um and ah concret, foam, stucco, steel, hubble image, 2012, 68" tall.
um and ah magpie, foam, aluminum tape, trampoline, hubble image, 2012, 32" tall.
um and ah a sculpture made from foam which is auotmatically carved from the phrase umumumumumum and ahahahahahahah using contemporary automatic manufacturing processes. Rees uses his sofware the Sculptural User Interface (SUI) to type the words which are transposed into 3D forms. Um is typed using the alphapipe alphabet and ah using fillet cubes. Rees plays upon the relationship between object, language, form and human body with this project. The phrase Um and Ah reflect automatic processes in the body each as a stand in for inhaling and then exhaling. Layered further still the words reflect a mental process of receiving and then relinquishing information, of questioning and then considering. Evenso Um and Ah came from the testing phase of the software while the act of typing became an automatic process. This automatic process which used the phrase um and ah reflected these fundamental body processes from action to abstraction.
The Sculptural User Interface (SUI) is a long term project from Michael Rees with Don Guarnieri. ITs been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts (Artificial Sculpture at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri, curated by Mel Watkins.) and by Creative Capital.