Darryl Brown

Born 1974, London
Bachelor of Visual Arts
Graduation show: 1995
Graduation ceremony: 1996

Artwork in Space YZ

Untitled, Motherboard installation, 1995
Bronze
150 x 50 cm 

Process shots of bronzes, part of Motherboard installation, 1995. Wax Sprues and Zircon flour are the name of the game!

Motherboard was an installation of many works themed around the imminent ascendency of technology throughout society. Taking cue from seminal sci-fi literature from my teen years, such as William Gibson’s Neuromancer, the pieces focused upon a huge scholars table (crafted from a repurposed Telecom cable reel) studded with 64 cogs (64bit) powered by a corresponding cog clamped to a pottery wheel head in a kitsch homage to Da Vinci inventions. Welded cradles inserted into bearings embedded into the reel held latex (skin-like) baby teat(ed) bladders symbolising our ever-growing dependency on tech and the increasingly real possibilities of human/machine augmentation-interface. The wheel creaked and clunked as it turned. Other objects like clay floppy disks acted as extensions of the motif continuums of the human tool, the embodied tension between ancient knowledge within the modern and the ever-salient word risk inherited into future potentialities.

Untitled, the piece included in Space YZ, is one of two bronzes from the body of work Motherboard and was the culmination of my early skilling in bronze casting in Z block. It is a piece that I am very affectionate towards because I still very much enjoy it. If I could go back in time and visit the entire body of work, I would have said to my then self - learn to edit and better curate. I am, however, glad that though the installation itself was flawed in these key ways, it aptly reflected my mania to produce and explore as many interdisciplinary outputs as possible - something Z block at UWS richly encultured.

In an era defined by the advent of the third Industrial Revolution, it is both galling and thrilling that despite cuts to the arts and a lack of political foresight, artists and art institutions are as determined as ever to stay critically important to social and philosophical discourse while under siege from ‘System’ ideologues. Society is rapidly transfiguring, it’s hard to predict its future face.

Z block studios – Hot Bed for entrepreneurial practice.

Occupied with works in progress: components of my third-year final work Motherboard invaded by the various pots I threw that semester. Note: The latex bladders intended to be filled with milk, ceramic floppy disks and the Scholars wheel under construction (below). The memories are as granular as the slides which captured them. Z block was cram packed with some 70-plus studios. It was inspirational!

It should be mentioned early in the piece that I met my wife, Kat Brown at UWS and since Cementa13 Art Festival we collaborate artistically as Mr and Mrs Brown. Reason alone to be enthusiastic about the road accessed from this art school.

UWS Visual Arts Sculpture Scholarship 1994 (2nd Year)

The experience of Z block extended to an unforgettable 18-week experience at the incredible Silapakorn, Nakhon Pathom Arts campus, Thailand with six other beautiful Z blockers and tutor/coordinator, Jacqueline Clayton (pictured below with Josie Cavallaro on the right). The opportunities provided by our wonderful collective at UWS gave everybody no matter what background a chance to enrich their art practice in a multitude of ways!

The Age of Funding

Casting one of two Motherboard Bronze heads. Z block had the best of everything from massive trolley kilns to a killer bronze foundry, welding and etching facilities and access to digital media studios. It really was phenomenal - the energy and possibilities made available - not least of these assets and best remembered, our two genius TECHS/artists, pictured below are Charles Mifsud (wheel man) and Nick Dorrer (gantry chain operator).

Objective? Utilise everything!