Contemporary Crosscurrents: Portraits and Electronic Arts

A collaboration of curators and artists from Dubai – The Third Line, Zayed University, American University Dubai, Tashkeel; Streaming Museum, New York; and Art Center Nabi, Seoul, Korea

11:28 into the video my piece appears.

Work in Progress ("portrait")

Lastest painting, 12"x12"

A microsecond simulation of the folding of a small protein, the villin headpiece, doing the tango.

Protein Tango from CJervert on Vimeo.

To create Beckton/Hue (the title indicates the actual location in England where the scene was shot, along with the Vietnamese city Kubrick intended to recreate), I stop-framed the DVD and, using an extreme close-up lens, focused in on one of the typically anemic Spanish palms. At the base of the tree can be seen a shadowy curved form, which may be the actual rim of the pot that contains the palm. I then digitally enhanced the image, principally by increasing the saturation of the original colors. The final photographic image simultaneously suggests the ravages of war as well as the artifice involved in the creation of a work of art (both Kubrick’s and this one).

The photo was mounted on a piece of honeycombed aluminum, a material used in the construction of military aircraft. On the backside of the panel is mounted a trompe-l’oeil, digitally-created texture map, marked by corrosion and bullet holes, which goes by the name Vietnam. 

Interestingly, both of the images for this piece were printed by the same lab that printed the photos shot by Matthew Modine during the making of Full Metal Jacket, which Modine later published in the book Full Metal Jacket Diary.