Explode

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Sarah Pickering Explosions (2007)
‘The simulation pyrotechnic industry has rapidly expanded over the last few years: atrocious acts have happened in conflict throughout history, yet training in recent times has had to become more and more realistic to psychologically prepare our forces for the worst. Police and soldiers who have grown up playing computer games and seeing ever more spectacular special effects in films are simultaneously disconnected from and situated closer to the “real.” These photographs, which depict pyrotechnic explosions used by British police and military instructors to intensify the sense of drama and tension in training exercises, are part of a series taken at test sites in the English countryside where the bursts of light, flames, sparks, and smoke sit incongruously in the rural environment.

‘Whether real or artificial, we enjoy looking at explosions and, as an artist I’m of course fascinated by their visual seductiveness. I’m also interested in the forms of violence they represent, in our relationship to them, and in identifying the imaginative references they instantiate.

‘With names like “Artillery,” “Groundburst,” and “Napalm,” the pyrotechnics evoke not only violent and destructive events from wars and conflicts, but also the dramatic re-enactments of such events familiar from feature films or war documentaries. Witnesses to extreme situations often describe what they saw as being “like a film,” and modern filmmakers use CGI and special effects to conjure the most realistic possible disasters to entertain viewers. Indeed, one of the pyrotechnic manufacturers was also responsible for making explosive effects for James Bond and war films.’ — SP

 

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Cornelia Parker Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991)
‘Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View – a garden shed Parker stacked with explosives and blew up with the assistance of the British Army. The garden shed was filled with found objects and ephemera donated by friends – kids tricycles, an old record player and everyday gardening paraphernalia – and after it blew she collected the 2000 pieces and painstakingly recreated the moment of impact.’

 

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GREGvisual quicksilver exploding floor VFX  Cinema 4d +after effects (2017)
‘Its doable… It’s just just 70 hrs of recording and editing it takes a lot of time…’

 

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Vija Celmins Explosion at Sea (1966)
‘Explosion at Sea belongs to a group of paintings by Vija Celmins on the themes of war, technology, and devastation. In the mid-1960s, the artist began to use photographs from books, magazines, and newspapers found at secondhand stores and yard sales as the point of departure for her work. After locating a wealth of material on World War II—a conflict that was the backdrop of her childhood in Latvia—Celmins employed subtle layers of precise brushstrokes to construct a detailed image of an attack on an aircraft carrier. The resulting painting, like most of her works of this moment, creates a disturbing contrast between the intimacy of the format and brushwork and the haunting seriousness of the theme.’

 

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Gabriel Rico Untitled (2020)
‘Rico, who is based in Guadalajara, Mexico, “creates pieces that fragment the composition of the contemporary human and evidence the geometric imperfection in nature. … Rico’s sculptural works reflect on the nature of the materials used to produce them and their arrangement in the final composition,” according to a preview of the exhibit from his gallery.

‘An art critic named Avelina Lésper was at the fair, and she was decidedly unimpressed with the piece. As a critical commentary, she says, she set an empty can of Coca-Cola on the floor next to the work to convey that the meaning of the art would remain the same if the can were incorporated.

‘Lésper told the newspaper Milenio that as she moved the can near the artwork, it exploded suddenly, “as if the pieces had heard my commentary.” It could have happened to anyone, she says, including a collector or museum.’

 

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Noboru Tsubaki Before Flower (2010)
‘Artist and professor in the space design department of Kyoto University of Art and Design, Noboru Tsubaki’s forty-foot high gymnospermous “Before Flower” involves rear projections on the eye controlled by TouchDesigner, changing colors and patterns based on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by visitors as sensed by detectors on the sculpture’s eye.’

 

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Ben Grasso Various (2011)
‘Grasso’s paintings are feats of engineering. His is an architecture of the apocalypse, but one whose seams thread shapes we can as yet not fully determine. Excitement and surprise are as much part of this wildly imagined landscape as is a more measured, even nightmarish, uncertainty. Here the whacky, the sublime, and the catastrophic converge upon us unremittingly, but not without grace.’

 

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Kit Wise Explosion (Geranium) (2010)
‘Explosion (Geranium) combines found footage of a military test explosion in the Arizona desert with a moving image of a flower blossoming. “It’s like a macro and a micro explosion,” Wise says.’

 

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Jonathan Latiano Points of Contention (2011)
Wood, plastic, acrylic, styrofoam, glass, plexiglass and salt.

 

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Damián Ortega Cosmic Thing (2002)
‘In “Cosmic Thing”, Ortega disassembled a Volkswagen Beetle and re-composed it piece by piece, suspended from wire in mid-air. The piece looked like an exploded diagram in a mechanic’s instruction manual.’

 

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Charles Gaines Explosions (2008)
‘The idea for the Explosion Drawings series came to me after I made the machine-sculpture “Airplanecrashclock” in 1997. That work was a continuous repetition of an airline crash occurring as part of a construction of a downtown city scene. I got the idea of doing the drawings after constructing the crash scene. I noticed that that process of constructing the scene was a lot like painting and drawing. About 5 years later, I did two large drawings, Airplanecrash 1 and 2, where I first developed the technique for realizing the image of an explosion using graphite. These drawings were scenes of plane crashes at the point of impact, and the resultant explosions. I continued with this in another series in 2005 called Airplanecrash Drawings which included stylized graphite renderings of the explosions separated from the scene of an accident. The present series, “Explosion Drawings” was realized by focusing on the explosion itself without reference to a specific event or accident. My interest in the social context of the accident remained.’ — CG

 

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Martin Klimas Sound Explosions (2013)
‘For Sound Explosions, Klimas asked several musicians to work on short sound sequences, so called patches, using analogue synthesizers made between 1930 and 1990. Klimas shows those synthesizers with all their wires and cables, to give people an idea of the complexity of the sounds he is working with. He then replays the patches on his set, using pigments in place of liquid colors this time. He puts up the volume and lets the colors explode.’

 

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Monika Grzymala Various (2012 – 2017)
‘Grzymala works predominantly with tape, which she spins into vortexes, whirlpools, and scribbles that project out from walls and spill onto floors. The artist once used 27,000 feet of tape for a single exhibition. She records tape measurements in terms of distance, rather than weight or amount, to reflect the performance-like element of physical work that goes into every piece.’

 

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Fabian Oefner Various (2019)
‘Mirage is Oefner`s latest exploration of our perception of reality. The series is a collection of short clips, that show the destruction of four well-known paintings of the western world.’

 

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Roy Lichtenstein Small Wall Explosion (1965)
porcelain enamel on steel with lacquered wooden base

 

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Ori Gersht Pomegranate (2006)
‘This image references a 1602 Baroque still life by Juan Sánchez Cotán titled Quince, Cabbage, Melon and Cucumber. It’s a very cerebral painting, because he was trying to create a sense of perfect static balance. It must have taken an awfully long time. My photograph was an act of destruction, taken at an unthinkable speed. I decided to use a pomegranate, instead of a quince, because a pomegranate would explode like a grenade.’ — OG

 

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Walid Raad My Neck is Thinner than a Hair: Engines (1999)
‘My Neck is Thinner than a Hair: Engines looks at the aftermath of car bombs in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war (1975–91). It consists of one hundred framed inkjet prints, each featuring a black and white photo on the left and an equal-sized piece of paper with handwritten notes and date stamps on the right, placed one next to the other. These are scanned and printed renditions of the front and back of journalistic photos of car engines found scattered around the city of Beirut following bomb explosions during the war. The artist found the photos in the Lebanese press, such as the daily newspapers Annahar and As-Safir. The date of the explosion, the name of the photographer when known, and an English translation of the notes found at the back of the pictures are included at the bottom of each print. On the right hand edge of each of the prints, running vertically, is the name of the artist, the Atlas Group file that the work belongs to, the title of the file, and the date of production of the work. These framed prints, which the artist terms ‘dossiers’, are shown arranged in a rectangular grid on the wall.’

 

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Zhan Wang My Personal Universe (2012)
“My Personal Universe” was created by blowing up a boulder, filming the explosion, collecting all 7,000 fragments of stone and making a stainless steel replica of each — consisted of six massive screens, including one on the floor and one on the ceiling. Thousands of stainless steel “rocks” were hung from invisible wires, shimmering and swaying in the light of a two-minute film of the explosion that played continuously in the gallery.’

 

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Gustav Metzger Liquid Crystal Environment (1965)
‘The colourful projections in this psychedelic installation are created by sending light through glass slides, which are filled with heat-sensitive liquid. As the slides move, so does the liquid, which changes temperature and then colour. Metzger aims to undermine the commodity status of art objects by making works that have auto-destruction or auto-creation as the creative principle.’

 

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Tom Friedman Untitled (1995)
‘Friedman’s dazzling 1995 toothpick sculpture, in which thousands of toothpicks are jammed together in the shape of a starburst, is anything but delicate, but here the toothpicks seem to have reached a center of gravity in which their sheer density is causing them to explode outward, so that that sculpture seems at the point of violent dispersion. Complexity, for Friedman, always involves the limits of inundation and compression which point toward entropy.’

 

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Harold Edgerton [Atomic Bomb Explosion] (1946 – 1952)
‘In the late 1930s Harold Edgerton, a professor of engineering at MIT, pioneered techniques of ultra-high-speed stroboscopic photography to reveal aspects of the moving world previously invisible to the naked eye-a speeding bullet eviscerating an apple, the graceful spiral of a golf stroke, the coronet formed by a falling drop of milk. During World War II, Edgerton worked with the Atomic Energy Commission to develop a camera, the Rapatronic, capable of capturing the fleeting incandescent flash of a nuclear explosion. Edgerton and his assistants set up their equipment on a tower seven miles from a nuclear test site and, using exposures as short as one-billionth of a second, recorded this ominous glowing shape hovering like an alien life-form or a colossal balloon. Made when the dream of technology threatened to turn into a nightmare, Edgerton’s haunting images of nuclear explosions help us visualize the inconceivable.’

 

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Jim Campbell Exploded View (Birds) (2010)
‘LEDs hang at the end of thin wires in a 3-dimensional grid. As the LEDs flicker, they create the image of birds. This work is part of Jim Campbell’s ongoing exploration to give a sculptural presence to light and the moving image. In this instance, Campbell has expanded his characteristic use of low-resolution LED panels into the third dimension. As you move around the hanging LEDs, absorbing but “meaningless” patterns are seen. From the vantage point of the front, the abstract patterns are seen as birds. The line between abstract digital information and recognizable movement depends on the viewers position in space. The birds are perceived where no lights shine; the negative spaces within the lighted grid give us clues to their idiosyncratic forms.’

 

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Los Carpinteros Exploding Room Frozen in Mid-Air (2011)
‘What does an exploding room actually look like? Havana-based artists Dagoberto Rodriguez and Marco Castillo, collaboratively known as Los Carpinteros, have constructed an installation depicting a room amidst an explosion. The imaginary blast rips through walls and furniture, leaving broken sculptures and debris suspended in the air. It’s as if time has stood still. Spectators of the exhibit are given the unique opportunity to view the effects and damage of an exploding room from all angles.’

 

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DHBy Acura (2016)

 

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Survival Research Laboratories Failure to Discriminate (1986)
‘Failure to Discriminate: Determining the Degree to Which Attractive Delusions Can Operate As A Substitute For Confirmation by Evidence. Performed at the Seattle Transit Authority Lot, Seattle WA. Presented by COCA. May 26 1986.’

 

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Ueli Alder Detonations (2012)
‘Created by Swiss artist Ueli Alder, the series is luckily made up of images found on the Internet. However, the Photoshopped collages of explosions still manage to be badass and terrifying. Adler’s inspiration for the series were war-themed video games, as he attempts to romanticize the cataclysmic detonations that go off during game play. The falsified images from the Ueli Alder Detonations series creates an important critique on the over-sensationalized and commonality of these graphic images found throughout popular culture. Our reactions to these images tend to demonstrate the hyperreality that has been created by explosive media, which can contribute to causing a problematic way of how humans filter through future events.’

 

 

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p.s. Hey. ** Misanthrope, Me too. Come on, man, get off your ass and do some Halloween thing. I just put together my fave US haunted house post, and there are still a lot operating albeit with a slight COVID-y reinvention. So … It’ll take a couple of weeks to see if the new restrictions work here, but I’m pretty sure everywhere the northern hemisphere is about to get way worse as has pretty much been ascertained due to the winter/flu season combo. 4 am, falling down, party! Well, it’ll depend on how they vacation in NC. If they’re doing some kind of outdoors nature-y thing, they could ace the issue. Find the Shaggs? Think we can be the Shaggs of this generation? ** David Ehrenstein, Everyone I know in the US is being extremely not cavalier about COVID, but, granted, my friends are not very usual in general. Me too, about my toe, thanks. ** Sypha, Hi. That post was ages ago in DC’s time. First Flaubert, huh? Pretty good, right? As I think you know, I think ‘Sentimental Education’ is the one, if there is one. Zola! I think I was assigned Zola novel in high school, and that’s about it for me. Ah, I’ll find that Damian Murphy book then, thank you. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. The haunted UFO is a wee bit pricey, yes. Ha ha, no, I think Play Therapy lived up to its name because my toe began feeling just a wee better with its help. ** wolf, Wolf!!! So true, isn’t it? Oh, I do Dolipran now and then. Which doesn’t really seem to make the slightest difference. I just don’t like that hazy/sluggish thing pain killers give. When I was a druggie, it was always uppers or psychedelics for me, no downers. Well, except for a brief Xanax binging phase in the early 90s. Yeah, but when I broke both of my wrists simultaneously about 5 years ago, I gotta tell you, that was serious pain not to mention massively impractical and no fun at all. I guess getting my skull cleaved by an axe as kid doesn’t really count as a broken bone. It was more like gouged out or something. Oh, I’ve always liked Mr. Beckett quite a lot. I guess I don’t really talk about him though, strange. Kane + Beckett = yes, I surely understand. You don’t do Halloween, I guess? ** Dominik, Hi! My pleasure. It looks kind of scary, your haunted house, but I would go because I’m desperate this year. I think Scott McCulloch only published one novella. I haven’t read it. I think he’s still mostly starting out. You had a good weekend. I could feel it, and, well, read it. Ha ha, yes, your mom has singlehandedly blown that theory right out of the water. Your love for me ruled, of course. <3 Love that reduces the physical distance between Budapest and Prague to a kilometer, Dennis. ** Steve Erickson, Oh, yes, I spaced about New Zealand, surely the wisest English speakers extant. Germany’s far right, although seemingly no bigger than France’s or Belgium’s or Holland’s, etc., sure does have a knack for getting themselves in the international news. Ha ha, yes, turn DJ Skeleton’s turntabling into something great … now there’s a challenge. I’ve heard very mixed things about ‘Possessor’. How was it? ** Armando, Hi. Dude, I totally get how Tr*mp horror can explode out of one. Well, you’re definitely not a failure as a writer and ‘wannabe’ is nonsense. Your first novel is great, and some very smart people agree. i hope you feel much better as soon as humanly possible. Hugs back. ** h (now j), Hi, h! Missed you too! I’m doing all right. France’s very tentative embrace of Halloween will undoubtedly make my Halloween a rather melancholy affair, but I’m used to that, I guess. I don’t think the blog is in danger of being taken down, or it doesn’t seem so at the current time. Thanks about my toe. It’s just going to take time to become a nonentity again, and I’m using my patience to get there. Have a lovely day, pal! ** Okay. Watch out for flying debris today. See you tomorrow.