A Bigger Splash, Mira Calix and Fallout 4

I’ve been very relaxed this week, slowly assimilating back into simply being; moving from my bed to the garden and back again. I think I need to carve out some sort of structure for the summer, if not I’ll begin to go crazy with the amount of free time I have. For now, though, it’s kind of nice…

Not a lot of actual work has occurred, with the odd idea being considered here and there but nothing substantial enough to be noteworthy in any way. I began to create an abstract piece of music inspired by the various Vaporwave sub-genres, but at the end of the first day the 41 second clip that I had created sounded very weird, with no real relevance or structure. I’m beginning to realise that the freedom that’s afforded by just making music by itself makes the whole process a lot more difficult, rather than simply putting together a soundscape for a video clip. I may continue on with this work, but will more than likely re-think the whole thing. The link to the sound piece is here: https://soundcloud.com/bob-bicknell-knight/test

It would be interesting to take well known music videos, take away the sound, and create my own soundscape for each piece; using vaporwave as the dominant genre due to its consumer capitalist roots. This could be a thing… A combination of my abandoned YouTube copyright piece with the creation of a Vaporwave EP. Maybe in the next week I’ll look into this and see if it can be done; creating vaporwave music to the most popular YouTube music videos.

That’s about it for actual art work occurring, as I say I’ve been mostly relaxing and taking things ‘easy’. I’ve been going through my blog and my notes a little bit, collecting all the ideas that I’ve had over the past few months and deciding which ones I want to pursue and which ones will be forgotten. The idea of creating a video game consisting of an interactive song that you can manipulate ‘in game’ is still incredibly intriguing to me, as well as the ‘no screen time’ contract. Both of these things require time and a little bit of thought. I know how to program the sounds within the game, I just need to choose a song still, and then all I have to do is to actually do it. All I need for the latter idea is to draw up a contract, making it look professional and legitimate as possible, and then allocate a certain number of days in which to actually do it (the ‘no screen’ time). Hopefully I’ll think more about this in the coming week.

Displaying a kindle with Infinite Jest loaded up on it is still interesting to me, one of those pieces that screams ‘look at me, look at how much I know etc’, which I’m never really a fan of, but maybe I can do this in a knowing way? Another idea, creating a website with no external links, making it unable to be found via search engines, is an interesting one but maybe impossible to achieve.

I think these 5 pieces will be worked on over the coming weeks when I can be bothered to actually do anything with them. I also need to start thinking about the show that I’m going to be in/help with putting on over the summer whilst being here in Suffolk. All the spaces are so small, so it may simply be a two-person show. I’m also thinking about what other things I can go about doing because of the low cost nature of all the venues that I’ve been finding, as well as asking myself why I want to put these things on; to gain awareness for my work? As a motivator to make work over the summer? A way of documenting new work in a white walled clean space? To put another exhibition on my CV? Who knows? I still need to set various dates for these things too, working around holidays and other peoples’ schedules.

I went to one vaguely art based thing this week at Snape Maltings called The Discovery Of Bomarzo. It was a collaborative performative work by an ‘early music’ collective (basically singing) and Mira Calix (an interesting sound artist). About two minutes of the hour long performance was actually ‘collaborative’ whilst the other 58 minutes was vaguely interesting abstract sounds interspersed with painful singing. They seemed to have missed the point about it being a ‘collaborative’ work, which was a real shame actually, as those two minutes were kind of interesting and worthwhile.

Other than this I’ve been watching a range of films whilst continuing onwards with Lost as well as a new tv show (for me) called Curb Your Enthusiasm. It’s actually very funny and very enjoyable, focusing in on the day to day life of Larry David, the co-creator of the hit show Seinfeld. I’d definitely recommend it if you’re into a very ‘real’ type of comedy, whatever that means.

In terms of films, it’s been a very slow week, with the majority of my time being given over to Larry David (I’m already on season 6). I’ve wanted to see Richard Linklater’s most recent film about college life and a ‘spiritual successor’ to Dazed and Confused for a while, so I was very excited to finally watch Everybody Wants Some!! To my dismay however, rather than being a masterpiece it was like walking into a pit of misogyny. I’m very aware that the point was to simulate his own life experiences as well as how the early 80’s was… But, really? ‘In this day and age’ is it okay to make this kind of movie; where women are turned into inanimate objects to be pursued by the white male protagonists and are given the briefest of lines in order to pretend that they’re being somewhat respected? I really wanted to like it, and did enjoy some of the cleverer jokes, but that involved putting up with all the other shit that was occurring on the screen. In reality it was simply dull and sexist, just another film about being a white American in college, something nobody really wants anymore. I really expected more from Linklater.

Demolition was kind of interesting, a lot better than I thought it was going to be, with the ‘wanky’ trailer giving me a range of negative impressions. The main characters’ wife dies in the beginning, and whilst at the hospital Jake Gyllenhaal attempts to get some food from a vending machine. The sweet packet gets stuck, so he proceeds to pour the grief that he’s feeling into various letters that he sends to the vending machine company under the guise of complaining about losing a few cents to buy M&Ms. It’s heart-warming and quite lovely, if a little ‘wanky’ at times, but who doesn’t like a little bit of ‘wankieness’ sometimes?

I also watched Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, a new film featuring Tina Fey, whom I loved in 30 Rock but since then haven’t really liked anything else that she’s been in. This was no real exception, with the film being too serious for a comedy, but too light for a drama. Obviously ‘comedy-drama’ is a thing, but I don’t think it suits Tina Fey very well. Maybe I just can’t get over her 30 Rock performance…

I mistakenly watched Postman Pat: The Movie, more for my younger self than anything else. It wasn’t that interesting, and as an adult I was picking apart the film as it was going on in front of me. Compared to the various cartoons that I watch on a daily basis, this was not at all interesting and only for the children in the audience, with nothing being given to the parents to enjoy.

A Bigger Splash however, was quite incredible. Some very interesting filming was occurring alongside a story that slowly unravels, with the tension slowly building as the movie continues on. I would highly recommend it, Ralph Fiennes’ acting alone makes the film worth watching; managing to create a completely new and convincing personality for himself. Highly recommended.

The last film of the week was Equals, a sci-fi film with a plot we all know; ‘in a future where emotions are suppressed by drugs two people rise up to fight against the system’, etc. Although the film basically took the concept of Equilibrium and mixed in the clean aesthetics of THX 1138, I kind of liked it. It was incredibly subtle, as you’d hope from a mainly emotionless cast of characters, with an ambiguous ending. One of the many glaring faults however was the casting of Kristen Stewart. Although I enjoy her acting in other films, she just didn’t suite the ‘emotionless’ role that this film was asking for. It is plainly obvious that she has emotions and would have been reported to the ‘higher ups’ ten minutes into the film. I’m aware she’s supposed to be hiding these emotions whilst slightly showing them on the occasion, but the majority of the time it was just too obvious. For the concept of this to work it needs to be perfect. Equilibrium combatted this by moving away from the citizens of the world, away from the people who were emotionless, a cowardly decision but a decision nonetheless, which is a lot better than attempting to act your way through the impossible decision that was made by Drake Doremus.

Other than the films, I’ve been playing a lot of Fallout 4 this week, slowly being engulfed by the virtual universe that it offers up on a plate. A lot of the missions aren’t that great, but the shooting mechanics are incredibly satisfying which facilitates the exploration of an incredibly intricate world that’s been created for the player to explore. I’m thoroughly enjoying my time with the game and will probably continue to do so for a little while at least.

Oh and this week’s artists on isthisit? are Abbie Cairns and Elliot Hewgill. Two different video works, one about social media being a game and the other dissecting an incredibly pixelated image of two figures splashing in the sea. Both looking at two very different aspects of life which work kind of well. You can browse it here: http://isthis.wix.com/isthisit

I think that’s my incredibly calm and relaxed week. Hopefully next week some actual work will occur, or not, who knows? I think that’s the point of being on holiday…

Enjoi.

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K-PAX, Tate Modern and Cxx

So, I’m officially ‘home’ from London after a vaguely busy week, full of feedback and exhibition prep; culminating in a fairly disappointing day at the new Tate Modern, which was to be expected.

The exhibition went well, with a moderate amount of people coming along to see all the work and enjoy the free alcohol. In the end I showed three works, the printed messages, the caps and the water video. On the day I decided to show the water video on top of a wooden palette painted blue, with a few towels draped over the wood. Unfortunately, the printed towel didn’t arrive in time so I had to use store bought blue towels instead. Fortunately, I can use the towel as a work of its own instead of simply using the towel as a towel. All the pictures can be seen on my main website here: http://www.bobbicknell-knight.com/

One of the hats was bought, which is one more than I expected to be bought. Unfortunately, nobody (that I know of) took photos of themselves with the hats, or maybe I’m just not looking hard enough.

I also created a new piece of work during the private view. This entailed leaving my webcam on for the duration of the evening, filming everyone who looked at my work as well as various people ‘milling around’ the space. This, I think, will become a series of works where I document people with my webcam for different amounts of time. It’s also sparked ideas of live web feeds, with a laptop showing one work in one part of a space with the webcam on and the live feed being broadcast to another part of the space; enabling that ‘revelatory moment’ to occur. A piece that would work well with this would be Rules of Engagement but it may just be easier to create a new work to do this with, with the focus looking at being watched among other things. If you want to watch the video here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BL8KZKTJJs

The set up for the whole show went relatively smoothly, with the space being used surprisingly well, although I am biased towards my own exhibition and probably couldn’t see what the visitors could in terms of faults. It was a bit of a shame that we didn’t have time for a crit to take place before the private view started, but nevertheless it was still a success in my mind and well worth the time and effort that was put into it.

Over the summer I’m planning to put on at least one exhibition whilst I’m in Suffolk. I’m currently looking for spaces to rent and people to be in it with me, although all of the venues seem to be incredibly small and very weird; offering ‘wall space’ or something similar. I kind of like the idea of renting out these spaces that are usually full of watercolour paintings of landscapes and putting a few televisions and an interesting sculpture in instead. As the spaces all seem to be incredibly cheap there’s also the possibility of simply putting on a solo show or something, or having something incredibly simple within the space; just something fun for the summer. I need to look into venues a little more and talk to people who’d want to have work in this show.

I think I’m also going to try and organise a show for when we all come back to London in September, showcasing some of the pieces that will be made over the summer in an interesting venue. This will be thought about and built upon in the next few months. Time is very much not of the essence.

The essay feedback was interesting, pretty much what I already knew about my own, too many artists and not enough actual critique. I knew that this was the case, but by the time I’d finished the essay I just couldn’t be bothered to go back to it, at the time I was way too busy with other – in my opinion – more important things to worry about.

The Chelsea private view was relatively interesting; it was fun to invigilate Reka’s work, talking with the public about the device itself as well as the work in question. The whole show was kind of disappointing though, but that may well be because of two things; because it was the private view, with rooms full of crowded people making it harder to actually ‘see’ the work. Or maybe it’s because I’m a year older than I was before I came to the last end of year BA show and can identify when the work isn’t actually very good. I don’t think I loved any of the work, nor wished to have made any of it myself to be presented as my own. I should have probably returned on Saturday, but simply didn’t have the time or energy to make myself travel to Chelsea one last time. Pictured is John's work at the show:

I also went to the Goldsmiths show, the first time I’ve actually been to the end of year experience, due to the fact that it’s only open to the public for a total of four days! How can you work so hard for three years and not get at least a week to show off your work to the public? Yet again I found myself not loving anything. There were a lot of times that I admired the skill involved in making the work, or the subtleties of various aspects, but in reality I wasn’t entirely drawn into anything. It was nice to go there though, exploring what could have been…

On top of that I went to another private view for an end of foundation show in Ipswich at Suffolk New College. It was a very weird experience, with a lot of bad work, which is understandable. There were two works that I really enjoyed though, one of them was by a friend of mine called Clem Routledge. It was the only work that actually used the space rather than simply harnessing a ‘white wall’. He did this by hanging various drapes from a pre-built structure, creating a corridor of sorts which culminated in a television that’s linked to a camera recording people walking into the space. One then realises that they’re being filmed. A beautiful use of the ‘revelatory moment’ that I’m such a fan of. Another work that I enjoyed, yet again one of my friends’ works (Reuben Martindale), was made up of various car parts. These parts had been screen printed onto, proudly showing the images of Kim Kardashian and Leonardo DiCaprio getting into their very expensive cars. The one critique for this would be the display, with an overabundance of stuff complicating everything, but in reality at this point in time at the end of foundation, one wants to throw everything they have at the exhibition, so I understand why it was how it was.

Unfortunately, I never managed to actually cross off every gallery that I wanted to see from my list, due to general laziness I think. This is a shame, but sometimes when it’s raining outside you just don’t feel like getting soaked and wandering around the streets of Shoreditch.

I pretty much wasted a day going from the Newport Street gallery, to the Serpentines and then to the Whitechapel. Although I love Jeff Koons and his work, enjoying his capitalist origins among other things, I had already seen all of the work last year in Paris at the Pompidou Centre. It was a much more expansive and impressive show there. Although the Newport Street space is lovely I just didn’t learn anything from the experience.

The serpentines had the dullest work that I’ve probably seen in them for a while. Either full of huge paintings of people or small paintings of landscapes. What has happened? Did I miss something?

The Whitechapel was also suffering from the same thing; showing paintings of squares and such things; like we haven’t seen that before... The one saving grace was Keith Sonnier and his neon works, but even these were slightly dull and uninteresting to me after being barraged by painting after painting all day.

Unfortunately, the last space that I went to this week was the Tate to visit it’s new building. After looking at the map a while ago when I was last there I had gotten very excited about 10 new floors full of art. Unfortunately, Tate had decided to fuck everyone once again by only having actual art on three of these floors, with the other seven (!) being devoted to restaurants, event spaces, a member’s lounge and general office space. Seriously, what the fuck is that about?

The work was, as usual, fine, just their collection being recycled over and over again to come under a new, even more expansive exhibition title; Media Networks, Material Worlds, etc. It was fun to go into the tanks again, as usually they’re closed, but apart from that the visit was incredibly painful. Oh and the view from the top was good, nothing more nothing less.

The one, slightly romanticised, aspect of the whole experience was that on my first day in London back in September of last year the Tate was the first place that I visited. So that was quite a lovely thing to do I think, a good way to ‘bookend’ my first year of uni.

I’ve been watching a few films and tv shows this week, some bad and some good. K-PAX was interesting, a man whose apparently from a different planet slowly being taken apart by a therapist at a mental institution. It was sad, as you would guess, but also celebratory at the end, when he finally returns ‘home’. Kevin Spacey is one of the best.

Capricorn One was interesting, faking a trip to Mars in order to keep the public and the president happy. It was one of those vaguely original ideas that’s been used time and time again in the 40ish years since its original release. It was good; solid sci-fi.

Blindness was a weird one, where parts of the population become instantly blind, slowly turning everyone blind over time. It was an interesting conceit, but it ultimately came down to people fighting for survival in a prison, which I did not enjoy. Julian Moore plays the only person unaffected by the virus, but seems to never actually use that power until the final few acts, whilst all this horrible shit has been going on since the end of hour 1. It just left me annoyed and frustrated by the director and the writers, putting people through pain for no good reason.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was okay, just some fun really and nothing more; similar to how I feel about some of the Marvel franchises.

The final film, The 100 Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, was quite incredible. Basically, a more interesting version of Forest Gump. This is all you need to know and I highly recommend it.

In terms of tv, I began watching Lost, but it hasn’t fully drawn me in yet which I’m surprised by. I know it ends terribly and nothing is answered, but it felt like something that I should have watched by now, so I’m watching it.

I also watched season 4 of Orange Is the New Black, which was actually very unpleasant, and not in a good way. The prison is starting to resemble a labour camp and I just don’t feel comfortable watching that. It holds none of the humour from the first few seasons, and has just turned to shit now.

I think that may be the end of my relatively busy week. Now that I’m back in Suffolk I intend to relax, indulge in video games and books whilst considering my practice. I can now go back through my blog, focusing in on the times that I’ve talked about new work that I’ve never gotten around to actually creating, picking and choosing what I want to spend my time on.

This week the artists on isthisit? include Müge Yıldız alongside Tim and Tom. I feel that the two video pieces work well alongside each other; both observing life in various ways, both featuring an element of chance and danger; considering the future of things alongside the past in some way. The difference being one is very serious and the other being – outwardly - shown as a joke.

http://isthis.wix.com/isthisit

Hopefully I can keep busy with a few things happening around me as time goes on. I guess I’ll just have to wait to find out. It’s been an amazing year in London, completely changing my practice whilst strengthening it in ways that I wasn’t sure were possible. Video work has become a prominent aspect of my practice, whereas last year I hated video work and everything about it. I wouldn’t have gotten to where I am if it weren’t for being in London. I look forward to another year when I return.

Enjoi.

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Eye in the Sky, Abuse Standards Violations and Trevor Paglen

So, a week to go until I leave London. I’m slowly getting things together, preparing for the show next week whilst ticking various galleries off my list, ‘soaking up’ everything this place has to offer before I go. It’s been a relatively relaxed week, enjoying the sun whilst creating some new pieces.

The work that I’m going to show at the exhibition has slowly transformed over the week to something else. After visiting the venue on Wednesday and actually seeing the space for the first time without any work in it I realised that there was a lot more space than I had originally thought; with some walls usually being solely dedicated to the bar amongst other things. After exploring the various spaces, I decided to show three pieces. The caps are the first, which will be shown on a wall in two rows of six. The water video piece is another, which will be displayed on the floor under the stairs (I think) on a computer screen that’s sitting on a printed towel alongside some swimming goggles. The towel was printed this week with an image of virtual water being embedded upon it; combining the virtual with the real.

The last piece I’m going to show is a variation of the All My Messages project that I finished last week. In this new addition to the work I have printed all the messages onto a roller banner, something that’s usually used to promote a brand at conferences or trade fairs. Throughout the text, words that supposedly get you onto the NSA ‘watch list’ are highlighted in various colours. The display turns my messages into a commodity, something to be bought and traded, whilst the emphasized text continues to consider surveillance on the internet. I’m really happy with how the prints turned out, with the majority of the text being too small to actually read, yet again coming back to how the government has the ability to look at every single communication that I’ve sent to my friends, but doesn’t necessarily care about it, even though there is the odd mention of cannabis or bombs.

These works will be spread around the space as, even though they all share a vaguely same theme, they’re separate pieces of work. I’ve connected them in my artist statement, but very vaguely. This is my statement for the show:

Bob Bicknell-Knight / www.bobbicknell-knight.com / @bob.bk1

All My Messages, Everything Bad is Good for You, 12 Jobless Jurors

Throughout the space three separate works are featured with one underlying motive; to observe and critique the different uses of the internet. From all my Facebook messages printed onto a roller banner, with the words that are flagged by the NSA highlighted, to a video piece considering escapism within the online gaming community. You’re also invited to participate in one of the works by donning a twitter cap and taking a selfie with the hashtag #controversialcaps, becoming a member of the anonymous jury of the 21^stcentury that continuously judges in a world dominated by PC culture, where arguments are limited to 140 characters.

I really do hope that at least one or two people take photographs with the caps and share them on the various social medias, as then I would actually be able to make a new work from it. I’m also going to sell the hats at the event, so hopefully that will occur too!

I’m also quite happy that this time around as all of my work is incredibly easy to carry, something that’s been in the back of my mind since the last show.

Another vague piece was also created this week in response to a film that I watched called Unfriended. The whole film takes place on a MacBook screen, and is also filmed in one take, both incredibly innovative ideas. Knowing this I decided to record myself watching the whole film on my laptop, which is the work. I’m not sure whether this should just be an idea or whether I should present it as an actual thing on my website. I should have probably continuously recorded my laptop screen too, with the film playing and me scrolling through Facebook, etc simultaneously. Maybe I’ll do it again over the summer, in a better setting where I actually move around a little more… The current film can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bw7hXy7UoE

I helped John a little more with the setup of his installation, which is looking quite impressive now actually. I’m thoroughly looking forward to the private view on Friday, seeing all the (hopefully) interesting work will be very exciting. Speaking of the private view, this week I agreed to help invigilate one of the works during the show as it involves a VR (virtual reality) device and the artist in question (Reka Ritt Laklia) needed people to subtly show people how to work it on the night. The actual piece is really interesting, keeping you in the same location that you’re actually in in real life with very subtle changes. Similar to Jon Rafman’s piece Junior Suite that he showed in Art Basel Miami, distorting the space that you’re already in rather than transporting you to somewhere entirely different. Obviously this begins to feel more like AR (Augmented Reality) but both are interesting things to explore.

Apart from making art I’ve been slightly drifting this week, going into uni occasionally for group meetings or simply to get out of my room and interact with real people. I had my feedback tutorial with Andrew which went vaguely okay. It’s always very loose and incredibly subtle, filled with lots of big words and metaphors which make it quite hard to actually understand what’s being said. It’s always helpful and thought provoking, but in a way that I don’t fully understand…

Oh and I did go to Brighton this week for a day, which was actually really nice. To simply escape London for a little bit is helpful at times, there’s just so much stuff happening on a regular basis it makes it so that when it comes to the end of term I’m overwhelmingly tired from all the work and the stress. Next year I’d like to leave London at least once a term during term time, although next year I won’t be in halls in an empty room by myself, so it’ll probably be a lot better at that point.

At some point in the week a few of us had a meeting with Andrew about the aid that we don’t get because of the nature of our digital work. We spent a few hours filling out a form, detailing what programs we all used as well as what we’d want from a ‘digital technician’ if that were ever to occur. Obviously this is probably all a pipe dream, but it was still nice to talk about the work with other ‘technology minded’ individuals.

I was lucky enough to make it to the Eva and Franco Mattes private view on Thursday for their exhibition Abuse Standards Violations. It’s a simply amazing show, with the front room being dedicated to their new series of video works considering internet moderators and the work that they do online to protect us from harmful content, displayed on and within IKEA desks. The back area focused on video works of paid people via the internet performing certain actions to the camera, displayed on tv screens that force you to become part of the performance yourself; contorting your body into various positions. It may be my favourite show of my first year, with the bonus being that I actually talked to both the artists, with one of them taking a photograph of my t-shirt that I actually made myself! It was definitely the high point of my week, maybe even my month.

I also managed to go to a bunch of galleries, cutting my list of things to see before I leave in half. As usual there was lots of good stuff and lots of bad stuff. Evelyn Yard was the first space that I visited, which had an exhibition by Laurence Owen on show which was full of paintings. Although the content of the work wasn’t that interesting to me, the way Owen chose to display the series was quite innovative; embedding the paintings within the floor of the gallery, submerging them under glass so that one is required to step onto the work to explore the space. Similar to Eva and Franco’s work in a way, turning you into a part of the work.

Edel Assanti was next with a show focusing on textile works, with the most interesting piece by an artist called Nevet Yitzhak. The video piece consisted of an animated woven carpet, slowly being bombed by various fighter jets and apache helicopters. The work was part of a series of video pieces titled War Carpets. Obviously, certain seminal works from Jeremey Deller and Mona Hatoum were also featured, but Yitzhak’s piece caught my eye the most.

TJ Boulting was showing photography works that looked at the body. I was particularly drawn to Mat Collishaw’s The Corporal Audit. A work that simulates a modern-day CAT scan, continually scanning a sculptural relief of ‘Veiled Christ’ by Giuseppe Sanmartino, connecting the old with the new in an incredibly impressive way.

Josh Lilley contained a bunch of heavy sculptural works by Kathleen Ryan. I particularly enjoyed a work simulating an oyster presenting a pearl, with the peal being a bowling ball. It was one of Josh Lilley’s better exhibitions.

Pilar Corrias had some kind of dull paintings whilst Pi Artworks contained a bunch of ‘paintings’ by Nejat Satı, created using transparent acrylic gel simulating cracked windows. These were quite beautiful and impressive to see in an incredibly simple, face value way.

Tiwani Contemporary was forgettable, whilst The Photographers Gallery was hosting the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize nominees. My favourite was obviously Trevor Paglen with his photographs of internet cables tapped by the NSA alongside his Autonomy Cube, a sculpture that provides a secure Wi-Fi connection, routing your phone or computer automatically through the Tor network. Paglen featured heavily in the essay that I wrote a month or so ago, and is a key figurehead in the art world, making work about internet surveillance, etc.

Bosco Sodi at Blain Southern was visually exciting but not that interesting to me, more impressive objects than anything else.

Nairy Baghramian’s show at Marian Goodman was extremely dull, huge sculptures of teeth displayed throughout the space. Frith Street however was showing work by Massimo Bartolini. Lots of very subtle and beautiful works, extremely considered to every small detail. A particular piece titled Dust Chaser was particularly lovely, a large wall work composed of tiny drawings of dust.

Felix Gonzalez-Torres at Hauser and Wirth was showing some exquisite works, a series of jigsaw puzzles contained within clear plastic wallets, somehow filling the huge gallery space. In form alone, they’re quite beautiful. Printing onto jigsaw puzzles is definitely something to look into in the future.

Louise Nevelson at PACE London was a little much for me, with every object she could get her hands on being transformed into black monochrome assemblages. I was slightly overwhelmed with how ‘samey’ it all was but that’s more the curators fault than Nevelson’s though.

Francis Alÿs at David Zwirner had a very surreal film on show featuring a football being kicked through the streets of Ciudad Juárez in Mexico. The major thing to note however is that the football is engulfed in flame for the entirety of the film. It made for a very interesting piece, pulled together by entering the space by walking through special fire proof plastic.

Ronchini was showing some huge photographs by Massimo Vitali which were incredibly impressive, things that you want in your house, but not really my kind of artwork to look at in a gallery setting.

The last space that I went to was the Masons Yard White Cube. I’m a big fan of Dóra Maurer’s early work with folds among other things, but the new wall based works that were on display weren’t interesting at all. Large blocks of colour that I didn’t really look twice at.

Apart from going to various exhibitions, I’ve continued to watch films whilst furthering my obsession with That ‘70s Show. The first film was In Your Eyes, looking at two separate people who share a connection that allows them to see through each other’s eyes as well as experiencing their other senses. In the beginning it was quite interesting, but the story slowly spiralled out of control, ending with police chases and a future that looked fairly bleak for the two main characters.

Comet was another ‘sci-fi romance’, centred around the beginning of a couple’s relationship, the story jumps back and forth from two days to ten years in the future. Instead of this being a simple way of showing the couples friendship growing over the years, within the film the characters are experiencing these time changes too, continuously returning back to their first meeting over the course of the film. It was an interesting spin on how rom-coms usually use this narrative device, but apart from that nothing else was really gained.

Omega Man was a weird one; Charlton Heston once again in an apocalyptic future. I think I prefer the other 70s sci-fi that he’s in, for me this one was a little too obvious, but that may be because of how the idea of a virus turning everyone into mutants has been over-used a lot in the past 45 or so years.

Trainwreck was, albeit incredibly obvious, vaguely enjoyable. That may be because of not having seen Amy Schumer before in a starring role… It passed the time at least. I’ve already mentioned Unfriended which was quite impressive, and not too much of a ‘let’s make a loud noise after a long silence’ type of thriller which is definitely a positive.

Eddie The Eagle was definitely a ‘feel good’ film, detailing the exploits of Eddie Edwards’ rise to the 1988 Winter Olympics. It was actually really nice and fun; nothing more, nothing less.

The final two films of the week are slightly linked together with their subject matter. The first was Eye in the Sky, a film that centres on drones used in warfare. It holds lots of interesting ideas, and manages to keep the tension high even when all the ‘action’ is occurring in board rooms and over the phone; the politics of it all. Ultimately it comes down to the question of whether or not the military has the go ahead on a particular target that’s close to where a young girl is selling bread. This is something that I’m particularly interested in, with my own piece Rules of Engagement considering the politics of all of this within real life and video games. The film was good, but I feel like in reality they would have gone ahead with the drone strike after learning that a number of high priority ‘targets’ were in this particular house, rather than waiting for one person to sell their bread. Although for a Hollywood film to function one must have some sort of moral quandary as it wouldn’t be deemed ‘sellable’ without it, as well as the fact that there would be no film without this centrepiece drama. Maybe I’m just incredibly unfeeling?

The last film was called Cell and is yet to be released. In it, for some reason or another, when someone uses a mobile phone to make a call it turns the individual into a crazed axe wielding maniac. This event occurs and then we follow one man’s journey to find his son. It was annoyingly dull, with basil exposition occurring every 20 minutes or so and a cast of unmemorable characters, alongside a crap ending. It was unfortunate as the premise sounded at least partially interesting.

Oh and I’ve finally begun to get submissions to isthisit? after signing up to various art opportunity websites. I’ve also set up a Facebook page for it too, where you can keep up to date with the weekly exhibitions among other things: https://www.facebook.com/isthisitisthisit/

This week the site is showing work by Joas Nebe and Saskia Martindale and you can check it out here: http://isthis.wix.com/isthisit

I think that’s my week pretty much. This last week of being in London is rather busy, with an essay feedback crit tomorrow, the show on Wednesday and the BA private view on Friday. I’m really looking forward to it all, sneaking in as much art as I can in between the various scheduled activities. This time next week I’ll hopefully be posting from Suffolk, sitting down, unpacking all my stuff whilst drinking a cold beer. I look forward to life slowing down slightly, if only for a few months.

Enjoi.

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