Brendan Dawes
The Art of Form and Code

The Swan

Creating a flowing sculptural form from an iconic ballet performance

    2021
  • Digital video
  • 1920 x 1080 pixels HD (colour, 24fps)
  • 20 seconds
  • 1080 x 1920 pixels (colour, 24fps)
  • 20 seconds
  • Contract: 0x2A46f2fFD99e19a89476E2f62270e0a35bBf0756
'

Using a Natalia Makarova performance of the 1905 ballet The Dying Swan, time and choreography give rise to a flowing sculptural form, creating a physical manifestation of not only the performance itself but of the imperfect, human and beautiful nature of memories.

Much of my work explores the idea of time, space and in particular, memories. I've always been fascinated how memories might be visually represented, from my 2004 work Cinema Redux, to my genesis Cryptoart / NFT, Black Mamba's Revenge. The Swan continues to go deeper into these themes, imagining sculptural like forms, born from often transient moments.

The Swan analyses the Makarova footage and transposes each moment so that time flows from left to right. In the same way our memories are not perfect facsimiles, the resultant form is "fuzzy", with some moments clearer than others.

The inspiration for these forms often comes from outside digital art, including the work of glass artist Sam Herman, the fashion creations of Alexander McQueen, the architecture of Zaha Hadid or the exquisite objects created by René Lalique. Through digital tools I'm continuing to explore the idea of digital sculptures, to ask questions about how we might represent digital objects through combinations of data, code and culture.

The Swan has been made available exclusively on Makersplace from 3:30pm PST on 21st January 2021.