MOBILE
February-March 2025
60 DIGITAL SKETCHES ON THE THEME OF BATTERY-POWERED TRANSPORT
These days ‘Mobile’ generally means a phone, capable of much more than voice messages. Here I’ve chosen it as the title for a not unrelated theme of small transport mainly powered by batteries, with global popularity and troubling consequences for public spaces. This is a somewhat broader genre of transport than previous series such as CHOPPERS or TRUCULENCE, complicated by the prominence of riders. And it is a subject I know has been previously taken up to some extent by other painters.
My starting point however was, as often, available web imagery, where the uses and roles for riders range from recreation to delivery business to vital mobility for the aged and infirm. Each has preferred vehicles and interesting concessions are made to public footpaths, roads and even some hospitality and retail premises. There are also issues of personal safety, right of access and speeds. I have included robot or remote controlled trolleys, these having links to to the series ROBO.
It was this adaptation to traditional public spaces that most interested me pictorially. Spatial concerns of scale, proportion, motion, distance or depth, focus or detail and season or hour, all return the series to abiding concerns with irrealism discussed in most previous series.
It is another large series, mainly because of the broader theme and sprawling options, and of course because of the importance that permutations on a composition holds for my method. .
More notes at the bottom of the page.
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Another factor was an idealised or design concept, realised in 3-D modelling for more recent one and two-wheel vehicles. Segways of course, have been around since the turn of the century, but many more elaborate self-balancing vehicles for the single rider have been proposed, some as just prototypes or concepts. This aspect recalled the jet fighters of CAMOUFLAGE in particular.
In some examples I have used obvious historical backgrounds to highlight the difference between contemporary vehicles and traditional public spaces. These are gentler concessions to my project of irrealism. Changes in use of public space extend from standard motor scooters and bicycles, often still in use and taking advantage of new liberties to access. It is not always clear how much these have been adapted to battery power. The series thus includes examples but draws the line at skateboards.
Enthusiastic riders suggested a psychological disposition that seems to stretch back to infancy and please of experiencing motion without effort. It seems inherent and far too general to be adequately dealt with under the present theme.
Finally, my experience of such spaces also noted the pro-active role by local councils, in renting pavement space to retail and hospitality outlets, in some cases extending these even to the street, to commandeer car parking spaces, temporarily secured by fencing. This plainly adds to the challenge of navigating for the passerby, pedestrian or motorist.
