Its alive…

…if barely.

Haven’t touched this site in two years apart from the occasional comment on the post about AStickyPostOrderer – which by the way has seen 17,682 download so far.

But me thinks it be time for a little bit of clean up, consolidation organisation and some new stuff.

This will in all likelihood be the last generally miscellaneous bloggy type of post to this site. Especially with Facebook, Twitter, Flicr, Buzz and what not else of the social networking sites and all, and all, and so on.

This site will transform into something more focused on media technology and design (yes – it will get a nicer graphical window dressing at some point)

I’m setting up two other sites, one as a online portfolio of my art and another for more personal journalling kind of blogging and less resolved stuff than I want to have here or in the art site. Will probably be logging my progress with my MBA mini dissertation there as well – or in another domain, what the hell. The topic probably deserves it – ‘Sociotechnical Health & the Sense of Coherence in a Organisation‘ – I’m dropping the very rough preliminary abstract below.

Some interesting and exciting stuff happening for me in the art realm as we, more later and elsewhere. And, deep breath, next baby is due in August :-)

The Abstract

This study explores the notion of technical wellness, or health, of the organisation. The point of departure is the Salutogenesis paradigm’s orientation towards the factors that are held to lead to a sense of coherence, namely comprehensibility, manageability and meaningfulness. It applies this theoretical model pragmatically to quantitative data gathered about the salutary aspects of elements of technology. These are identified through participative consultation with sample of respondents representative of the stratification of authority and responsibility in the organisation as well as representatives of the organisation’s environment. The study’s intention is to consolidate and correlate the interaction and overlap between sociological and technological perspectives on the relationship between the people issues and tools issues that constitute the organisation as well as the environment the organisation transacts with-, and exists within. Should the sense of coherence model prove to reconcile the apparent dichotomy between technical and social aspects of the organisation it would offer a clear and accessible shared language to facilitate more coherent cooperation of technologists, sociologist, workplace health promotion and human capacity development practitioners and other diverse stakeholders in service of the successful achievement of the organisation’s direct objectives, be they commerce or public service oriented, as well as offering a lucid framework through which to approach the challenges of sustainable work systems development and optimisation.

…and if that doesn’t have you fleeing in cognitive panic, try the latest version of my take on an artist’s statement: (comment and crit welcome and appreciated)

André S  Clements

André S Clements is a computational media artist. Through an approach he has dubbed ‘post-digital painterly abstraction’, André pursues subtle and sublime (he hopes) aspects of contemporary media, (the human condition of) cognitive overload and struggle for transcendence. He uses an interplay of multiplicity, clinical abstraction and a kind of conceptual procedural super realism to compose artworks that teases perception and defies closure.

André’s art is typically composed of nearly insane numbers of images/information-sources meticulously superimposed and digitally averaged into a result that holds or posits more than representation or experience. Usually the results appear to have a painterly quality that emerges from the work’s internal patterns of interference and contradiction. In contrast to superficial ‘filter effects’, as are often employed in digital illustration techniques, this texture of painterly artifacts becomes an integral aspect of each piece. These elements become a tapestry of myriad choices confronting the viewer. They are cognitive crossroads necessitated by the inability of the viewer to perceive all the information contained in the artwork, in anything remotely like ordinary perceptual coherence. This dynamic is further augmented by the fact that the overloading of the information set space entails a reduction in the discreteness of elements in direct inverse proportion to the scope of information presented.

Or, in simpler terms, these works are well suited to those with high degrees of novelty preference, as you are unlikely to see the same in each, or even any encounters with and explorations of the work.

With ‘post-digital painterly abstraction’ André intentionally celebrates contradiction and ambiguity on various levels. For example, stylistically the work contrasts subtle visual qualities reminiscent of Renaissance art such as sfumato, against the clarity and precision ordinarily pursued in digital media. Works often have titles, subtexts and meta-narratives that contradict, or recasts the subject matter with an occasional pinch of sociocultural commentary or a friendly measure of intertextual irreverence. This approach is informed by the sociotechnical systems theory paradigm, in its focus on the overlapping interdependence of technical, sociological and environmental subsystems of each piece in its post-structuralist synthesis and production of meaning and value.

When he is not compulsively pushing pixels late at night, André is the ICT manager for Regenesys, a private institution of management education in Sandton, South Africa where he is currently completing an MBA. André is also a husband and father.

I hope it will make sense to more people than just me and my nearest and dearest.

The best part of blogging?

Perhaps even more so now than way back when, is the strange kind of virtual peace and quiet that can sometimes surround the editing screen.