A machine for living #1 & #2

Wintec School of Media Arts lecturers and their counterparts, artists from Xi’an Art Museum in Xi’an, mainland China, have built close artistic relationships. This exhibition is a result of their long-distance communications. Here their works converse with the audience and with each other. Throughout the course of the exhibition, it is hoped that they will build a new international community within their show and with the audience. Mark Purdom's work 'A Machine for Living #1 & #2' is part of a series looking at the symbiotic ecological relationships that exist in nature, which are also mimicked by modern farming strategies

Dying Needles exhibited in 'Shift' at the Wallace Gallery

Artists in the Waikato and the Chinese city Chengdu create a major new exhibition of modern art. Hosted by the Wallace Gallery in Morrinsville and titled Shift, the exhibition will feature the work of 11 artists affiliated with Wintec's School of Media Arts and seven from the Blue Roof Art Museum in Chengdu. Curated by Wallace Gallery's Eliza Webster and Ding Fenqi from the Blue Roof Museum. The artists taking part include Tim Croucher, Gareth Williams, Mark Purdom, Xavier Meade, Geoffrey Clarke, Paul Nelson, Stef Young, Tony Nicholls, Dan Inglis, Tracey Stockley-Smith, Jeremy Mayall and Kent Macpherson. The Chinese artists include Tong Wenmin, Zhou Bin, Wang Yangxin, He Liping, Pu Ynun, Qiu Wenqing and Zhang Jin. Shift deals with themes of place and space and the way these concepts can be altered with a simple change in direction, position or tendency. The artists were each in their own way exploring these ideas with works that engaged the senses by utilising sight, sound and movement. Mark Purdom's work Dying Needles is part of a documentary study of clear felling forestry strategies in the upper North Island, New Zealand

Analysis of a data matrix and a graph: Metagenomic data and the phylogenetic tree

In biological experiments researchers often have information in the form of a graph that supplements observed numerical data. Incorporating the knowledge contained in these graphs into an analysis of the numerical data is an important and nontrivial task. We look at the example of metagenomic data---data from a genomic survey of the abundance of different species of bacteria in a sample. Here, the graph of interest is a phylogenetic tree depicting the interspecies relationships among the bacteria species. We illustrate that analysis of the data in a nonstandard inner-product space effectively uses this additional graphical information and produces more meaningful results.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/10-AOAS402 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Convective scale weather analysis and forecasting

How satellite data can be used to improve insight into the mesoscale behavior of the atmosphere is demonstrated with emphasis on the GOES-VAS sounding and image data. This geostationary satellite has the unique ability to observe frequently the atmosphere (sounders) and its cloud cover (visible and infrared) from the synoptic scale down to the cloud scale. These uniformly calibrated data sets can be combined with conventional data to reveal many of the features important in mesoscale weather development and evolution

Presentation on photobook making at the Auckland Festival of Photography 2019 - Photobook Friday: part of the Talking Culture by Leica series.

'The public is invited to share some wonderful international and New Zealand photography stories, meet the artists, explore themes, and discuss the designs of the books themselves. This is a great opportunity for the public to meet informally with key international practitioners, NZ photobook artists, and publishers.' Mark Purdom's presentation discussed photobook making using examples from his previous books Mimetic and From Certainty to Doubt

International photography awards 2017: Awarded an honorable mention in the special - Night photography category: Gas station #3 [Photography]

This year, The International Photography Awards received 14266 of submissions from over 165 countries, and is pleased to declare that Mark Purdom was awarded Honorable Mention in Special - Night Photography for the winning entry Gas Station #3 23/3/17. Artist Statement: ‘If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a space which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place.’ The French anthropologist Marc Augé, in his influential book Non-Places: An Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity, cited examples of transient “non-place” as including airport lounges, supermarkets, shopping malls, and service stations etc. In the work Gas Station #3, 23/3/17. I have attempted to abstract the building from its surroundings, to heighten the disconnect from place to non-place. Often in my work, there is a tension between what the photographs describe and what they reveal. I am exploiting the potential of photography’s indexicality - when it is at its most factual, is often when it is most obscure. Marc Augé, Non-Places: An Introduction to Anthropology of Supermodernity, 1995, Verso

I Book Show +

Mark Purdom's Photobook - From Certainty to Doubt, was exhibited at the I Book Show +, Brighton Studio, Brighton, UK

Bird hunting hide, Casentino Valley, Italy.

Necessity to remain hidden from “others” and the world is at the core of Purdom’s photographic project From certainty to doubt, which looks at the multifaceted ways in which concealment, camouflage, mimicry and ambiguity play as much a part in the lives of humans as they do the animal kingdom. The hide, one of 11,000 situated over Northern Italy, is designed for the concealment of hunters from migrating birds passing overhead. The birds are lured to their death by the red autumn berries, water and a more sinister method: the song of a live decoy bird, which is placed in the cage shown in the photograph. The decoy birds, held captive in darkened cellars over summer, are brought outside for the hunting season. For the bird, sudden exposure to light signals spring and a desire to sing; the trap is set for the unsuspecting migrating birds

National Contemporary Art Award 2015: Maimai, Lake Ngaroto, New Zealand [Photograph]

Maimai, Lake Ngaroto, New Zealand. “What is not seen is for all practical purposes non-existent”. Solomon J Solomon The need to conceal is at the core of Purdom’s photographic project From certainty to doubt, which looks at the multifaceted ways in which camouflage, mimicry and ambiguity play as much a part in the lives of humans as they do the animal kingdom. Maimai, Lake Ngaroto, New Zealand, is an example of an on-going project into covert strategies used by hunters. The Maimai or camouflaged hunting blind is the hunter’s method of concealment during the duck-shooting season between May and August each year. Currently 30,000 New Zealanders hold game bird hunting licences. “When duck hunting there are two crucial things – stay out of sight and encourage the ducks to think that your place is safe”. Game and Fishing, New Zealand, 2015

International photography awards 2016: Hydroseeded woods [Photography]

This year, The International Photography Awards received 17032 of submissions from over 162 countries, and is pleased to declare that Mark Purdom was awarded Honorable Mention in Fine Art - Landscape for the winning entry Hydroseeded Woods, Hamilton, New Zealand. The International Photography Awards conducts an annual competition for professional, non-professional, and student photographers on a global scale, creating one of the most ambitious and comprehensive competitions in the photography world today. Each year, the International Photography Awards (IPA) invites passionate photographers, to compete for the title of Photographer of the Year, Discovery of the Year and Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year. A board of esteemed professionals in the field juries the competition: curators, photo editors, gallery owners, art directors, and other luminaries from the international photography community. The awards includes a Lucie Statue and cash prizes totaling over $20,000, exhibition and publication opportunities. www.photoawards.com. Artist Statement: The photographs in the series From Certainty to Doubt explore notions of mankind’s relationship with nature. The work examines some of nature’s fundamental survival strategies – mimicry, camouflage, and deception and how humans have adapted these strategies in their lives. The series Hydroseeded Woods is a vivid example of humans mimicking the natural process of plant growth and regeneration by adopting a technique known as Hydroseeding. This method adds a concoction of seeds that may or may not grow naturally in the location to slurry, which includes fertiliser, tackifyng agents, fibre mulch and dyes. The resulting seed mat usurps the natural growing process, increasing germination and plant development by 300%