Conceptual

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shadow chalking

This is a Flickr badge showing Misha Bittleston's photos in a set called shadow chalking.

This area of the site contains a sequential series of works in a variety of digital media, primarily those associated with the web.
These works are fundamentally conceptual, although their communication vehicle may be visual, they would be misunderstood if that were not understood as only being the artery for the idea that they are created to embody.

They range from the ambiguous, as in the homage to Rameau, to the political "Save Tibet" and "Magdalen". There are some that draw strongly on my paintings or prints (that can be seen in the works section of this site), such as "Pressure", "Venus" and "Female Moods" which has been on this site since its inception.

The conceptual art section of this site has emerged seemingly of its own accord, out of an approach to making art that is almost pure experimentation. I make these pieces as part of my own artistic process and as creative adventures for their own sake, and in the pursuit of original experiences; as such they are almost all works in progress.

I had previously placed them on the site like orphans, as if it did not matter who they were here for. The development of this site area is more of a contextualizing and drawing together of existing work than an act of intentionally creating pieces that fall into a particular genre. This might explain why is has been so hard for me to categorize, or want to categorize them until now. Calling this section "oddities" or "side show", might have seemed more honest but I feel that the notion of conceptual art bends definition enough to make it a comfortable choice.

Due to the fact that so much of this work uses the medium of the web, it is, not surprisingly, sometimes not consistent for different web browsers; I have tried to make it applicable to the most common browsers, but considering that all browsers are different, yours might easily be an exception, if something doesn't seem right and if you care enough, try another browser.

When I state that I use the web as a medium, it is clear that this is rather like saying, I make images in the medium of paint, actually I think this should be enough to go on, but is not usually satisfactory, so I will expand a little. My web experiments vary from the standard to the bleeding edge, and unfortunately for some users, at times beyond. The most complex of these pieces "Net Mind Web Collage" (still a working title, which I am comfortable to call conceptual) is a web-based program that runs from the server each time the page is visited or refreshed. I use mostly open-source web media ranging from Perl and Unix programming to Javascript, CSS, Gif and Jpeg images and of course Flash, to create works that are committed to approaching the web as an honest and serious medium for creative expression.

Navigation note: Obviously the forward arrow, below, takes you to the next piece, what may not be as obvious is that clicking a piece itself may take you to the next frame or iteration of that piece.

Following is a brief synopsis or commentary for each piece.

Space: This is travel, movement, the awareness of space, distance, space free of time, travel through non-physical space.
Shower Painting: These paintings have seen me naked. Process documentation...
Desire Tableau (Net Mind)
The act of searching on the web, performed by millions, is creativity at its most unselfconscious, and I see it as an important part of contemporary culture.
Each page view is a glimpse into the modern and the present, into impulse culture, a momentary snapshot of the whims, needs and desires of the networked world.
Desire Tableau 1: The least reliable result, and most abstract, it may present nothing all or only one image, but it is close to being magical at times. The images and overlaying text are viewed over the web based on conceptually independent criteria and have not been intentionally related. None of the content resides on this site. Filtered to remove obscene content.
Desire Tableau 2: Similar but more reliably displays a consistent web collage; the images are directly related to search text, in that they have been found based on one of the lines of overlaying text. Repetition in search terms has been minimized. Filtered to remove obscene content.
Desire Tableau 3: Unfiltered and with searchable text links. Images are retrieved and displayed based on text. Repetition in search terms has been minimized. The content is based on searches that are currently being performed and results are drawn directly from these and not filtered, so be warned, they may contain content that some may find obscene and/or offensive.
Female Moods: What does this mean? I am not sure if there is an intellectually meaningful answer, and this is the point. Moods are certainly no more a female attribute than that of a male, as exemplified by mine. (Maybe what I mean is that) I have experienced some female moods that are a hauntingly complex collage of intellectual contradictions and yet which make total sense and have an emotional logic that defies argument and which are so true as to define their own reality. Why then do I still search for a purely rational source or understanding of these? Maybe because, like Freud, I am only a man, or maybe this comes from a compelling combination of fear and attraction to having emotionally varied experiences and to experiencing uncharted emotions for which there is no intellectual counterpart?
Magdalen Unpenitent: Do you think Jesus would have criminalized prostitution? All I know is that he objected when people tried to kiss his feet out of devotion but forgave the sins of a sex worker, not protesting when she kissed and perfumed his feet and then wiped them with her hair. Wow! Could the message be any stronger.
Misunderstanding: No one understands you, and no one ever will. Get over it, and work on knowing yourself a little better.
One Thing: Aside from change, what else is certain? One thing!
Pressure: Life is stressful. Character's measured by the ability to handle pressure. There's no success without stress. To grow up requires developing the inward tools and strength to cope creatively with stress.
Regne Amour: Love rules all.
Homage to the French Baroque composer Jean Phillip Rameau, who's compositions have been mistakenly played at low volume.
Reverse Beheading: Sometimes when life decapitates, the head grows back.
Save Tibet: The Chinese government has destroyed more than 6,000 Tibetan monasteries and their irreplaceable cultural contents. The Chinese government still claim that they are the liberators of the Tibetan people and are doing the Tibetans a favor.
Self Portrait: This stuff is embarrassing, I am not sure if this should be here at all. Like autobiographies, self-portraits are the most dishonest and distorted concoctions of lies and superficial mirrors of self-reflecting-deception. Why do artists make self-portraits? Get a model Misha! Argh!
Under Construction: This site, these pieces and I myself are all works in progress. Not original but true.
Venus (Birth of): Beauty is not possible without change. This irony underscores the popular symbiotic relationship between destruction and creation. Nature keeps changing and stays beautiful.