Katherine Rae Diemert
Hourglasses | On view Online and on Street Level
May 17 – 31
Hourglasses is a video installation composed of pieces from a series of alternative hourglass designs. Particle simulations tailored to each design are projection mapped onto hand drawn ink illustrations.
The beginning of my residency at the Factory Media Centre coincided with the beginning of social-distancing because of COVID-19. Perhaps it was because of our newly changed routines, or the indefinite end date of the pandemic, but ‘time’ began coming up in many of the conversations I was having. I began wondering about how we perceived time, and how we tried to communicate that experience through visuals and language. The clock, the sundial, the hourglass are all common examples. But the hourglass’ design in particular is aesthetically satisfying for a few reasons: its multi-axis symmetry, both in 2D and 3D forms, the minimal materials (glass, sand, gravity), and its linearity. If you conceptually divide an hourglass horizontally at its centrepoint, the sand above represents the future yet to come, while the sand below is time past, and that middle point that the grains of sand slip through would be the present.
These Hourglasses are speculative alternative forms for visualizing the flow of time. At times they defy the laws of physics, or any real kind of practicality or functionality. They attempt to ask: What would our experience of life be like, were it to follow one of these hourglasses? How could our different perceptions of time and the language we use to describe it, be visualized in form?
Artist Statement / Biography:
Katherine Rae Diemert is an artist based in Hamilton, Ontario, making visual and interactive mixed media work inspired by natural forms and artificial processes. Katherine studied Illustration at Sheridan College (BA, Honors, 2015), later working in the interactive digital media industry. In the fall of 2019 she completed an intensive eleven-week program at the School for Poetic Computation in New York, a hybrid residency/school/research program. While there she learned programming and physical computing with a focus on creative applications, while also examining technology from a socially and culturally critical perspective. Currently, she is Artist in Residence at the Factory Media Centre.
In her creative practise, Katherine often begins with drawing or collage, developing the work through a process of translation and iteration between mediums. She layers software, motion, assemblage, and installation to transform her work; a pen and ink drawing will become a pattern on a digital simulation of cloth. The picture plane becomes a screen, and the screen becomes a picture plane. With each new framing comes an added dimension.
Oscillating between digital and physical media leaves trace marks on the work in imperfections, warps, and glitches. Katherine studies these transformations to learn more about the unique qualities of the altered subject. Her interest is in how the process of transformation makes room for modified meaning. She wants to create alternate ways of seeing, and thus understanding, our world.
kdrae.com
@k.d.rae
About the residency:
Katherine is Factory Media Centre’s April – May 2020 artist in residence. FMC’s Production Residency is an opportunity for artists and creators to utilize the space and resources at FMC to produce a new work or continue a developing body of work.