JANOS STONE

Can you discuss your career path to art?
I have a lot of art influence in my family – my parents, my brother, and my grandparents. It was always very warmly fostered and encouraged. I feel that artists are collectors. I mean that artists are people who collect objects, or ideas, or technique. They continuously work to bring many things and ideas toward themselves to then filter through their studio and place back out into the world. I was definitely a collector from a very young age. I collected all kinds of objects, techniques, and patterns. A lot of the structures you see in my work now, I started amassing a long time ago.

Would you say that both the objects and the concepts, which you have now, were also being pondered and considered as a child?
Yes, definitely. I started playing with the polyhedron shapes and polygons around 9 or 10 years old. I was always using my hands, such as modeling with clay. The physical and the conceptual foundations of my work go very far back.

What and/or who have been your artistic influences?
I don’t really keep books in my studio about other artists or follow the paths of other artists. Some of my influencers are Stamford University professors in New Media, Reeves and Nass, mathematician, Charles Seife, and MIT director of the Center for Bits and Atoms, Neil Gershenfeld. These thinkers and others inspire the over-reaching interest of my practice: the relationships we have through and with the Internet and digital technology. In studio, I come up with research projects for myself to work through these ideas. The results of which, are my art.

Can you describe your technique in creating some of your works as well as the piece, 333 Eyes of My FB Friends?
I don’t sketch. I visualize my new work in three dimensions, sculpting it in my head to get the general shape, size, and idea that I’m after. Then, after I’ve decided what I’m going to make and I’ve seen the entire thing, I use a 3-D modeling program to set up the layout and ultimately fabricate all the work by hand. I used this particular process for this piece, 333 Eyes of My FB Friends. The work is approximately ten feet tall, weaving together into a single unit. All the pieces are cut and assembled by hand, and it’s very labor intensive. There’s no actual modeling in this piece, but other sculptures have portraits or other ideas carved in the surface. To model, I remove the paper from the drywall and then hand-carve all of those images in low-relief. This process is similar to the concepts in the work – in that we are all a blend of technology and humanity. I try to actually make my studio practice mirror this idea. While I use a lot of technology to design and fabricate my work, there is always a lot of humanity in that I use my hands to make some piece of the sculpture. In 333 Eyes of My FB Friends, there is a single eye from all of my friends on Facebook. It really captures everybody from my page in that moment – making physical something generally so ethereal.

It’s wonderful to be able to make the connection between technology and humanity in the production of your works themselves. Could you speak more about the meaning of your work, Wiii?
The color is ink that has been printed on the surface of the drywall by a largeformat flatbed inkjet printer. The color moments are very abstracted images of computer screens, which I see as ghost images behind each one of the characters. This piece depicts two couples as they interact on three separate planes. They may be physically with each other in the actual world, but are arguably more “with” each other in the virtual world – in that this is where they are interacting most. Since our interactions with each other are where we develop our perceptions of reality, gaming can become more “real” than reality. Further, as the viewer, we watch the couples as they play together. From their perspective, the viewer’s position is where the screen of the computer they are playing on would be. Each act as each other’s “screens”. By using picture planes, I can meld the idea of existence in two “worlds” further. I find it very fascinating – this idea of people interacting through video games. After thinking about it, we are really shaping our existences through the use of avatars in video games in virtual worlds.

What an intriguing way to articulate this relationship between the viewer and the couples playing the game. How did you become interested in this particular topic and subject – our interaction with the media and technology?
Well, I live in it. As an artist, I feel that I have to report back on my experience of things. Perhaps, that is a bit of a standard definition. But, I actually do feel like that’s my job. I make sure to have as many experiences as I can in order to influence the work that I’m making. What choice do I have? This is the world that I’m in!

I agree. It’s so important for your work to speak about what is most important to you. What are some of your upcoming projects?
I have a show up now at the Camel Art Space in Brooklyn. Then, I’m focusing on the Miami Basel art fairs. I’ll be unveiling a design project at Art Basel Miami Beach, Design 2011, and I’m working on showing 333 Eyes of My FB Friends at Art Basel Miami Beach, 2011. In the spring of 2012, I have a residency at the Fountainhead Residency, Miami.

Can you discuss where you see the direction of your work going in the future?
It’s hard to predict the future, but I would guess that the concepts would stay in this general theme which I have been working with. I will say that I am going to be playing with some new materials in the studio – bringing in some water clay and starting to blend the clay with the drywall. I find the clay very symbolic for me as a body form – not literally making bodies out of it – but, using its natural organic shapes in contrast to the angular shapes and flat planes of the drywall is very exciting. Cyberspace itself is one part of what the polygons represent to me. So, juxtaposing them with this soft, supple clay continues to highlight the life that we live between the two worlds.