IMPRESSING THE OLD MAN

The full title for this artwork is IMPRESSING THE OLD MAN: Making a 3D Paper Impression

Like the artwork you may have scanned to reach this more complete iteration this artwork is dense in content and tells a number of narratives simultaneously. I'd love to hear any insights or impressions you get from experiencing this art. Feedback almost inevitably enriches my own interpretation.

I created the artwork below for THE HAND: The Magazine for Reproduction Based Art. It appeared in edition 49 (July 2025). This artwork incorporates into it a scanable QR-Code which allows the readers of the magazine immediate access to this multimedia representation on their smartphones. This was Adam Finkelston's idea who offered me the chance to present my work which involved in a dynamic way the practice of printmaking as much as the products it produces.

This is the smartphone page created for people who scan this image:

I dedicate this work to the unique artist from Norfolk, England Max Brooker who I was actually making this 3D paper impression for when I was making this recording at the end of 2024.

COMMENTARY

• The obvious reference  attempting to make is to satirize the books and films that were marketed to me as a child. It is, however, far more than that.
  
  
• It is the ideal representation of the material I am intending to make in the future for my "AT YOUR OWN PERIL" website. The primary conceipt of this website is that the method itself, the process of the production of art, IS the art; that the products you end up with at are just the pieces of paper that emerge from a complex process - interesting but incomplete if you don't consider the whole process of art making.
  
  
• This particular piece of art, one that incorporates so many other individual artworks including graphic art, films, GIFs and musical compositions, becomes very much an artwork in itself... as well as teaching something that I invented and actually perform in real life still today.
  
  
• So this artwork, although appearing to be a joke, references a set of techniques that you could actually learn to do.
  
  
• The most significant underlying theme behind artworks like this is related to the negative effects neoliberalism has had on contemporary culture. By taking the emphasis well and truly off the final products that people can sell and can imagine actually means they "own" the art in any real way and therefore don't need to understand it, renders the ridiculous worry that people have about AI art to be totally superfluous.
  
  
• But here's the thing: all the courses, templates and downloadable material I make for my AT YOUR OWN PERIL website are completely free. So you get the point, right? I stand firmly against the system that commodifies the things I make and tries to attach value to the fact that I can sell them, encouraging the ludicrous idea that the monetary value of something has anything to do with its artistic value.