Utopia/Dystopia

16mm colour/B & W film, with digital sound. Filmed on the island of Crete in black & white and colour, single frame by single frame, the film denies the idealistic and bucolic view of the Greek island, and instead frantically shifts between positive and negative imagery of barbed wire, fences, animal bones, dead plants, transmission towers, broken bells, abandoned architecture, and disused portals. Manipulated field recordings of crickets/cicadas accompany the film. Screened at the London Short Film Festival in partnership with Analogue Recurring, January 18, 2015

(I)MAGESOUND(S)

(I)MAGESOUND(S) brings together Jim Hobbs, Andrew Hill, and Dennis McNany, who will explore/exploit the potentiality of how the sonic influences the moving image and vice versa. Working across various approaches from single screen 16mm films and rescored archival footage to more complex expanded cinema and sonic installations, the entire program celebrates the collaborative nature of artists and the resonance of sound and image. The programme of performed and curated works will take place on December 1, 2016 at The Walter Bruno Auditorium, Lincoln Center, New York, NY, USA

Panoramic Decelerator

For his solo exhibition, Panoramic Decelerator, Jim Hobbs presents a selection of recent film, video, photographic and sculptural works completed over the past 2 years. The work moves across a wide variety of media, utilizing a combination of both digital and analogue approaches to explore complex relationships between place, memory and the fluctuations and materiality of time

"Vesuvius: (I wish I had _______________)" Jerwood Drawing Prize 2017

Jim Hobbs' new work, "Vesuvius: (I wish I had ________)", has been selected for the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2017. “Vesuvius: (I wish I had _____)”, is a recent drawing that utilizes analogue photography that has been digitally printed and reworked with pencil. The original photograph, taken during a visit to Naples in 2016, depicts Mt. Vesuvius as a truncated pinnacle in the landscape – a monumental reminder of the historical and destructive forces of nature. However, through the act of drawing (a futile gesture), the volcano is brought back to a semblance of completion. Littered along the base of the image are the artist’s notes and scribbles, offering a subtle insight into the thoughts and processes of the work. About the Jerwood Drawing Prize: The Jerwood Drawing Prize is the largest and longest running annual open exhibition for drawing in the UK. Selected from original drawings, the Prize has established a reputation for its commitment to championing excellence, and to promoting and celebrating the breadth of current drawing practice, this year including hand drawn, digital, moving image, textile and sculptural works. The exhibition provides a platform to showcase the work of drawing practitioners, from student to established, and as a project helps to define a wider understanding of the role and value of drawing in creative practice. The Jerwood Drawing Prize exhibition will be on display at Jerwood Space, London from 13 September – 22 October 2017, followed by a national tour to East Gallery, Norwich University of the Arts (14 November 2017 – 6 January 2018), The Edge, University of Bath (10 February – 31 March 2018), Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury (12 April – 6 May 2018), Vane Gallery, Newcastle (26 May - 28 July 2018), Drawing Projects UK, Wiltshire (17 August - 8 October 2018). The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue

AGN Feedback models: Correlations with star formation and observational implications of time evolution

We examine the correlation between the star formation rate (SFR) and black hole accretion rate (BHAR) across a suite of different AGN feedback models, using the time evolution of a merger simulation. By considering three different stages of evolution, and a distinction between the nuclear and outer regions of star formation, we consider 63 different cases. Despite many of the feedback models fitting the M-\sigma\ relationship well, there are often distinct differences in the SFR-BHAR correlations, with close to linear trends only being present after the merger. Some of the models also show evolution in the SFR-BHAR parameter space that is at times directly across the long-term averaged SFR-BHAR correlation. This suggests that the observational SFR-BHAR correlation found for ensembles of galaxies is an approximate statistical trend, as suggested by Hickox et al. Decomposing the SFR into nuclear and outer components also highlights notable differences between models and there is only modest agreement with observational studies examining this in Seyfert galaxies. For the fraction of the black hole mass growth from the merger event relative to the final black hole mass, we find as much as a factor of three variation among models. This also translates into a similar variation in the post-starburst black hole mass growth. Overall, we find that while qualitative features are often similar amongst models, precise quantitative analysis shows there can be quite distinct differences.Comment: Accepted to MNRAS. Comments welcom

Nature Morte - Installation version as part of the exhibition "Granular: The Material Properties of Noise"

Nature Morte, (Installation Version) 16mm B & W film with optical sound (transferred to digital), monitors, speakers, amplifier, lighting, vases, and flowers, dimensions variable. Nature Morte is a suite of 16mm films composed of different floral arrangements, whereby the subject matter also transforms into a source of sound. Looking back towards Robert Mapplethorpe’s early flower photographs, Hobbs takes on board the ideas that the flowers represented here are simultaneously life and death – and as such have a frequency that hums with tension. With a focused and durational gaze, each “still life” explores the visual beauty of a staged composition, while at the same time searching for moments within the frame that utilize the optical soundtrack on the film’s surface to create sonic equivalents. The minutia of filmic marks is expelled as alien noises, and when combined together, form a chorus to supplement the images. Stacked TV monitors, hanging lights and perched vases with fresh flowers, act as a totemic shrine bringing the films’ subject into our own materiality. Within the films, beauty is preserved in a state of timeless perfection; outside of the films, the physical flowers’ organic matter is slowly disintegrating to a lullaby of optical noise. This work was exhibited in the exhibition "Granular: The Material Properties of Noise", which explored granular noise as a condition of material transfer. The exhibition was accompanied by a published catalogue

Development and Application of Porphyrin-Maquette Complexes: Towards Artificial Photosynthesis

This study looks at developing an artificial reaction centre with photogenerated electron transfer. Naturally occurring photosynthetic reaction centres utilise proteins to house photoactive material, which is coupled with redox enzymes for catalytic reactions to produce chemical fuels. Photosynthetic systems provide inspiration for designing new means to produce renewable energy, whereby sunlight can produce fuels in the form of chemical energy. Artificially designed proteins with synthetically produced porphyrins can potentially be employed to mimic the natural photosynthetic reaction centre for light-induced charge separation. This charge separation is fundamental for conversion of light energy to other forms of energy