Applied Kinetic Arts

Jeremy Mayer

Nude IV (Delilah) Detail

66”x32”x36”

Typewriter parts

2009

Photo by Josh Miller (joshmillerphoto.com)

Nude IV (Delilah)

66”x32”x36”

Typewriter parts

2009

Photo by Josh Miller (joshmillerphoto.com)

Jeremy Mayer

Nude IV (Delilah)

66”x32”x36”

Typewriter parts

2009

Photo by Josh Miller (joshmillerphoto.com)

Self-Portrait I (somnamBallistic), Jeremy Mayer

20”x20”

Charcoal on paper, Photoshop

1992

brotron:

Have recently been added to the Oceanside Museum website for upcoming events http://www.oma-online.org/exhibits.html
and just had an invite from the Mulvane Art Museum in Kansas for a summer robot show in 2010.

Featured is a shot of “The Ladder” photo by Jen Jansen

Greg Brotherton’s work.

brotron

Every few months I update my portfolio reel to be current with my favorite pieces. I typically burn this to DVD to share with prospective clients and galleries. Youtube limits video uploads to less than ten minutes so I have not typically put this production on the web. Thanks to Vimeo I can now share this with you, and you can help me share it with the world. Viva la Internet!
You can see the video above, or find it in its permanent home on my portfolio page.

As you may have gathered from other pages on this site, I was once the Artist in Residence at the San Francisco Dump (A truly fantastic program). That was a little while ago now, but I was recently approached by them to make a piece for their sculpture garden, yes the dump has a sculpture garden. The condition was that the piece be made from materials collected at their facility. Since I am out there collecting often anyway this was not much of a stretch.

My latest piece. A little commission.

Not a great photo, but the best I can do currently without a proper camera.

Hand I

5”x5”x11”

Typewriter parts

2009

Here is a sketch of a concept that I’m thinking of developing into a new kinetic sculpture.   In this animation the camera is rotating changing the view, however, the twists translation is controlled by simply rotating the upper black ring.

My time lately has been focused on a couple of commissions that people have requested. The first is nearly finished and is shown above. The objective in this case was to come up with a pretty classic “Robot” feel. Well lit, but not necessarily including mechanical motion (this is typically a cost saving concern). In order to still give the piece some character, the eyes blink rapidly on and off. He comes across as kind of manic.

Much of what I’m drawn to by the concept of Dystopia was born in fiction. In the 9th grade I was thrown out of school for, ironically, not staying in school. As punishment an ill conceived and probably inappropriate reading curriculum was forced on me. I was locked in my room with books pulled from required college reading lists. Dangerous books. Authors like Kaufka and Orwell presented psychological prisons that profoundly impacted my world view. A turbulent youth and inability to embrace social structure were suddenly justified in the vilification of authority. Try as I might to embrace humanity, the suspicion that we live in a monstrously unjust society with evil, petty, and stupid people bureaucratizing our creativity out of existence, still lingers.

I sculpt with steel, glass, wood, and discarded objects. Stylistically I work with discarded history, obsolete architecture, and the creatures that inhabit those spaces. Improbable and anxious machines populating a landscape of broken history.

Strangely enough, it’s not a sense of bleakness that I hope to convey, but a sense of the heroic. Framed within a narrative of futility, my anonymous figures are insects in the machinery of oppression, but they are silently heroic. Stoic and thoughtful, curious and industrious, they embody my own artistic tenacity. Even the machinery has a spark of hope embodied in it’s improbable mechanical framework. Under the rust of rediscovered salvage, lenses and spheres hint at fantastic science, pathways and truswork underly great feats of engineering. I see my work as a celebration of discovery made more precious by the contrast of it’s environment and dubious outcome.

Have recently been added to the Oceanside Museum website for upcoming events http://www.oma-online.org/exhibits.html
and just had an invite from the Mulvane Art Museum in Kansas for a summer robot show in 2010.

Featured is a shot of “The Ladder” photo by Jen Jansen

Chained to Earth “photos by Jen Jansen”

Materials: Steel, teak, typewriter parts, acrylic

Size in inches: 17” x 12” x 12”

Last week I delivered the second of two talks on “Dog Park Science,” at the Exploratorium.  You can find the audio of the first talk here.  The two talks are on very different topics.  The first is on the evolution of the dog, while this second one is about some of the core animal psychology and neurobiology that underlies animal training.

Here I’ve posted both the audio of the talk and the slide presentation.

In the talk I reference a few outside articles that I shared with the staff there after the talk.  At the end of this post I’ve put some links to some of the papers and articles I mention in the talk.

Dog Park Science Part 2: The Neurobiology of Dog Training

What Shamu Taught Me About A Happy Marriage:
A science writer uses animal behavior tricks on her husband

A Molecule of Motivation, Dopamine Excels at Its Task
A piece about the emerging concept of Dopamine as a “salience” signal

Predictive Reward Signal of Dopamine Neurons
Full text of a 1998 classic review paper on Dopamine

After much consideration I have made some changes to the organization of this site. Primarily I have decided to break my portfolio into six different categories to make navigation easier. You can now choose from: Robots/Figurative, Creatures, Locomotion, Inner Worlds/Boxes, Large Scale, and Abstract/Misc. I have also left the old structure intact so you can still find all works listed by order of creation date.
The other change I have made is the posting of prices on my For Sale page. I had previously required that you contact me and request a price list. I hope this new approach is less mysterious.
I hope that these changes make using this site more enjoyable. If you notice any broken links or if you have any thoughts on the matter please contact me, I’d appreciate the feedback.

The end of the year is always a bit hard. Between all the family and travel plans it can be difficult to get anything done in the studio. While the past weeks have felt particularly unproductive, I seem to have produced this nasty creature none the less. I had originally hoped to mount his head and arms with springs so that they would sort of wiggle around (much as I did with my “Stick Figure” sculpture). However, in the interest of quicker results I simplified the design and went with solid arms and a pivot mounted head. A vertical pin keeps his head balanced in place, but it can be turned to face different directions.

As I mentioned in my last post, Boomerang (above) has had a long journey. This journey finally brought him to his new home in Santa Barbara last week. While this may not be news in itself, I wanted to take a moment to share the supportive environment that he has found.
Boomerangs new home is also that of Tal Avitzur. Tal is an artist himself and shares my enthusiasm for collecting anything not nailed down. He showed me around his home and his wonderful collections. Below are a few images from the trip.

I’m pleased to anounce that The Steampunk Treehouse will be permanently installed at Dogfish Head brewery in Delaware!

There will be allot more info soon but the word is we’ll be installing sometime in May or June of 2010!

This is going to be allot of fun!

Wow. 8 months of work with a scalpel.