www.kenboe.com

KEARL

There is a revolution going on in the development of new metamaterials such as silver nanowires already famous for possible military cloaking devices, and there is an entire history of innovations the past few centuries, and there are archeological discoveries going back thousands of years, and little of this is being considered for the production of art. I believe that new means of creating art should be one of our first priorities, and that by applying new and old directions of technological innovations to art production there is likely to be a much greater “spin-off” effect in all areas of science, culture, and industry, than military applications, which are too secretive for this synthesis to occur.
METAMORPHOSIS

I am therefore gathering together the proposal for KEARL: The Kenboe Experimental Artist-materials Research Laboratory. My initial thoughts are that this would eventually become a large well funded institute and residency where scientists and other types of researchers would be commissioned in the form of a Residency to apply their research to art applications in association with other artists also on Residency who would collaborate with these researchers on specific projects, as well as spin-off projects within the synergy of a very creative environment. KEARL will hopefully be located in a very small town along with several other creative organizations such as galleries, cafes, a theatre residency, and writer residencies, so that the entire town, along with the locals, becomes a kind of creative incubator in general, but one which also engenders greater focus than a commuteropolis.

There are materials research laboratories everywhere studying everything from road pavement and house-building materials to archaeometallurgy and paleobiology from which to draw new ideas and materials for artists to work from, let alone the exciting work being done in nanotechnology and physics.

I will post more as I develop these ideas. Please contact me at kenboe@gmail.com if interested in helping to make this dream become possible. Below are some links, and I will add more later.

This mixed-media/mixed-message art work a combination of photographic prints of found objects, cut out around those objects, oil paint, chalk, pumice, enamel hardener, and spraypaint with Fiberized Aluminum Roof Asphalt on Masonite. There is one other, not shown, which is a double-sized dyptic of this same series. Though highly mixed-media, these works are built to last, and are extremely strong works of experimental art. To be in the presence of these works is to endow oneself in the very idea of creativity and experimentation, and a host of other possible meanings.

Collaboration by Ken Boe and Art Kenyon, 2007