DERRICK STANLEY – ROBOT MIND

The tension between form and content is an old one. The parameters of finitude have tormented creative humans since the inception of making and being. Whether the tool is one’s hands, one’s thoughts, one’s language, one’s knowledge, bodied motion or breath; and the technic a brush, a concept or theory, a word or sentence, an explanation or hypothesis, a stage or an instrument; whether the medium be paint, clay or plastic; science, mathematics or philosophy; poetry or prose; conjecture or research; dance, rhythm or music, the wrestling goes on…inspiration, idea and experiment – struggling through the body, through the tools, through the mediums toward – beauty? form? balance? energy, power? expression? communication?

Art lives from constraints, and dies from freedom.
(Leonardo da Vinci)

“Mechanisms” he calls them. “Everything is new and in progress…” he says.
The wildness and weirdness of creative processes.
What might a “mechanism” of creative process be?
What if you had a robot in your head, constantly whirring and clicking and moving about, marking and tracing and tracking your thoughts? Possibilities? How busy would it be?

Derrick’s head might be a robot set in motion.
Might be unstoppable action.
Might be new and in progress NOW.

If Derrick’s head spawned.
If Derrick’s head spawned, it would give rise to a robot, busily buzzing around sheets of paper, sketching, drawing, marking with ink pen.
Working, working, creating…
A maker’s mind.

So here is Derrick’s mind as a robot, astir with actionable influence.

Robot busies itself with sheets of paper for hours and hours while Derrick’s mind moves on. Into hand and charcoal. Into motion and composition. Into conception and experiment. Into art.
One day (each day) Derrick Stanley had (has) an idea. One day Derrick Stanley made a robot to “try it out,” which became “trying it out” which became “trying it out.” So we are interested in what Derrick’s robots are doing…and the mind minding the robots. A “godlike” creational brain, constructing a mechanism both free and constrained, given to programming and chance, working alongside.

So here is Derrick Stanley’s mind.
Here is Derrick Stanley’s mind in robot-form.
Here is Derrick Stanley’s mind observing its robot-form / action.
Derrick Stanley’s robot-mind.

For more information about the artist, please go to derrickstanley.com.

Nathan Filbert – March 19, 2010