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Original Missed Encounters postcards. These were done before I...

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:40:13 -0400

Original Missed Encounters postcards. These were done before I started the course in the summer of 2010.

The idea was to leave messages in public places that people would have the chance to respond to in whatever way they saw fit. Rather than using a postcard to bridge distance and time as is the case with most ‘normal’ postcards, I wanted to emphasise the possibilities and constant succession of missed encounters that make up day to day life.

Paper boat performance I did in the autumn of last year...

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:30:02 -0400

Paper boat performance I did in the autumn of last year (2010).

On reflection this is probably my favourite thing from the entire portfolio course. Having said that, I think stumbling upon the idea was more luck that considered development, but now the course is over that doesn’t matter!

The things I want to take from it are the performance element, the repetitive action of making the boats, the chance aspect of submitting a regulated form to unpredictable process, and actually, the lyricism and romanticism that comes through.

I think for the time being I’m going to stick to playing about with paper in its various forms.

after the event

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:20:27 -0400

Well, the course has finished and I’m still doing a bit of work here and there.

My plan was to start a new blog for anything that I might do, but it seems silly to throw all of this away so I’m just going to keep developing what’s here. In lieu of an entirely new blog, I’ve changed the theme so at least it looks a bit fresh and new.

Now that the course is over I can include a few bits of older work that, looking back on them, seem especially relevent to the areas I want to develop now. So hang on in there and some new things might appear after that…

Marcia Hafif, January 01, 1972. How stupidly relevent is this to...

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 14:14:18 -0400

Marcia Hafif, January 01, 1972.

How stupidly relevent is this to the marks I was making in the drawings from the Old House?

Unsurprisingly, I found it in the catalogue for the exhibition ‘Afterimage: Drawing Through Process’ (LA MOCA, 1999). I was always aware that my work was primarily process related but never expected to find something quite so similar! The catalogue as a whole is amazing and has a couple of excellent essays about drawing and temporality.

Hafif simply titles her drawings by the day and time they were done, so the marks become a representation of that time.

I initially panicked when I saw them because of the amazing similarity, but actually I think mine are considerably different. Whereas Hafif’s seem to record her personal relationship with the pencil and paper during the time she was drawing, mine combines that with the dialogue and text from the environment I was working in. And actually, I think it will be the link to dialogue and text that will prove more fruitful for me.

"Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated...."

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 15:23:22 -0400

“Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed: I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was sad. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had a good purpose and that’s why I made works of art.”

- Felix Gonzalez-Torres

"Don’t start from the good old things but the bad new ones."

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:05:40 -0400

“Don’t start from the good old things but the bad new ones.”

- Bertolt Brecht

Gone.

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 14:04:00 -0400

Gone.

Exhibition installation v2.0.

Fri, 24 Jun 2011 13:58:00 -0400

Exhibition installation v2.0.

please disregard

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:35:29 -0400

the following. I wasn’t going to publish it but I need to try and use it for some positive reflection.

I only posted today that I was concerned that the show had too many elements and that perhaps it needed stripping down a bit. After the private view I’m almost convinced that I’m right. I’d like to say it was the fault of the visitors but I’m the person that displayed the work as it is and it’s obviously not done it many favours.

I really struggled watching people do one (or all) of the following things. a) Popping their head around the corner and moving on. b) Scanning what was on the wall and moving on. c) Telling me how terribly conceptual it is.

I honestly don’t see it as being particularly conceptual. Conceptual Art in the strictest sense is art in which the idea is more important than the outcome. Outside of this all art is conceptual to some degree in the sense there is always a motivation behind it.

I wouldn’t call what I’ve done in the college “Conceptual Art” because what is hung on the wall is far more important to me than the idea behind it. The concept was simply a series of representations of a space and period of time.

I don’t see the overarching idea as even being particularly important in looking at the work. I suppose my only question would be: do you find something in the marks that is of interest to you? Do you find them beautiful?

People seemed to prefer to cast around for the “grand plan” so that they could feel the piece was seen and understood and therefore able to be moved on from.

I should emphasise that I feel I’m to blame for this. All of the extra elements play up the idea of concept and I now see it was a mistake. If I could completely redo the whole thing it would just be the drawings and the graphs. And perhaps the sound.

I don’t know - at what point does conceptual become Conceptual?

all watched over by machines of loving grace

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:19:39 -0400

is a fascinating series of documentaries by Adam Curtis that’s on iPlayer.

For my part, I’m less than enamoured of the machines after some fairly spectacular technological failures at the private view this evening. Projector - dead.

After some rescue attempts with a replacement I’m not sure what I’m going to do. If I was of the right temperament I’d probably just cry. That and a few other things made this evening pretty hard.

Anyway, I don’t want to give up so I’m trying to reconfigure the display in a way that will work. I don’t want to rely on something as complex as a slide projector, because should anymore problems arise I’d like to be able to sort them out easily.

So I’ve had to do some thinking. I’ve got a tracing paper wall which I’d rather not tear down. I had the projector for the beam of light and the sound. So how can I get those two things but in a different way?

My aim is to try and backlight the tracing paper so you get more of the shadows of people inside cast onto it. I was never very happy that this didn’t work with the projector beause it’s beam is so focused so I need to try and see this as a positive. A series of lamps or something should work. So I’m frantically investigating.

And sound. Well I’ve already got mechanical clocks and kitchen timers so one of those should suffice. Watch this space.

Probably would have helped if I had uploaded this. It did make...

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:51:00 -0400

Probably would have helped if I had uploaded this.

It did make it into the Old House and I’m very happy with how it looks…

summative evaluation encore

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:31:00 -0400

I already handed the evaluation in, but I have a couple of niggling criticisms that keep bothering me.

Well, just one really. And it’s not really a criticism as much as a statement on where I am at the moment.

As I was putting the work up, I was getting more confident in the drawings and almost felt the need to strip a lot of the other stuff away. Like it was only there because I didn’t feel they and the graphs could stand up on their own. I don’t think this is true because the whole installation works really well and fulfils my brief but I suppose it indicated where I’d like to go next.

I think I need the time to refine what I’m doing and strip away some elements. In essence I’d like to do a Fine Art degree.

Does anyone know of a mysterious benefactor willing to fund me through one?

summative evaluation

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:27:00 -0400

I would like to start by stating that I am extremely proud of how this project has progressed. I feel as though I worked with all of the new skills and confidence gained as part of the first two sections of the course and developed them further and have ended up with a selection of work and final presentation that I can be satisfied with. I think I have met all of the aims of my initial proposal and many more besides. Whilst there have been small changes, they have happened naturally. Keeping the blog and working in my sketchbooks and effectively using tutorial time has allowed me to maintain control of the process. I have managed these changes well and doing so has hugely increased my confidence in my way of working.

I believe perhaps the most important decision of the entire project was the decision to take on the external brief. This didn’t happen until a couple of weeks into the project and it has confirmed to me that an external stimulus and subject matter is absolutely key to my way of working. As I stated in my initial proposal, whilst I am confident that I have developed a strong conceptual and practical set of interests and skills, they are best used in response to something. This gives my work focus and allows my design process a certain logic and structure which means I can remain in control of it even in the face of creative problems and blocks. It also provides a deadline which I find incredibly useful. Whilst I am happy with the rate at which I worked throughout the project, I found towards the end that the pressure and increased work rate that a deadline brings is incredibly stimulating in terms of forming ideas. Whilst this can be frustrating in terms of perhaps not being able to use them in the current project, it has given me a huge amount of momentum and faith in the knowledge that I will continue to practice in some form once the course has finished.

This leads me on to another realisation which is just as important as the first. In this project in particular I have discovered processes which I can fall back on should a project’s development run in to difficulties. These are specifically activities such as mark making and walking. Contrary to my opinion at the beginning of the course, these activities are generative in terms of ideas and problem solving. This is evidenced in the larger sketchbook I started working in when the project seemed to hit a dead end about halfway through. And in fact, it is the ideas and work that I developed during this seemingly difficult period have proved the most interesting and has formed the majority of the work I have presented in the final show. I now see that practice feeds into concept and ideas just as much as, if not more so, than the other way around.

On the surface, I believe it seems that my final realisation has changed hugely from my initial proposal. Keeping a blog has proved vital in keeping track of these changes and allowing me to reflect and document my thought process adequately. However, looking back now I see that any changes that have occurred have been in terms of my understanding of certain terms I used in the initial proposal. For example, in the proposal I was planning to include a live element in my work, which I took to mean a performance in which I would take part. To look at my work now, there is no discernible ‘live’ part, but in fact the change that is inherent as part of a live performance is evidenced throughout; for example with the salt crystals growing over time. I have also expanded my understanding of what ‘documentation’ might be. I had assumed it would take the form of lens-based recording but I am now more interested in how an object or drawing itself can be a record of an action, and in fact I have deliberately avoided using photographic representation in order to allow these different methods of recording action and place to come to the fore and not be subsumed underneath a direct photographic representation.

The only thing I don’t think proved as helpful as I might have imagined was specifying that I would work in ‘fibre-based’ media. Whilst in actual fact I have stuck to this, I don’t think that medium is particularly important to me as an artist, rather I find the media appropriate to the project and utilise and exploit them. I believe I would have been attracted to the rope braids on the chairs regardless of whether they were included in my chosen working materials, and in actual fact, I think trying to stick to these restrictions too rigidly was the cause of my loss of motivation halfway through the project. Allowing this selection and specification of suitable materials to happen more naturally and having the confidence that it will happen, rather than attempting to do so from the outset, would be the one change I would make to the project in the future.

Found these samples lurking as I was uploading the last...

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:24:00 -0400

Found these samples lurking as I was uploading the last photos.

I put the same amount of salt water in each one and just let it evaporate. The variation is amazing. And it looks like you’re looking down on land formations and shore lines from the air. This topological aspect is something I could never have predicted.

Final drawings. I really like them. But I feel a little worried...

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:18:00 -0400

Final drawings. I really like them. But I feel a little worried about putting something on the wall that I’ve had so much involvement in.

All ready to go. Scary.

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:10:00 -0400

All ready to go. Scary.

Spur of the moment addition. Had a few bags of salt so scattered...

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 09:08:00 -0400

Spur of the moment addition. Had a few bags of salt so scattered a bit around the floor. Didn’t think about it too much as I was doing it and just walked away and let the idea settle.

Came back convinced it was awful and was going to sweep it up, but seeing it again with a bit of distance it has grown on me. I think the slight gravel-y feeling you get underfoot makes you aware of your presence, and also it seems really mysterious. Oddly, it also seems to make the little plinth look really unbalanced. It echoes the cube I carved out of the salt crystal. It’s staying!

Some photos of the final installation taking shape. I’m so...

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 08:57:00 -0400

Some photos of the final installation taking shape.

I’m so happy with how this is going. I’ve got some nagging criticisms in my mind, but I’ll save them for a final post. For now, this is going well.

I can’t believe how many of my original hopes for what I’d be able to do for this have come true. The tracing paper wall works really nicely (eventually). And I think when you’re in there you are very much aware of moving around because the space is actually quite tight. The phones are dangling now because I think I was trying to exert too much control over them by hanging them on the wall, and as Darren wisely pointed out - very few people might make the leap to actually picking them up.

Hopefully the recorder will indicate to viewers that they are being subjected to the same process that gave way to the work they’re looking at.

The graphs being put up on the wall. I love how when you remove...

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 08:50:00 -0400

The graphs being put up on the wall.

I love how when you remove the reference points they become so open for any kind of interpretation. People have seen landscapes, (albeit it erratic) heart rate monitors, and understandably alongside the sound - sound waves.

I think personally I like to look at them as readymade represenations of psychological excitation, but that’s just the bent my research has taken.

Also - as you can see I’ve made use of the incomplete grids I mentioned in relation to the Basra memorial. I think it stops them appearing as a complete, closed system. You get the feeling that there’s always going to be more to come.

Installing the drawings. I’ve come to think about them...

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 08:45:00 -0400

Installing the drawings.

I’ve come to think about them very psychologically. I want the layers to suggest the filtering of experience throughout the day. You start of with the confusing barage of voices and slowly over the course of time it gets reduced to one or two important elements. I often find myself lying in bed at night with a couple of fragments of dialogue from the day buzzing around in my head.

It also reminds me of mixing up the salt water (which I’ve been doing a lot of). You keep stirring and stirring and gradually the excess settles to the bottom from the swirling mess. The purpose of time (death drive?) is to reduce that excess to a manageable proportion.