Carter Hodgkin
Parsons School of Design (ret)
Carter Hodgkin fuses art, science and technology to explore a new language of abstraction based on visualizations of energy. Approaching the modification of code as a drawing tool, she generates particle collisions to create animations and form. She aims for an intense visual experience where color, line, and form trace movement, energy and space. Her working process is an interplay between sophisticated digital means woven into traditional media with an emphasis on the hand. She utilizes a range of media from animation and programming to printing, painting and mosaic. Weaving in and out from the digital to physical, drawing connections between virtual numerical code and a physical aesthetic, her work tweaks the concept of "new media art". Her work has been exhibited in the US, Europe & Asia. Awards include the Pollock Krasner Foundation, the Gottlieb Foundation and New York Foundation for the Arts. Americans for the Arts cited her permanent public art project, “Electromagnetic Fall” as one of the best public art projects for 2010. Articles and reviews have appeared in Artforum, Art in America, The New Yorker and Art+Science Now. Her work appears in public and private collections including the ZKM Center for Art & Media Karlsruhe, Germany, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, the Basil Alkazzi Foundation, U.S. Art in Embassies Program, and the U.S. Library of Congress. She lives and works in New York.
Irises on a Rock (Video, 2:58)
Irises on a Rock
I draw inspiration from the infinitesimal world of physics and larger phenomena in nature. Irises on a Rock came about after examining the lines of bifurcating stems and blossoms on wildflowers and weeds while walking in upstate NY.
I also draw inspiration from Chinese Literati paintings, piecing collisions together to form a moving composition, which are based on a specific painting.
To create an animation, I manipulate computer code, modeling subatomic particle collisions using Java programming language to generate subatomic particle collisions. This manipulation becomes a drawing process where parameters are set and random moments of collision are captured.
Engaging in a procedural generation process, I set particle behaviors to create collisions which unfold randomly in animated frames. Each collision generates animated particles interacting and colliding with random results. I piece collisions together to form a moving composition. Creating a final 3-4 minute animation is an intuitive process where teasing out composition, movement and timing, build a dynamic manipulation of successive forms.
The forces at work in these animations mirror nature in its instability and uncertainty.