Bytes will outlive stone

By FEDERICO MOSALVE

Purists will object to Brit Bunkley. After all it took Michelangelo three years to complete his David, almost 17 for Da Vinci to pull together the Horse and centuries for the Chinese to perfect a labour intensive art-form that Bunkley and similar digital-age artists will soon be able to do in months.

Bunkley, head of the sculpture department at the Universal College of Learning in Wanganui, is passionate about his views on an art-form that is pushing the boundaries of sculpture through technology.

"Look at the greatest sculptures of the modern day and they began as photographs. Throughout the history of sculpture, machines were always used in one way or another."

His choice of robo-chisels is 3D Studio Viz, Mechanical Desktop and Rapid Prototyping. The latter, he explains, "is much like an ink-jet printer but it produces 3D objects. The machine layers either paper or plastic and glues the layers together until it comes up with rather intricate pieces."

In Bunkley's work the results vary from granite architectural monuments to street signs that seem to be made of rubber.

But what about that old-school sensuality of moulding things? "I do love working hands on, and working digitally carries a certain stigma because without it you are supposed to be a virtuoso. But rapid prototyping is just a tool, much like the electric guitar was a tool."

Used by such artists as Masaki Fujihata and Michael Rees, the technique seems to be taking the hard-labour mysticism away from sculpting and focusing on the ideas of the objet d'art as opposed to the technique.

Like Matt Mullican, Bunkley's self-confessed influence, there is a lot of serialty and multiplication.

But unlike Mullican, Bunkley addresses relationships between mass production and individuality, between our logo culture and the rebellion against it. Bunkley, who has a history of developing public art in the United States, focuses on social pieces that illustrate "disturbing social/political perspectives of globalised modern life".

"I am a very political person," he explains while condemning the state of American war tactics, "yet art can't tackle those political issues. It can reflect them, but it can definitely not tackle them."

In his iconography Bunkley's politics are clear: outstretched fists, street signs, TV sets, and a speaker stand that is reminiscent of earlier oil rigs.



Bunkley has been awarded the American National Endowment for the Arts grant, and was a fellow at the American Academy in Rome. In New Zealand he has exhibited at the Adam Art gallery in Wellington and featured in The Big Art Trip. This year, he has been chosen as one of six artists to use the latest technology at SIGGRAPH, the world's largest computer arts convention.

Bunkley also delves into video projection stills, animation and prints, creating a clever amalgamation of mediums which include video, photography and architecture. "Digital art is a way to transcend all the mediums while not needing to have a huge warehouse of dusty works."

Although purists may object, for Bunkley the byte lasts longer than stone in this age of brave new sculpting. * Brit Bunkley: Recent 3D digital prints, 3D print rapid prototypes & CNC, castings and video. McPherson Gallery, tomorrow until February 15.