Please… Do Not Touch the Grass
IAMD Master of Fine Art Thesis Exhibition
Chris A Leithead
Primary Advisor: Derek Sullivan
Secondary Advisor: Jay Irizawa
Exhibition Statement:
“Go touch grass” is a phrase which is used by the chronically online to shut down each others’ arguments when debating something in the digital sphere. I can’t point to the exact emergence of the phrase, but it does ooze with the energy of the wild wild west of the world wide web of the late nineteen-nineties that I grew up with. During the development of this exhibition I found that those who are blissfully free from over-engagement with online discourses tend not have any strong response elicited from the phrase. If grass is a familiar part of the scenery of the everyday, then the proposition isn’t particularly loaded.
The phrasing of this exhibition’s title “Please… Touch the Grass” is a play on a “please do not touch the grass” lawn signs with the “…” both implying and omitting the existence of the “do not.” These signs might protect a young lawn while it takes root with a polite deterrent-via invited consideration. Or they might be placed on the manicured lawn of a corporatized space by property management.
This exhibition comprises three new artworks dividing the gallery into two distinct zones which toy with permitting visitor access to the view and natural light of the space’s large windows. The first space of the gallery holds Directional Shielding (a pink cable meandering through the space) and Cutscene 1 (a scattered field of cardboard Nintendo controllers, set down mid-action and abandoned indefinitely by their players). In the second zone, across the threshold of lush green plastic turf grass sits Joycon Drift (a driftwood log suspended over polygonal sand tiles against the backdrop of the surrounding downtown streetscape). Viewers are invited to explore boundaries between the virtual and the physical, the interior and the exterior while moving through the scenes across these two distinct zones.
Foreground: Directional Shielding.
Owens Corning FOAMULAR NGX CodeBord XPS Rigid Foam Insulation Board, Foam Factory Foam Fusion Glue
Background: Cutscene 1.
Mold-formed recycled carboard pulp, modeled after Nintendo 64 controllers.
Joycon Drift.
EZ Sand Techniseal Polymer Sand, driftwood found at
Cawaja Beach (Georgian Bay), thread.
Directional Shielding (2025) Owens Corning FOAMULAR NGX CodeBord XPS Rigid Foam Insulation Board, Foam Factory Foam Fusion Glue Directional Shielding is a pink foam cable that meanders through the gallery space. In any decent signal-carrying cable, there are layers of “directional shielding” used to protect the transported data from external electromagnetic interference while preventing the data from straying from the cable’s path. By its name, this work disinvites external forces like a concerned parent guiding access of appropriate content for their child. This analogy speaks not only to the well-intentioned blocking of harmfully inappropriate noise entering the “signal” of one’s life, but just as much to keep intended signal in – to keep the signal on the appropriate prescribed path. This work is informed by the experiences from my younger life bumping up against gender norms: an accumulation of experiences like nicks and bumps trying to contain me on a socially appropriate path. There is an ambiguity to where the cable starts and ends: in which direction the signal travels through the object which is being protected by the proverbial, titular “directional shielding” What importance this direction might even entail and what the cable is even transmitting? The jerky movements, surface impressions, the ambiguity of origin and endpoint, and the title together ask the viewer to consider what forces (internal and external) might have shaped this object.
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Cutscene 1 (2025) Mold-formed recycled carboard pulp, modeled after Nintendo 64 controllers.
Cutscene 1 is a scattered field of cardboard gaming controllers, set down mid-action and indefinitely abandoned by their players. This work is named after a break in the action in video games where the player is no longer in control of their character but must watch a cinematic scene (a cutscene) to receive additional information about the plot of the game. The controllers of Cutscene 1 have shapely round grips which fit perfectly in all three of your hands. These are modelled from the peripherals for the Nintendo 64 console. The Nintendo 64 was a major player in the home console market in the late 1990s and was popular for its encouragement of side-by-side multiplayer gaming. The carboard pulp forming process I used to make these is a common industrial packaging technique for objects such as egg cartons. These objects combine the form of actual peripherals, with the materiality of value-brand egg cartons from the grocery store. The controllers are all upright, they’re out in a scatter: not lined up with any precision perfectly but each obviously placed with care. Ready at attention and waiting longingly for action which may or may never come. Each controller is a ghost, stuck in an indefinite pause longing for the time when their human extensions were at the height of gameplay before “dinner” was called from upstairs.
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Joycon Drift (2025) EZ Sand Techniseal Polymer Sand, driftwood found at Cawaja Beach (Georgian Bay), thread.
Joycon Drift presents a driftwood log suspended above a polygonal patch of honeycomb sand tiles with a view of the gallery’s downtown neighbourhood. The title of this work combines the terms “joystick drift” with the name Joy-Con - Nintendo’s trademark name for the controllers of their current Switch console. When a joystick has a “drift” from overuse, it registers a persistent low-hum of directional movement making gameplay harder and requiring the player to adjust their point of orientation and play at a disadvantage. The trunk of driftwood is narrowed and smoothed by the organic digestion and gentle mechanical abrasion experienced on its journey out “at sea” on the Georgian Bay (technically a freshwater lake, but with the vastness and maritime culture of a sea). I collected this driftwood on the chilly late winter visit to Cawaja Beach, east of Penetanguishene on a visit to the cottage of friends. The driftwood visually floats suspended above a small island of honeycomb (hexagonal) tiles of sand, while pointing out of the gallery space to the one patch of sky in view. The honeycomb and weightlessness arrangement of these objects is influenced by digital 3D design For the viewer who crosses the exhibition’s plastic grass threshold, the promise of Joycon Drift as a stable landing point reveals itself to be charged with a tension which threatens to be snapped apart if stepped on by the viewer. Viewing point outside of the room, with echoes to immaterial digital space
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Please… Do Not Touch the Grass
IAMD Master of Fine Art Thesis Exhibition
Chris A Leithead
Primary Advisor: Derek Sullivan
Secondary Advisor: Jay Irizawa
Exhibition Statement:
“Go touch grass” is a phrase which is used by the chronically online to shut down each others’ arguments when debating something in the digital sphere. I can’t point to the exact emergence of the phrase, but it does ooze with the energy of the wild wild west of the world wide web of the late nineteen-nineties that I grew up with. During the development of this exhibition I found that those who are blissfully free from over-engagement with online discourses tend not have any strong response elicited from the phrase. If grass is a familiar part of the scenery of the everyday, then the proposition isn’t particularly loaded.
The phrasing of this exhibition’s title “Please… Touch the Grass” is a play on a “please do not touch the grass” lawn signs with the “…” both implying and omitting the existence of the “do not.” These signs might protect a young lawn while it takes root with a polite deterrent-via invited consideration. Or they might be placed on the manicured lawn of a corporatized space by property management.
This exhibition comprises three new artworks dividing the gallery into two distinct zones which toy with permitting visitor access to the view and natural light of the space’s large windows. The first space of the gallery holds Directional Shielding (a pink cable meandering through the space) and Cutscene 1 (a scattered field of cardboard Nintendo controllers, set down mid-action and abandoned indefinitely by their players). In the second zone, across the threshold of lush green plastic turf grass sits Joycon Drift (a driftwood log suspended over polygonal sand tiles against the backdrop of the surrounding downtown streetscape). Viewers are invited to explore boundaries between the virtual and the physical, the interior and the exterior while moving through the scenes across these two distinct zones.
Foreground: Directional Shielding.
Owens Corning FOAMULAR NGX CodeBord XPS Rigid Foam Insulation Board, Foam Factory Foam Fusion Glue
Background: Cutscene 1.
Mold-formed recycled carboard pulp, modeled after Nintendo 64 controllers.
Joycon Drift.
EZ Sand Techniseal Polymer Sand, driftwood found at
Cawaja Beach (Georgian Bay), thread.
Directional Shielding (2025) Owens Corning FOAMULAR NGX CodeBord XPS Rigid Foam Insulation Board, Foam Factory Foam Fusion Glue Directional Shielding is a pink foam cable that meanders through the gallery space. In any decent signal-carrying cable, there are layers of “directional shielding” used to protect the transported data from external electromagnetic interference while preventing the data from straying from the cable’s path. By its name, this work disinvites external forces like a concerned parent guiding access of appropriate content for their child. This analogy speaks not only to the well-intentioned blocking of harmfully inappropriate noise entering the “signal” of one’s life, but just as much to keep intended signal in – to keep the signal on the appropriate prescribed path. This work is informed by the experiences from my younger life bumping up against gender norms: an accumulation of experiences like nicks and bumps trying to contain me on a socially appropriate path. There is an ambiguity to where the cable starts and ends: in which direction the signal travels through the object which is being protected by the proverbial, titular “directional shielding” What importance this direction might even entail and what the cable is even transmitting? The jerky movements, surface impressions, the ambiguity of origin and endpoint, and the title together ask the viewer to consider what forces (internal and external) might have shaped this object.
|
Cutscene 1 (2025) Mold-formed recycled carboard pulp, modeled after Nintendo 64 controllers.
Cutscene 1 is a scattered field of cardboard gaming controllers, set down mid-action and indefinitely abandoned by their players. This work is named after a break in the action in video games where the player is no longer in control of their character but must watch a cinematic scene (a cutscene) to receive additional information about the plot of the game. The controllers of Cutscene 1 have shapely round grips which fit perfectly in all three of your hands. These are modelled from the peripherals for the Nintendo 64 console. The Nintendo 64 was a major player in the home console market in the late 1990s and was popular for its encouragement of side-by-side multiplayer gaming. The carboard pulp forming process I used to make these is a common industrial packaging technique for objects such as egg cartons. These objects combine the form of actual peripherals, with the materiality of value-brand egg cartons from the grocery store. The controllers are all upright, they’re out in a scatter: not lined up with any precision perfectly but each obviously placed with care. Ready at attention and waiting longingly for action which may or may never come. Each controller is a ghost, stuck in an indefinite pause longing for the time when their human extensions were at the height of gameplay before “dinner” was called from upstairs.
|
Joycon Drift (2025) EZ Sand Techniseal Polymer Sand, driftwood found at Cawaja Beach (Georgian Bay), thread.
Joycon Drift presents a driftwood log suspended above a polygonal patch of honeycomb sand tiles with a view of the gallery’s downtown neighbourhood. The title of this work combines the terms “joystick drift” with the name Joy-Con - Nintendo’s trademark name for the controllers of their current Switch console. When a joystick has a “drift” from overuse, it registers a persistent low-hum of directional movement making gameplay harder and requiring the player to adjust their point of orientation and play at a disadvantage. The trunk of driftwood is narrowed and smoothed by the organic digestion and gentle mechanical abrasion experienced on its journey out “at sea” on the Georgian Bay (technically a freshwater lake, but with the vastness and maritime culture of a sea). I collected this driftwood on the chilly late winter visit to Cawaja Beach, east of Penetanguishene on a visit to the cottage of friends. The driftwood visually floats suspended above a small island of honeycomb (hexagonal) tiles of sand, while pointing out of the gallery space to the one patch of sky in view. The honeycomb and weightlessness arrangement of these objects is influenced by digital 3D design For the viewer who crosses the exhibition’s plastic grass threshold, the promise of Joycon Drift as a stable landing point reveals itself to be charged with a tension which threatens to be snapped apart if stepped on by the viewer. Viewing point outside of the room, with echoes to immaterial digital space
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