Alex Seton’s artistic practice incorporates sculpture, photography, video and installation to examine problematic ideas and concepts and give them form. Always carefully considered, Seton’s artworks playfully sit at the junction of an idea, forcing a choice in the viewer as a litmus test of their own disposition. Whether contemplating notions of nationhood, the hubris of legacy or the problematic relationship between individual and society, the personal and the cultural always collide in his work in a complex relationship between form and substance. Well-known for marble carving, Seton flouts and expands upon the traditions of sculpture, using the materiality of marble as a poetic device. Often returning to digital photography, video, sound, and ephemeral works in his practice, Seton most recently breaks with the constraints of physical sculpture with Augmented Reality artworks.
In our first article on our “Dropping In With” series, we have a chat with Alex about the inspiration behind his incredible new AR work, available on DROPLT.
What was it about this body of work that inspired you to to create these Augmented Reality pieces?
I chose the Standing Manikin Target Series as it represents my practice and methodology very well. I’m fascinated with ready made objects that are loaded with meaning because what their purpose says about us and our needs. When translated into marble, these objects take on a different, geological timeline and resonance, becoming monuments to the present moment.
Standing Manikin Target Series is a replication of a ballistics gel target dummy developed for the Australian Special Forces with human biological data. This data generated humanoid form has more in common with modernist sensibilities of Brancusi than its original more sinister intent. I first carved it in 2007 in response to the Sydney APEC summit protests, where the ASF were present. Today it seems more relevant than ever, in an age where our personal data is being used to interpret us at every turn.
It felt appropriate for my first Augmented Reality sculpture NFT to be this figure, generated from human data measurement points, that’s had been aestheticised in marble IRL, scanned and then ported back into the digital space in the form of AR.
Does the purpose of a ballistics dummy seem analogous to AR? There is a ‘distance’ between the user and the viewer that allows interaction without consequence.
Absolutely. Functionally AR is data ported into our space via our personal screens. I have no doubt this will become more sophisticated interaction as the tech evolves but for now, the uncanny and almost ethereal remove of the AR experience mirrors the disturbing gap between the pleasure of it as an art object and an awareness of its more sinister intent.
How, through the APEC Summit protests, did you come into contact with these figures?
At that time, entirely coincidentally, I had a studio next door to the Armourer who would prepare the ballistics gel dummy with internal electronic sensors and mount them on remote-control moving trolleys for the Australian Special Forces. I still remember walking into his studio full of them, newly arrived from the manufacturer, and being entranced by this field of strange figures.
‘ I’ve always been fascinated in making sculptures that exist in two states at once — in a place of contradiction. Augmented Reality merges the digital world with the analogue one, manifesting digital entities into our immediate space, blurring old world notions of reality and materiality while being neither wholly virtual or physical… ’
How long have you been working with augmented reality? We have seen previous pieces you have created presented in this format although this series feels the most resolved.
I’m relatively new to Augmented Reality, only producing work in the last two years, but having been fascinated with the field for far longer. About four years ago I created a number of Virtual Reality pieces, but I was struck by the limitations of the technology and the rather constrained interaction POV inside a virtual space that was removed from this world. AR felt like the exact opposite of the VR experience, more immediate and present in your space. This series uses high resolution marble textures and realtime light readings that add to that feeling of it being tangibly present — even though you are are aware of its absence in the same moment.
As a sculptor did beginning to work with augmented reality feel like an easy jump to make, or was this process like learning to create in a new medium?
As a sculptor I’ve had a keen sense of how the audience navigates around the sculpture, how they interact with the 3D form, physically, emotionally or intellectually. I’ve also used a lot of trompe l’oeil and material contradiction to engage audiences and AR was the most natural easy fit for that kind of engagement. I was also so excited to not be constrained by physical reality after years of a material heavy studio practice.
To read more about his work visit his DROPLT page or head over to his website at http://www.alexseton.com/
