invention and deployment of film as an artistic medium, but also traces the history of printing in its association with traditional art methods whilst also existing as a multiple. He goes on to say printmaking exists in a dynamic relationship to the concept of ‘the aura’. He used the term aura to refer to the sense of reverence that the viewer experiences in the presence of unique works of art. Benjamin believed that the experience of art could be freed through reproduction and instead brought under the gaze and control of a mass audience leading to the shattering of the aura. We can carry this reference forward now and amplify its relevance to modern processes of production and the rapid developments in digital media in particular. Firstly, there is an increasing creation and convergence of new formats, materials and production processes that expand the field beyond traditional forms of printmaking in terms of technique, materials, scale, dissemination, reproduction and context. Secondly, along with developments in production, the intersecting of print forms with other types of art making including drawing, photography, sculptural and laser forms, installation, collaborative practice, performance and time based media for instance, also contribute to an expanded and revised contemporary definition of printmaking. Then there is a third area, the marketplace for art, museums, collections, publications and other related factors that determine its cultural and economic value. Some key questions that therefore arise from the current condition, and to a large extent are prompted by the changing characteristics of production, are around the practice of creating a ‘limited edition’ and at the opposite end of the scale - mass reproducibility. This leads us to the rethinking of the definition and purpose of print itself and should we continue to use the generic terms ‘print’ or ‘printmaker’? How should we position artists that often move seamlessly between different artforms and employ different ideological and cultural strategies? The creation of an edition of prints suggests a level of quality and control linked to the proximity of the skilled hand of the artist to the means of production, yet has a built in restriction on how many people can engage with or acquire the image and is often a market required feature. The mass produced print on the other hand can often lack the craft quality but talks potentially to a wider audience and is often linked to social issues where the message in the work becomes more of a priority and focus than the materiality of the work. These questions however are not new as developments and limitations in technology have played a part in how artists, collectors and the commercial markets have approached print as a medium and have stretched its boundaries and challenged its craft based origin. If we go back to look at The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Hokusai (Japan, b. circa 1795-1849) and published somewhere between 1829 and 1833, we see one of the most memorable and famous prints of all time. It’s a woodblock print and part of a greater body of work called Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji. At the time it was made printmaking was not widely recognised as a high art form in Japan as the woodblock was seen as a popular form of expression and commercial printing. Once Japan opened up its trading routes to a wider world stage the popularity of Japanese prints grew in the West, multiple copies were and continue to be made. These are made today from new replica woodblocks which are skilfully produced. The older prints from the original blocks and located in some of the world’s most prestigious museums have a high value. It is estimated that around ten thousand versions of The Great Wave off Kanagawa have been made. In addition the image has been reproduced as posters, tea towels, table mats, t shirts, calendars and a multitude of other popular forms. In other words, the work has broken out of its medium to become one of the most reproduced and ‘printed’ images in the world. Regarding technology and the shifting of imagery through various forms and transitions I want to refer to a more contemporary print work by the artist Richard Hamilton (Great Britain, 1922-2011) called Kent State a photo-screenprint made in 1970. In 1969 the art dealer, Dorothea Leonhart asked Hamilton if he would be interested in producing a print for her in a large edition. He agreed, on the condition that it would be the same high quality as a small edition yet be sold cheaply. He set up a camera and watched television every evening for a week in May 1970. In the middle of the week, there was broadcast on the BBC footage taken by an amateur bystander of bloodshed at Kent State University in the State of Ohio when National Guardsmen opened fire on students demonstrating against the Vietnam War. Though troubled by these images, Hamilton was reluctant at first to use Kent State. It seemed to him too tragic an event in American history to be 'used' in a work of art. However, eventually he decided to work with this highly charged subject because he felt that art could keep the memory of this mindless horror alive. The large edition and the likely wide distribution of the image would perhaps become his contribution to our collective conscience.
One of several transparencies Hamilton made from the television screen showed a student, caught in the gunfire, lying on a road with his head inclined towards the viewer. The authenticity of the image is preserved because Hamilton continued to use only photographic means to change it. If we look at the journey of the final print, it went through a series of media based transformations. First of all, the original film footage shot by an amateur bystander in Ohio, USA. This was then taken and transferred to a broadcast format and put out on American TV. The images were then beamed by satellite across the world and re broadcast by the BBC in the UK. Hamilton then photographed the moving image from his television screen to make still images which he then processed to turn into a photo-screenprint. The final image which showed considerable degradation was produced as ink on paper. Hamilton described Kent State as the most 'onerous' print project he had ever undertaken. There are clear parallels here with the opportunities, or some may say dangers, we currently face with the endless reproducibility through conventional and social media and the speed of dissemination, coupled with the ability to create seamlessly manipulated imagery through widely available packages such as Photoshop and sophisticated digital print processes that can produce high quality images. Equally high definition screens can replace the physical print itself and we can store images on our personal devices, or access or as downloads on line to print for ourselves. The relationship between traditional and contemporary forms and approaches is not always antagonistic as many artists play with the potentiality for combining approaches to find innovative ways to create work. Many also believe that so called ‘out of date’ processes can provide an alternative to the fast paced present and are a legitimate approach to the future of artistic production. “I’m inclined to welcome any approach that destabilises, sometimes dismantles, and looks to the reconstruction or invention of an identity that is both new and ancient, that elbows its way into the future while remaining conscious and caring of its past.” Lucy Lippard, 1990. Continuing the discussion about the print as a popular form the work Félix González-Torres (Cuban American, 1957–1996) questioned the notion of the unique art object, making series of works of endless reproducibility including stacks of sheets of newsprint type paper as give-aways for visitors. His work formed an important contribution to the “Print/Out” exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 2012. He wanted his work to be disseminated, to exist in multiple places at the same time, and to be realised completely only through the participation of the viewer, which he described as ‘one enormous collaboration with the public’ in which the pieces just disperse themselves like a virus that goes to many different places such as homes, studios, shops, bathrooms, whatever. For Gonzalez-Torres art was an effective means of addressing social concerns, even more so when it could be multiplied. Inhabiting the familiar forms of Minimalism and post-Minimalism with his stacks of printed paper that the public could take away with them, he embedded subtle but insistent references to current issues, from political violence to gay rights. In projects like Untitled he played with the powerful juxtapositions that could be generated between private and public spaces. Given the centuries of image manipulation and reproduction, of the debate between exclusivity and popular dissemination are we currently witnessing a paradigm shift in what printmaking is now, or are we just seeing a rapid development in technology that simply speeds things up, reaches wider audiences and as Benjamin asserted in 1936, has shattered the aura. A continuing question is whether or not there are aesthetic criteria specific to print media and if these are best understood through consideration of the catagories of function, process and materials.