Geoffrey Roche - Morus Serrator maquette (detail). Photo: J.Gilberd
Geoffrey Roche - Artist information
Dr. Geoffrey Roche was born in 1973 in Whakatane, in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand. He received his B.A. in Philosophy (with papers in physics and biology) in 1996, his M.A. in Philosophy in 1998, and his PhD in Philosophy in 2005; all at the University of Auckland. His only training in illustration beyond 5th form high school was in first year biology laboratory class, where dissection drawings were a requirement.
Roche’s artistic practice explores themes first discussed in his MA thesis, The Motorcycle in the Art Gallery: Industrial Design and Art, being a critique of the contemporary Western dichotomy between technology and art (Roche 1997, amended 2008). In this text Roche notes the way in which engineers and inventors frequently operate in very artist- like ways, and have been inspired across history by naturally occurring forms, such as those of fish and birds.
Roche continues this line of inquiry through interpreting and modeling zoological anatomies in a rigorously methodological way, in an attempt to reverse- engineer them into forms that could be scaled or replicated, but also just to better understand them. The resulting assemblages are not so much artworks for their own sake as outputs of an ongoing investigation; works of techné that stand outside the art/technology divide.
As such, Roche’s work implies a fictional convergence between two technical practices that flourished during the 19th Century: the teaching of zoology through the creation of precision anatomical models (particularly those of Dr. Louis Auzoux {1797-1880}), and the scientific investigations into the flight of birds and bats that contributed to the emergence of powered flight (by Otto Lilienthal {848-1896}, Clément Ader {1841-1925}, and Jean Marie Le Bris {1817-1872}). For these three visionaries, the first step in achieving heavier- than-air powered flight was to analyse the morphologies and flight dynamics of birds and bats, and to construct and experiment with bird- and bat- like flying machines designed in the light of those studies. Now resembling the kinetic sculptures of some long forgotten Surrealist, it was partially through the creation of these machines, and the wild imaginations of their builders, that the sky was finally won.
Roche also writes on philosophical subjects, and has had book chapters and papers published in France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He is currently researching the hallucinatory impact of ergot intoxication on the work of the early Renaissance painters Matthias Grünewald (c.1470/80-1528) and Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516). Roche has lived in France, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, and currently lives in Wellington.
References:
Geoffrey Roche The Motorcycle in the Art Gallery. MA Thesis 1997.
URL: http://www.billymegawatt.com/uploads/6/8/4/6/6846461/the-motorcycle-in-the-art-gallery-industrial-design-and-art-.pdf
The Morus serrator Project (2013-2015)
Exhibition: Gilberd Marriott Gallery, 10th July-4th August, 2015.
Roche’s artistic practice explores themes first discussed in his MA thesis, The Motorcycle in the Art Gallery: Industrial Design and Art, being a critique of the contemporary Western dichotomy between technology and art (Roche 1997, amended 2008). In this text Roche notes the way in which engineers and inventors frequently operate in very artist- like ways, and have been inspired across history by naturally occurring forms, such as those of fish and birds.
Roche continues this line of inquiry through interpreting and modeling zoological anatomies in a rigorously methodological way, in an attempt to reverse- engineer them into forms that could be scaled or replicated, but also just to better understand them. The resulting assemblages are not so much artworks for their own sake as outputs of an ongoing investigation; works of techné that stand outside the art/technology divide.
As such, Roche’s work implies a fictional convergence between two technical practices that flourished during the 19th Century: the teaching of zoology through the creation of precision anatomical models (particularly those of Dr. Louis Auzoux {1797-1880}), and the scientific investigations into the flight of birds and bats that contributed to the emergence of powered flight (by Otto Lilienthal {848-1896}, Clément Ader {1841-1925}, and Jean Marie Le Bris {1817-1872}). For these three visionaries, the first step in achieving heavier- than-air powered flight was to analyse the morphologies and flight dynamics of birds and bats, and to construct and experiment with bird- and bat- like flying machines designed in the light of those studies. Now resembling the kinetic sculptures of some long forgotten Surrealist, it was partially through the creation of these machines, and the wild imaginations of their builders, that the sky was finally won.
Roche also writes on philosophical subjects, and has had book chapters and papers published in France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He is currently researching the hallucinatory impact of ergot intoxication on the work of the early Renaissance painters Matthias Grünewald (c.1470/80-1528) and Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516). Roche has lived in France, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, and currently lives in Wellington.
References:
Geoffrey Roche The Motorcycle in the Art Gallery. MA Thesis 1997.
URL: http://www.billymegawatt.com/uploads/6/8/4/6/6846461/the-motorcycle-in-the-art-gallery-industrial-design-and-art-.pdf
The Morus serrator Project (2013-2015)
Exhibition: Gilberd Marriott Gallery, 10th July-4th August, 2015.
