Another
week, another series of things to do. Artist talks, exhibitions, a tutorial and
a few ‘finished’ works. Things are beginning to flow, I think.
I’m
in a show next week called ‘Group Effort’ at Bones and Pearl Studios, so a lot
of this week has been focused on scrambling around, attempting to produce some
work for that, or just simply thinking about what I want to show. Instead of
printing the Reddit posts about the ‘Freedom of Internet Act’ onto coasters, I
eventually decided to print the actual act onto a deck chair. This train of
thought began when I realised how much money the coasters were going to cost me
I then wanted to print the act onto a scroll, similar to the ones the
government utilises to write their acts on. Although this would have been
great, I soon found out that the material, Vellum, is incredibly hard to print
on to, and is very expensive. The idea to print the act onto the deck chair was
spawned from thinking about what the act does for the users of the internet;
protecting our privacy, censorship, copyright and the right to free speech. The
deck chair comforts and cradles the user, protecting you from the floor and
from being uncomfortable. My plan is to then have the viewer watch something
whilst sitting in the chair, something that is allowed to happen because of the
act being in place. I’m not really sure what this will be, although I’m
considering returning to the idea of utilising the marriage break up footage
from the two YouTubers that I talked about a few weeks ago. With them deciding
to broadcast their entire relationship online, through videos, taking into
account how the act allows them to do so. Although when thinking about this,
the video could be many things that are simply facilitated by the internet
being how it is. In a way it makes me think about utilising the ‘worst of the
internet’ as that is what this act is seeming to protect the most. I’m still
not really sure, and need to think about it some more in the next week… I’m
considering showing the video on an iPhone (considering how a lot of the time
we view content on the internet on our phones now, especially YouTube videos)
somehow attaching the phone to the chair in some way, or simply having it on
the chair? I don’t know...
Oh
and I had to produce a few pages for a publication of sorts for the show, which
is something I haven’t really done before. I was told that it could be
anything, photos relevant to your practice, or simply an artist statement, etc.
After going through various iterations on Photoshop, I decided to go with
something simple, as opposed to my various Vaporwave inspired images that I use
for things like my Facebook profile. I decided to utilise this as a shameless self-promotional
tool, without putting my name within it. These are the pages that I created:
If
you’re interested in coming, the event page is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/105298063277776/
It’s a two-day event, with the PV on the Friday and a ‘performance night’ on
the Saturday. I kind of like the idea of a performance night, as then the
performance works won’t clash with the other artwork on show. Definitely come,
lots of good work and free drink.
What
else has been created this week? I’m still kind of unsure whether I want to
have anything else alongside the sculpture of the shell, or whether the
sculpture is enough. I’ve been showing people the shell, and lots of them immediately
recognise it from Mario Kart, which is positive. I’ve been thinking about printing
the moment of impact with the shell onto aluminium, the image I posted here
last week. Although it would look really ‘slick’, I’m not sure whether this is
overkill or not, and if it even needs to be in an installation type thing. I
need to think about it some more I think, or at least get a decent photo of the
thing on a plinth like structure.
During
my tutorial, we talked a lot about narrative, and the relationship between the
narrative within a painting, and the narrative within a video piece with no
plot. Although this is incredibly obvious, I kind of enjoyed the comparisons,
and made me think about how to transform these ‘hidden’ narratives within
painting into my video works. This was in relation to my Sims video. Although I’ve
kind of ‘done’ the piece now (although I’m yet to take an ‘in situ’ shot), it
was discussed that the piece could have more to it, small hints of unreality,
hinting at the absurdness of the thing, thus making the viewer watch for
longer, rather than simply seeing very similar things happening throughout the
experience. Although I value this idea, I think for this particular work it’s
not really want I want, as it focuses a lot on the mundanity of life, as well
as being scrutinised by CCTV when you’re in fact doing nothing wrong in the
first place. Making it more interesting to look at would be wrong, and take
away from the ‘conceptual’ side of the work. The work looks at my family,
observing various parts of my family home which the sims are inhabiting. Nothing
(apart from the graphics) tells you that this is footage taken from a game.
There are no health bars, no speech bubbles, and I kind of like that that is
thought provoking within itself. The sound to the work is white noise, adding
sound without adding ‘actual’ sound. As the video goes on, the ‘clicking
through’ becomes faster, more impatient, as if the viewer wants to see
something bad happening, but never does. I called the work Autonomy 2.0 due to the fact that I’m allowing the sims to act of
their own accord, but they’re acting this way because of pre-scripted actions
that the game developer created, as well as the various attributes that I gave
the sims myself when I created them. It also references how, in society, we all
supposedly have autonomy, but when we’re being looked at by CCTV all the time
we no longer act like our true selves, for fear of being imprisoned/reprimanded.
I have all the equipment to attach my screen to a ceiling, I just need to do it
now and photograph it. I think if I can be bothered to haul around multiple
screens and a chair across London, I could show this film, and the other work
for the upcoming show, although I’m not sure if it would be fair of me to want
to show two works… For now, you can see the video here: https://vimeo.com/187974470
The
repetitive video is still yet to be fully exported, sometimes I hate my
computer… I just need to find a way to export it though, as if I don’t it’ll never
become a thing, and will have been a waste of my time...
I
need to start thinking about new work to create, work that will be a part of
the group shows at the end of this term. I’m enjoying the weekly meetings,
which are slowly turning into group crits, which is really helpful. I think we’re
also planning to do a separate offsite show too. We just need to find a place
and book it for some time next month. God, so much to do…
isthisit?
AFK is going well, I’m planning to buy a metal shelf to use as a central node,
for work to be shown on as well as for televisions to be hung around. I’m
getting some really interesting submissions, made up of a lot of video work as
well as some paintings and a sculpture or two. I feel like it’s going to be a
very packed room, with a lot of things to think about, as well as a vaguely expensive
process. I think in the next week or so I’ll start emailing people about
successful applications, as well as considering if I want to have some sort of
show-reel for the videos, or whether I should just amass as many televisions as
I can find. Lots of headphones, and a lot of screens. There’s still time to
submit, so go to http://www.curatorspace.com/opportunities/detail/open-call-isthisit-afk/890
if you feel like your work is in some way connected to the internet.
I
think next month I’m going to be doing an online residency, with the progress being
shown on Instagram, and the month of work resulting in an online exhibition space
where the artwork will be being shown in. It’s called The Sketchup Residency,
so will involve using Google Sketchup, a program I’m very familiar with, to
create a series of works within a building which will be created on Sketchup. I’m
really looking forward to it, and think that it will be an interesting process
for me to go through, similar to the 30/30 experience that I had in April.
What
else is happening? Isthisit, the online edition, is still going well. For the
25th exhibition on isthisit? there were three works presented, all surrounded
by the title of the show, which was ‘1995 – 2001’. This is a reference to the
‘dot-com bubble’ that occurred during that time, where investors pumped money
into various Internet-based start-ups in the hopes that these small companies
would soon turn a profit. Each of the works are unconsciously responding to
this time period, either by utilising the internet as a medium or as some form
of inspiration. Jack Fisher’s video piece ‘YOU2PIA’ utilises an iPhone 4 to
document a recent journey through Spain. Beginning in a supermarket,
accompanied by a rendition of ‘Vertigo’ by U2, all the beauty and allure of
capitalism is at its highest. We are taken through various locations, filled
with music and pleasure, with the ending surmounting to a silent sombre look at
a huge, architecturally intricate building, as if Fisher has indulged himself
in the wealth of the country, albeit reluctantly. William Noel Clarke’s work
‘Curator Porn’ takes a collection of images produced by participants of a
recent residency and exploits them, focusing in on the various images as an
overlay of famous curators repeatedly appears on the screen. The title suggests
that this work is some sort of (soft) porn for curators, that they won’t be
able to help themselves but to imagine what they would do with these images if
they got their hands on them. For me, it considers how anyone can be a curator
now, as long as they have an internet connection and a domain name, not unlike
how this website started out 25 weeks ago. Lois Williams’ print ‘I can paint’
duplicates a Vaporwave, 90’s Photoshop aesthetic, taking you back to the
utopian ideals of the past, before the bubble burst and everything came
crashing down. See it here: http://www.isthisitisthisit.com/1995-2001
This
exhibition was also discussed by Sid and Jim on their new ‘Artists and Friends’
podcast that can be found here: https://soundcloud.com/artistsandfriends
During
the week I went to a few artist talks. The first being the weekly one at
Chelsea. This was quite literally one of the worst artist talks I’ve been to,
for multiple reasons, the artist in question was Lydia Gifford. One thing I always
hate is when the artist simply reads from an essay, as it’s not really what an
artist talk is (to me). The work was also very dull, full of paint and the
creation of the works simply coming from the idea that to paint is a bodily
thing. It all felt very pretentious and the pieces didn’t seem to have any more
to them than simply being about the movement and sensuality of painting. As
well as the fact that she called her various works ‘presences’ and ‘densities’…
Oh and I’ve decided to post my notes from these talks now, so please excuse the
mass spelling mistakes:
Lydia
Gifford – 18/10/16 – artist talk
Start
with the quote – notions of interprsiation – physical object ebing left over –
quote from steve Paxton – contact imporovsation – clarity of thought and
gesture, movement and stillness – expanding vision of world – awareness,
thinking, body of mood of thinkning
Seve
Paxton – the mind can travel inside the body – truth of improvisation – how it
can be summoned etc – improvisation – huge challenge – find it within itself –
unknown future, etc – looking into the past, delivered something you already
know – pull out of yourself – experience/react – holding the precision of impulse
– follow it though with initial impulse
Painting
– structure = limitations – accessing improvisation – work growing through
inquiry – phyciallity of painting – work = driven by own emerging logic – kind
of shitty? Work by improvisistion is just dull? Organised form? Does this come
into play?
Activity
of practice – focus of work – not resulting objects? Is this okay? Ongoing
action/exercise – interesting ideas by leaving objects – painting = movement –
documentation of movement – movement = physical effect – movement is given
materiality – movement through material, etc
etc
Reminding
self of definition of medium – physical forces, etc – reminding yourself of
what these things mean/respsond to – effects produced / by / as movement –
movement = similar /subtle density – medium or materiality? How presense is it?
How physical? What kind of trace, etc?
Body
movement = inscribed in paint – rese,bling an imprint – mark making of the body
– mark of index is embued with the maker – moment of making is stored/contained
within an index – physical connection from it – kind of boring, very rehgearsed
talk
Charles
sanders pierce – infroganic objects, etc
Bodyies
presense and absence, absence of body, lifetime of the trace, thought provoking
– erasure of a thing, slow rubbing of a road marking, etc – painting =
unlimited potential – marking time, etc – painting – marking, storing is live,
is kind of dull? Painting = storing time – laid down in front of you
Translation
into form – putting into present sense – existential question – marking the
flow of ezistence – of movent
Painting
beyond itself – shit book
Time
based – happening whilst wet – time based practice – flow of moment, etc – body
span – donna Huanca reference – very bodily work – reference david Roberts art
foundation show
Painting
– own discourse, own narrative, etc – fresh starts, reviisions – paint mixed
with chalk – physical residue, clunmping in areas – once again not interesting
I
hate artoists talks like this
Delicate
things occurring – obviously as it’s a painting
Allowing
time to distance herself from mark making – like pleasing your pallete – ‘can’t
ork for days before working ‘ type thing – incredibly wanky – removing herself
from the action
Studio
= living space – environemtn feeding into the process – relationships and
emotional exchanges – architectural special context – body implications
Power
station for art – lots of challenges – how pissed off would people be when they
make the hjourney downstairs? Very – intimacy of reality
Movement
from her – this is important – moving within the painting is perceived as
movement – carreies some sort of emotional weight/content/presense
Both
sculpture and painting are apparently ‘exactly the same’ – really? Do you
really think this?? – asking for a different awareness or something – what does
that mean
I
am vertical – slyvia plath poem – localsing someone in the landscape –
referencing but not – allowing something to linger – putting the human being
back in the right place – rather than the creation of the dam, etc
Concrete
soaked cloth – sunken down by the weght of the cloth – piched at different
levels
‘midsecton’
– awareness of body movement – talks about her midsection being the triumpthant
mid section – jgesture ruminates out from – point of emergence
She
terms her works as ‘presenses’ – desnities – thing - #how fucking wanky!
Another,
far better, artist talk that I attended was at Goldsmiths, with the artist Joey
Holder. I’m a big fan of her science based videos and installations, which
utilise various UI’s of interfaces, kind of like the overlay that you have from
various video games. A lot of her work utilises these interfaces in order to
enhance the found footage she uses, which is a really clever thing. I highly recommend
you looking up her work if you don’t know her. Here are my notes:
Joey
Holder – 19/10/16
Work
is a continual stream – rather than finished pieces in a gallery – modular
practice – make a lot of work online, have a lot of research blogs, etc – allt
hese things constitute the qwork – not jut the finished work in the gallery
Out
of date – calling yourself an artist – make multimedia works lots of video – offline/ online platforms –
research images on the video/shared online – intermingled within the work –
working digitally – opening up something tin the practice – always quite hard
too think of a finished thing – working digitally – loss of hierarchy of what
constituted as a wrok – could be an image shared online or a finished gallery
installation – interesting idea!!!
Essense
of work – constilatory network – flowing offline and online platforms
Context
– interested in network throry and emergence – natural and synthesised systems
and how those diverge – work about mutating reality – dealing with the
complexity of reality – avoiding idenitification – interested in organic
computation – increasing entanglement with technology – KARREN BARRARD – GREEN
O LA TOR – ‘networks have no inside, only raditors and edges, netowkrs but no
structure, not resisigin in a network but flowing through the edges
Nature
is networked through human and non human nodes – investigating complex human
nodes – natural and artificial – synthetic biology of aquatic figures – in a
web – thinking about the web and the layers of these realms in an artificial
way – humamns – constructing symbols of languge, diagram, in order to
understand the world around us – illustrating our idea of how to make sense of
the world byt finindg their own natural orde
‘for
all our discourse regarding those and these things – irreducible gap ‘ – within
work, imagery of creatures/organic life, setting against diafgrams and
maps/measuring devices, interfaces on the internet - interface to filter etc – work can be
thought of aas another filter in this, another layer to the thing – emphasis on
catorgiratiion is not just a construct of humans, also present biologically,
for example – in our eyes we have 100 million detetocrs, only one million of
this goes to our brain – lumping together light patterns, where categorisation
occurs in our body – things occurring within the brain, choosing what we retain
in brain as memories
Very
human way to make sense of world – systems always in flux – mixing elemeetns of
natural history etc and measuring devices
Video
is an online platrform – website going by a project by the same name at the
royal stanrad – hydorozone – taxonomic form of animasl and jellies, work cam
eout of a residency – ‘internet of growing things’ – six months out of London –
brief for project = analogu-ising global food systems as a complex
relationship, etc – internet of growing develop new work in response to this –
emphasis on food/future production of agriculture – want to partner artists
with different dicipkines – scientists
Scientists
– vertical farming – ‘hydrozoan’ – growing crops hydroponetically – contained
exnvironemnt stacked up, controlling the amount of light etc – system called
acroponics - symbionic way of living
alongside plants and people – exhibition had plants growing under led lights,
huge hot tubs that acted like tanks – projections onto hot tubs, sea creatures,
etc – simulation of that growing process
Tumblr
site – collection of images of weird creatures – interested in what we consider
to be natural or artificially created by humans – what we produce as humans Is
part of nature – subjects in work – alien looking creatures – don’t usually
think about or see – not my aim to freak people out – more so to make aware of
the breadth of life that rests on us – fascinated by us – lots of visceral
imagery – used to be a scuba diving instructor – makes a lot of snese
Biostat
– started to think about biological data – being collected from us via the
internet – not just internet surveillance but companies where you can upload
genetic information – gnome – cloud platforms – have data sets done to see what
may be wrong with you – google gynomics – 23 and me
The
work – considering how in the future the value of our biological data is gonna = value – names of different genetic
families – stock ticker board representing the value of genes in the future –
fascinating – way our information can be quantified – projections and wall
prints – lots of wall prints
Nematode
– projects thinking about data and biology – research into synthetic biology –
disputed term by scientists – interdisciplinary biology – genetic engineering –
popular definition – constructing biological things for purposes – lots of
advances now to program biology – genetic code is like computer programming language
Proteus
– channelnormal.com – footage from an ROV – underwater submersible filming the
volcanic vents at the Antarctic – top of = charts comparing different species
through their genetic information
Feldspar
– mineral – abundant one on earth – 60% of earths crust – deepest part of the
sea – delineation of the deepest ocea – 6000 metres – lowest population of
marine life
Lament
of ur – step away from heavy science and into conspiracy theory – SEE WHO SHE
DID IT WITH – alien hands going from the centre – walls = gold prints – nice
opportunity to go into other areas that others are interested in – not precious
about these things – skewing of standard duo but making an environment – themes
of entrapment/conspiracy theories and posthuman life considerations –
goldmining alien race that enslaved the human race – sumarian civ – parallel
between speculative theory and current technographic state – accepting old
gods, etc etc
Ophiuchus
– named after large star constellation – greek = serpent barrier – man holdming
snake – work was influenced by ‘the cosmic serpent’ – about a guy who went into
Peruvian jungle and was told that shamans can see into the body – see DNA –
about that idea
Really
love the high use of interfaces – making a found footage thing become an actual
thing
Tetragammation
– look up
Residency
their – called the multiverse – rather than thinking about that as something
other – worlds natural life – for all technologies – don’t know what’s
happening behind the hands of our own things – idea to build a futuristic
medical room – build medical equipment, etc – digitally imagining a body – that
our bodies are being genetically messed with too
Introduced
to biology scientist – given specimens – other scientis – computational
genetisits – created the speculative pharmaceutical brand – this kind of
company claims that it has mapped all of the biological datin he world, using
it for our own means and our own evolution – capitalism? - some of the films are a little bit too
unproductive – a little bit too dull – shorter?
Really
interesting use of technology – considerutilsing these as things within
themselves- layering
Critisiing
someone over the term that you’ve been
using
Separating
from nature – replicating through our systems – casuing problems – philosophical
– it is philosophical – knowledge/belief production – touching on religion /
different belief systmes – science is a belief which some people choose not to
believe in
Copyright
issues – conversations about this with science friend s- big fight about this –
in science things are referenced – discussion about copyright – dj/mixer
Music
– working with a sound designer – differen processes – smapling sounds – cut up
make it yourself – collab with musicisnas – sound follows image? Different each
time
Dichotomy
of man – same thing – pollution – natural process? Mass extinision – natural
species that are evolving and thriwing – things working in that system – taking
over humans conditions
Technological
singularity? – considerations – not going to be a single point – slowly getting
there – already entangled by this thing called ‘technology’ – like WALL-E
Like
an educational console – bridging the gap between art and science – true
reflection of
Oh
and I signed up for this terms seminars, choosing the ambiguously titled ‘Scale’
alongside ‘Reading & Writing with Context of Contemporary Art’. These
should be good, although it’s a bit of a shame that the majority of them are
exactly the same as the ones we were given last year, although I’m sure they’ll
be great either way.
I
also went to a few exhibitions, not as many as I would have wanted, but I guess
sometimes you have to take a break. The first was one that I’ve been wanting to
go to for a while, The Infinite Mix, was great. Featuring 10 video works by ten
artists, it was quite an interesting three hours. The journey began with Martin
Creed and his piece Work No. 1701.
Simply filming various people walking across a street, accompanied by one of
his own songs. Kind of okay, if a little basic and dull, simply observing these
different people, traversing and travelling.
Next
up, a work that I have loved for a while, Stan Douglas’ Luanda-Kinshasa. It’s basically five hours of a camera, zooming
around a recording studio, documenting a seemingly endless jazz jam occurring
between various musicians. So very funny and incredibly clever.
Another
work that I was a fan of was Cyprien Gaillard’s Nightlife, a 3D film, which consists of these beautiful, majestic
trees swaying in the wind, and against various man made barriers and structures.
Nature fighting against the unnatural. Also, my first experience of a 3D art
film, which is kind of surprising actually, I would have thought I would have
encountered one of those already.
Cameron
Jamie’s disturbingly hilarious film Massage
the History was very dark. Centralised around two young men provocatively
dancing against furniture in a middle class home, spliced together with blurry found
footage of the same action occurring in anonymous family homes.
Every
video was worth your time, which was pretty great. I’d definitely recommend visiting
if you haven’t already, and setting aside at least two hours of your time.
I
ventured over to Timothy Taylor to check out a new VR experience by Shezad
Dawood. Unfortunately, when I arrived the device was broken, which was a little
more than annoying, so I was left to enjoy the neon and some paintings. How
exciting.
Grimpel
Fils (unfortunately my third and final location of the week) was okay,
featuring a few video pieces by Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook. Lots of dogs eating,
lots of seascapes, lots of subtleties. It was okay, but ultimately a little
dull and didn’t really capture my attention.
I
watched a few films, starting with the new Adam Curtis documentary, HyperNormalisation. Although it traces a
line of history, beginning in the 60s and ending where we are now, the
conclusion is very much forward focused, warning of what’s to happen if Trump
becomes president, etc. A very refined and condensed version of books that
examine what it means to be human in the 21st century.
Mascots
was really unfunny and dull; why would I waste my time with something like
that?
I
finally got around to watching The Theory
of Everything. What more can I add to what’s already been said? Incredible
acting accompanied by a saddening yet uplifting plot.
I
think that’s all the films?
However, I did manage to watch all
the episodes from the latest season of Black
Mirror, which was quite awesome. A lot of the time it is said that ‘good sci-fi’
occurs when the creator considers all the small details of the world, rather
than focusing on huge silly things like flying cars or teleportation, it’s the
little things that add realism to the different mediums that science fiction
inhabits. This is what happens in Black
Mirror, making the world feel a lot more real and a lot more lived in than
other series’ attempting to paint a bleak picture of tomorrow. Although I loved
every episode, I don’t know whether I loved them as much as the first two
seasons. I can’t really put my finger on why, although many people are saying
it’s become too ‘Americanised’, I don’t think that’s it. Definitely worth
watching nonetheless.
I
did watch a few episodes from Adam Curtis’ series, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. Kind of obvious
considerations, although it was made in 2011, so what seems obvious to me now
probably/definitely wasn’t 5 years ago.
I’ve
also been getting back into Suits,
although it’s a lot less of a comedy now, and a lot more like a prison drama.
Why are you trying to become something else Suits?
I liked it when it was basic acting accompanied by faux lawyering, stop trying
to be The Good Wife.
Alongside
all of this passive media that I experienced, I did indulge in some interactive
media too, mainly the video game Until Dawn.
Basically a B movie horror game, that focuses on a bunch of young adults who
journey up to a lone cabin in the mountains, one year after the mysterious disappearance
of two young women from the same location. It’s fun, and very well done. It’s a
‘choose your own adventure’ type game that allows you to kill off various
characters throughout, as well as moulding the relationships that the people
have with one another. The supposed ‘best ending’ is not having anyone die, but
is that really that fun?
I
think/hope that’s my week. This week I need to actually make some new work in
time for Fridays show, as well as research booking a space for next month’s
group exhibition, as well as starting to inform people about isthisit? and
whether or not they have been accepted into the exhibition or not. I’m sure
there will be seminars and lectures and artist talks and all of that stuff too.
How busy and exhilarating...
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