Telemetrics: drawing translations

Telemetrics: Drawing Translations began with charcoal drawings on paper, which were then converted into digital information, and finally re-rendered by three-dimensional software. This series of translations allow for a close exploration of the drawing's topography that is similar to the viewpoint of an exploratory rover. The imagery from this digital landscape was collected, exported, and translated into the mediums of print, painting, and video.

This body of work was developed in reference to the telemetric systems that are currently in use to explore the cosmos. Space telescopes convert a physical stimulus (light) into electrical signals, or raw data. In order to be analyzed and understood, that information must be converted into a file that can be read over multiple representational platforms, both numerically and visually. Interpreting these data requires translation, which occurs at several levels as the astronomers prepare the data for interpretation. The resultant images, especially those presented to the public, have gone through several stages of adjustment for both informative and aesthetic reasons.

In Telemetrics: Drawing Translations, the drawings function as the phenomena of the universe, all of that which can only be understood through telemetric analysis. The drawing's primacy in this system is established through its physicality, level of resolve, and the amount of interpretable information it contains. The derivatives of the drawings mirror the entropic nature of translating information across formats. Tone, contrast and an emphasis on the physical manipulation of material in the drawings formally reference the Rocky Mountain School paintings of the American West. The paintings of Thomas Moran, Albert Biertstadt, Thomas Hill and others allowed viewers to experience the sublime through an environment that was distant and imagined. It is in a similar way that telemetric systems allow us to experience otherwise untouchable places, even if the representations of these far off places is exaggerated or inaccurate.