Nicholas McLaughlin Blog

Form

Every Mickey –

Matthew Plummer-Fernández

2017
50.688 x 23.858 x 49.376 cm
SLS Nylon, acrylic paint, 3D files of Mickey Mouse sourced online

Venus of Google –

Matthew Plummer-Fernández

2013
17 x 9 x 30 cm
3D-printed gypsum in colour

Reality is not always probable –

Troika

In Search of an Impossible Object, 2018

Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby

Conversation with dad :

When discussing my project with my dad he had mentioned that in greyhound racing that when talking about a dogs form youre talking about how good the dog has been, its most recent 3-5 races to make an educated guess on how well the dog will preform.

Applying this to the project I was considering how I could apply this to my own practice and looking at my past 3-5 pieces of work and judging how the next piece of work would be.

My thoughts just now :

Wed 27th Nov 12:04

So before I started this project I was very sure and excited about the inital idea of giving form to intangible things or senses that we can see but not interact with but just now for some reason the idea isn’t exciting to me.

Usually in my projects they seem to be clean and clear and deliverable products that answer the questions of the brief in a very illteral manner but thinking back to Design Domain in second year I used that as an opportunity to challenge my personal process and discover more about myself thought it and with the vauge stucture of this project I think it is a good time to try and challenge myself and do something I wouldn’t normally do and not just try to solve a problem and answer a brief and be more artistic.

I might be naive, but I think the take on form in the context of greyhounds and they’re ‘form’ (meaning previous results) is something that might not be done by many other people and the idea of what that means to myself as a creative practitioner and that idea does excite me.

You’re not here to make happy shit. 

Paul McGuire -2024

Chat with Sean :

In the studio I was suring my usual wander when struggling for ideas and not sure where to go and was explaining my struggles to Sean in year two and he had a number of great ideas one of being that I should view my years at GSA as my races, years one, two and currently three and pick work from one of those years to mangle together.

When I say mangle together in my head I have a clear idea of what I mean, I dont intent to have a messy organic mangled mess but one more like a glitch or Z fighting in a digitial space; a rough, textured, dry mess of my prvious work or aspects of my previous work.

Thinking it out :

Z fighting Visuals :

Glitch Aesthetics :

Glitch 3D Models :

Metal Crushed Texture :

Taking a closer look at the mouse :

Guest Talk – Tim Rodenbroeker :

Tim’s website:

Welcome

One idea I had during Tim’s talk was to try and do what he did with limiting his technology and do a version of that with an old mac book I have at home and exploring the visuals that can be achieved with it. It is a little bit literal to just do the same thing Tim did but I still think it would be a fun experiment and could yeild fun results considering my interpertation of form, the visual identity I’ve identified and now the limitations of technology and how I can create within it.

Another take away from Tim’s talk was the idea I was touching upon earlier, that being the idea that for this project is not just a brief to answer and an oppertunity to learn and delve deeper.

Studying at GSA is the oppertunity to challenge preconceptions and learn about things deeper and educate myself before I go out into the world of business and dont have much time to do that.

• Self Evaluation
• Self Discovery
• Looking into the void

Its not just to get you ready for the job market.

“Being an outsider is not good way to make change.”

• Make change from the inside.
• Learn about something well enough to change it.

Great design is more about removing parts, rather than creating or adding anything.

Tim Rodenbroeker – 2024

John Gerrard :

Tutorial with Paul and Cat :

Possible outcome is to take photos of previous work and use that as different outcome, maybe making them phycial.

I think the idea of this but it might be too similiar to Elias’ work by making photography a 3D element but it could be one step in the process or one possible outcome.

Another option is taking the same piece of work and remixing it in 3 different way and presenting those ways in a clear consise thoughtful way.

I do like the idea of doing 3 different methods as an exploration but I would like to keep the idea of my work being the form. The idea that it is 3 different pieces of work done 3 different ways feels more in line with my interporation of form.

Digitial Decimation.

The workings of the computer, a certain style that can only be achieved through the use of technology.

I think a good way of describing the process is as an almost feedback loop on my work, a process that goes from digital to physical and back again to abstract the work from what it originally was.

Glitching with a purpose.

David Burkin :

https://www.davidbirkin.net/embedded

Nikita Diakur :

https://videopress.com/v/9WACMw9J?resizeToParent=1&cover=1&autoPlay=1&controls=1&loop=1&muted=1&persistVolume=0&playsinline=1&preloadContent=metadata&sbc&sbpc&sblc&useAverageColor=1

https://videopress.com/v/fIUtrjYf?resizeToParent=1&cover=1&autoPlay=1&controls=1&loop=1&muted=1&persistVolume=0&playsinline=1&preloadContent=metadata&sbc&sbpc&sblc&useAverageColor=1

https://videopress.com/v/dp1aGgCU?resizeToParent=1&cover=1&autoPlay=1&controls=1&loop=1&muted=1&persistVolume=0&playsinline=1&preloadContent=metadata&sbc&sbpc&sblc&useAverageColor=1

Don’t spell it out / Don’t be so literal.

Simplicity at it’s core:

• Differ in one aspect.
• Explore your self

There is beauty and in the simple and power in it.

Putting it to the test :

I was wondering about how I would put my idea of decimation into practice and when I crumpled a misprint of my had drawn example for the process, I then realised that I had an example in my hands and decided to scan and damage each itteration and repeat the process.

Late Night Stress Ideas :

During the wee hours of the morning I was struggling to sleep and stressing myself out that tommorrow was Monday and that I had no clear direction for my Design Domian project and just vauge ideas. But at that moment I was struck with a panic induced idea of what to do and how to display it.

As the key themes of my project are :

• My own work (my form).
• Challenging my usual practice.
• Challenge my need for the bells and whistles

My own work :

My interpertation of form refers to the context of greyhounds and races and how previous work is refered to as their form, so applying that to myself I’m looking at previous work I’ve done and remixing it in some way.

Challenging my usual practice :

As like Design Domain in year two I used it as an opportunity to challenge any preconceived notions I had or challenge my creative process and force myself to do/ think about it in a different way. So for this Design Domain I indentified that for most briefs I have a literal, product like outcome and wanted to produce work that is more unconventional for myself, something more sculptural.

Challenge my need for the bells and whistles:

After the talk with Tim Rodenbroeker and his message about doing more with less and recognising that I might go a bit too ‘more’ with it rather than less, I thought it would be a good opportunity to challenge that about myself.

How to display the work :

This might need to be taken into Design Domain part two but an idea I had for displaying the work is repurposing old tech into an out reaching sculpture.

Three pieces of work, all with the same treatment, all displayed on a different piece of technology.

The form of my work, transformed into different digitial forms and displayed in three different forms of technology.

Have I said form enough ?

Idea : Booklet

For my design domain proposal I should make a booklet/zine about my proposal in InDesign and give it some time and effort for people to flick through properly.

I’ll use the QR code feature in InDesign to conect the booklet to my learning journal and I have even have the work published digitially so that people can view it on their devices.

My form I want to remix:

Year One :

Creative Coding 01

Year Two :

Data Visualisation

Year Three :

Imagined Environments

How to produce the work :

I was mentally hitting a bit of a wall for some reason and wasnt sure where to go or how to actully start taking the work as I didn’t want to be too similar to what Elias was talking about but after a chat with Gillian I understand that we can start in the same place or start with similiar workflows but differing greatly at some point so produce very different outcomes.

Idea : Taking processing sketches and exporting them to SVG files and then using those SVG files in 3D packages to create digitial sculptures with them. Making a note not to be too precious with these sculptures and that the digitial texture produced is what I’m looking for.

Idea : Similiar to the previous idea its taking SVG files from processing but instead of the sketches themselves I want to import documentation images of previous projects and then export them and create 3D sculptures.

Idea : Documentation of previous projects ran through a processing sketch that warps it or glitches it with a purpose. In the same vain as David Burkin and creating a new piece of work from the documentation.

Idea : A mix of both ideas above.

All 3 ideas can all be taken further into the displaying idea I’ve had for Design Domain Part Two.

Still messing around with old computers :

https://videopress.com/v/vMYiv13i?resizeToParent=1&cover=1&autoPlay=1&controls=1&loop=1&muted=1&persistVolume=0&playsinline=1&preloadContent=metadata&sbc&sbpc&sblc&useAverageColor=1

Music with it ? :

This computer was released on 2001 and on that same year Daft Punk released there follow up album, using technology and an artistic vision to drive the album, similiar to our modern practice as creative technologists. It might be a nice idea to tie them together, inviting people in to come closer to this odd technological sculpture.

And personally one of my favourite albums, cover to cover.

If I go with this idea I think it would be very fun and think the overall visuals of the piece should change as this a fun album and the visuals are quite joyful and as this is a self reflective piece, I’m not the most quiet and downtrotten of people and the visuals should probably follow that.

Personal Thoughts :

10:06 pm Tuesday 3rd of December 2024

The past couple of days I’ve been feeling quite dejected about my possible outcome for this project and had no clear plans or ideas but as I listen to the Daft Punk album I’m considering using for this project and looking back at what I’ve put on this learning journal there seems to be two conflicting thoughts and two conflicting styles.

Which I feel like mirror myself.

• A need/ want to be serious, meaningful and thought provoking.
• A natural colour, joy, optomisim and conscious choice to be postitive.

Both rooted in a love and respect for technology, art and design.

I think this is what Paul is talking about when he says art school is about self-discovery and ‘looking into the void’. When I look into the void, I see two parts of myself: the fun artist and the serious designer.

I think the difficult part is picking one of them or even harder, trying to have them both coexist in the same place.

Also its funny that the album is called Discovery as I’m having a journey of self discovery working on a project about my own work.

“…like trying to wrestle with the dichotomy of a designer who wants to make impactful work, an artist who wants to make joyful work and attempting to do both without sacrificing anything from either side.”

Lexie Mackie 2024

Creating Artifacts :

After a lot of behind-the-scenes work, the three digital sculptures were produced in a matter of hours with the help from Mikhail and from Lexie or showing me how to actually use blender but by either plan or complete accident I stuck by my idea that I had formed along the way that the sculptures are not the main focus and the process is as well as the personal challenges.

Year One:

Year Two :

Year Three :

Design Domain Design Proposal :

Self Evaluation:

Part Two :

Working title :

Return to Form

In part two my aim is to develop and build apon the work done with 3D digitial sculpture and the idea of old tech and ‘glitching with a purpose’ using old devices and displays to display the 3D sculptures or even using some of the time in part two to explore blender more and re-explore the sculptures of part one.

Another idea for part two was to also explore the digitial to physical workflow and applying the same theory and practice of part one to part two… if the 3D print is to fail then we let it fail and explore the textures and shapes of that ‘failed’ print.