Sunday 28 May 2017

CSM, Slade and Furtherfield

A little disclaimer, I haven’t checked back through this week as it’s late and I’m tired. Enjoy.

So, it’s been two weeks and a load of stuff has happened, from the magazine’s open call ending to the show at Chelsea being a success, alongside deciding to start a digital distribution platform on isthisit? and going to a few shows. Let’s begin.

I’ve realised no new work has been made for a little while, what with the show, dissertation proposals and isthisit? flourishing. After everything is finished at uni however, I intend to get back into it, with various amounts of time over summer being solely devoted to making new work!

Let me cast my mind back a few weeks and attempt to remember what happened, mainly clearing out of the studios, tying up loose ends, adding bits and pieces to old and new work… Ah yes, I made the bean bag pieces, getting a friend of mine to sow the fabric together to utilise in the Chelsea show. They came out incredibly well, looking great and being very comfortable. This was a success.

I also turned the model of the building into a charging port, looking to the future and how things are progressing regarding housing and the syncing up of our devices with spaces and our relationship to that.
This week was mainly focused around installing the show which was relatively easy; laying down the tarpaulin, drilling in a few screws and gluing the sculptures to the wall. I’m slowly in the midst of editing the pictures, so expect those either later today or sometime in the next few days.
The date for my solo show at Dollspace was also set, the first of June, so in just a few days! I still need to make the tiny prints for these and lay down some extra carpet. Apart from that it should be exciting and I’ve learnt a few things from the past few shows involving the VR piece, so maybe I’ll make the decision to stand by the VR so that the cables don’t fuck up. Alternatively, I’ll let them get out of hand again, but that does get slightly annoying.
So yes, the Chelsea private view went well, lots of people looking at my work, engaging with the VR and sitting on the bean bags. We had a crit with Lucy Beech, who is always very good, both at talking about the work and giving you contemporary artists to look at who she’s friends with and are incredibly awesome. I wanna be friends with Oliver Laric… Anyway, the main takeaway for me was her picking up on the anxiety within my work, anxiety for the future and the state of things to come, as well as the idea of waiting spaces or resting spaces. Areas that you sit in and wait, airport terminals or video game spaces, areas that I’ve looked at in my work, and the prevalence of the tarpaulin in that, being an object that covers things but also used as a stopper of time, you cover over a motorbike to stop time in that sense. My immediate thought was to cover airport terminal seats with the tarpaulin or something similar, maybe I’ll work on this. As I also said last week, I want to start making video game spaces again, so will maybe look into building waiting room environments or something similar.
Last week on isthisit? was me again with a group show, with one of the works being my own. How problematic of me. These are the curatorial notes from that, which ended up being fucking long:

The sun flickers on the horizon, just visible over a mass of artificial light emanating from a perfectly sculpted cityscape. As you shift your focus, narrowing your eyes and squinting into the distance, you manage to identify a police helicopter hovering above one of the skyscrapers, the pilot preparing to land after another successful assignment. You’ve been watching this hyper-real, seemingly autonomous scene play out for the past few minutes, only now realising that you have a life to get back to, regretfully tearing your eyes away from the beautifully rendered copy of Los Angeles being displayed on your television screen, back to the reality of the situation. This weeks exhibition on isthisit? was named ‘an artificial edifice’ and features three works, each dealing with artificial space and the overwhelming nature of the network, reflecting on the present in relation to our past and future selves. Larry Achiampong and David Blandy’s collaborative film ‘Finding Fanon 2’ utilises the Grand Theft Auto V in-game video editor, appropriating and building on the lost plays of Frantz Fanon. As the piece unfolds we’re introduced to the two artists as avatars within the video game space, exploring the seemingly deserted environment, patrolling dockyards and climbing mountains whilst a woman’s voice is heard over a subtle soundtrack. As the post-colonial condition is being considered and discussed by the unseen voice, you begin to understand that, for all its beauty, the seemingly perfect virtual world that’s being presented is as imperfect as the physical realm, due to the creators of the video game residing in the real, steeped with bias and hidden vitriol. Towards the end of the video the voice states ‘if I am guilty, it would be that I am guilty of dreaming of emancipation’, summing up the escapism that players wish for when powering up their console or donning their virtual reality headset, only to find that these worlds are becoming more real than the reality you’re attempting to escape. This leads to my own piece in the show, ‘Zo’, a film that continues to interrogate the escapism that one seeks from their apparent real life. Various moments of down time from the science fiction video game franchise Mass Effect are observed in the background whilst in the foreground a text based conversation occurs between myself and an internet bot, first chatting about inconsequential moments, eventually leading to a discussion on what it means to be human and what ‘real’ intelligence reflects. The final work in the show is from Aylwin Greenwood-Lambert titled ‘Glyphs IV’. Serving as a background for the other works, the digital print depicts an array of images that are garnered from Google’s vast database, arranged to phonetically spell out the lengthier version of the artworks title ‘RheaDinS can nerFur BeakOm DiscOnNeckTed FrOM anY inDIvyDUelS nowLedJ aw EggsPearEyeAnts’. As the internet and various virtual realms continue to affect and distort the language we speak and the actions we take, where and what is the end game?
Anyway, this week Jim and Sid took the helm with a bunch of great works from Eva and Franco Mattes, Lawrence Lek, Max Hollands and John Kannenberg. See the show, titled Red Handed, by going here - www.isthisitisthisit.com/red-handed-john
After looking at a bunch of stuff online and (as always) thinking about my future and how I’m going to make money after I graduate in a years time, I decided to set up a ‘shop’ portion of the website to sell limited edition digital artworks, much like Daata Editions. I’ll gain a commission from the works sold, ranging from 0 - £300 and the amount of editions being between 5 – unlimited. I’ve begun the slow process of setting all this up, contacting artists, making a certificate of authenticity and drawing up contracts. It’ll hopefully all be set up in a month or so, ready to launch!

This months resident finished too, with a fairly interesting page, more like a diary than an art piece, but fun all the same, being made up of various videos and images of glitches. Next month is an artist called Luke Smith who makes some interesting work using New Hive, so maybe he will actually make some virtual work rather than using it as a diary. Obviously this isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a lot of the artists seem to be using the space as a diary or a platform to show work rather than making the website the work within itself…
The open call for the magazine also finished, turning up a bunch of really great work actually and some amazing essays. It’s definitely going to be far better than the last mag. Here’s a little sneak peak of all the artists involved before I officially announce everyone on the social media accounts. Such good people…
A couple of things that I’ve been invited to do, which is always so cool. The first was a panel discussion that occurred the other day with some great members of a group called Keiken Collective who create and commission artworks. It was organised by a group of students from LCC, with the audience being made up of mostly students too, so it was a fairly relaxed introduction to being on a panel. It was filmed too, so hopefully I can watch back, cringing and hating myself lol.

I’ve also been invited to give a short talk at Goldsmiths as part of a conference, on my practice and my role at isthisit?. The event is here and sounds very exciting - www.gold.ac.uk/calendar/?id=10771

I’ve also been talking with a few people about curating shows over the summer, one with Adeeb at some point and another with Compiler. Jonny has also invited me to curate a show at The Muse Gallery in July so that will also be something to look forward to and send emails about. Lots of emails to write!

Oh isthisit? was also named in the Hot 100 list that was created by a guy called Kevin Hunt in association with A-N, it features a bunch of amazing spaces like 12o and Serf. It’s an absolute honour to be a part of it and I’m really looking forward to what the future holds.
I’m still interested in putting together a book with the curatorial notes and promotional pictures from the last year or so, but every week there’s another image and another set of arguably better curatorial notes, so who knows!

Hmm what else? I got into wotisart?’s third magazine publication. It seems like an okay magazine.

I also got into Scaffold Gallery’s exhibition ‘A Show About The Show’ which will be happen in Manchester in August. My contribution will be a bunch (around 20-30) fake CCTV cameras positioned throughout the space, eerily looking at the art and the people watching the art.

I was also selected to be one of the first round of residents for WUU2 MATE?, a new residency project founded by Emily Simpson and Agil Abdullayev. So the proposed project surrounding my old Facebook data will come to fruition after all, how exciting!
I’m also going to be a part of another podcast for Artists and Friends, specially made for the magazine about memes and stuff. I also may be a part of a new podcast being run by Kristina Pulejkova, one of the artist that’s been featured on isthisit? and I got chatting to last night at 12o Collectives award ceremony/party, which was very fun.

Oh and USB drives continue to be sent my way by the invited artists, which is super exciting! They’re all looking really nice. Here’s a few of the new ones:


What else, what else? I think that might be it for things that are going on with me. I have to write a dissertation proposal in the next few days, then do a presentation in a weeks time, finally having a tutorial on the 20th. I’ll then be free for the summer, how exciting.

Now, if I can remember them, shows that I’ve visited from the past few weeks including a bunch of degree shows and a fair amount of commercial galleries. Let’s begin with the Slade which featured a bunch of fairly exciting work. Ernie Wang had created a large installation of works, incorporating a toy train, a huge carpet hung from the wall, a bunch of videos and a few prints/sculptures. Plus, their business cards were stickers. I will definitely be stealing that idea next year.
Another fun room by Siobhan Coen involved a colour morphing/changing wall with the help of colour changing lights and carefully painted squares. This was accompanied by a soundtrack taking inspiration from ‘There are known knowns’, a phrase from the United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2002. This was enough, although for some reason they had decided to create a side room featuring a whole crazy colour changing experience, so psychedelic man…
Jake Elwes had some nice ideas about artificial intelligence and other things. The idea was nice but the outcome was kind of dull.
The final interesting piece was by Rhona Foster featuring a video installation with the actors and actresses wearing cardboard cut outs of keyboards and computers. This was fun, although I have no time for long videos at a private view which is always a shame.
Another degree show private view that I went to was at CSM. From the start it was a little weird, having to obtain a ticket, although that was made up for with free alcohol which Chelsea and other university degree shows sorely lack. Like, come on, it’s the classic, why pay £9,000 a year when there’s no free alcohol at the degree show. It was okay, nothing was there that I overtly enjoyed, it was all so tightly squeezed into various floors of the monolithic building that I was slightly overwhelmed. I don’t know…
So, non-degree show exhibitions included Real Lives Half Lives: Fukushima, a duo exhibition at Arts Catalyst featuring Eva and Franco mattes project Don’t Follow The Wind which involved the artists curating an exhibition within the Fukushima blast zone. You view this exhibition by donning make shift virtual reality headsets created by the citizens who had to abandon their homes. These ranged in size and shape, at times being incredibly annoying to interact with. I loved them and hope to see more VR headsets like this in the future, walking away from the design of the thing and moving towards making it into an actual piece of art rather than a readymade object.
I also went to Furtherfield for the first time, which is a lovely little gallery buried within Finsbury Park, a fairly interesting space for a private view to occur. Although I think if you journey all the way to Finsbury Park you should at least serve free beer! The show, unfortunately, sounded more interesting than it actually was! It was basically a load of artworks centred around the blockchain, the system that all digital currencies like Bitcoin go through. Each transaction made with bitcoins can be seen by going to the Blockchain. See, something I’m incredibly interested and invested in, but the show was kind of dull. A video of people explaining what the blockchain is or a forest that grows as more money is donated to it. It sounds cool but wasn’t, it actually felt a little ‘hippy’ to me.
Lisson had two boring as fuck shows on, painting.
Hannah Barry however had two pretty exciting shows on, one about flat land BMXing and, as a former BMXer myself, I was very intrigued. Especially when I turned up to the gallery and a guy was riding around the space on a BMX, doing tricks and enjoying himself. The floor was painted as if it was a school gymnasium, various coloured lines affecting one another, as well as a few prints on the wall of spaces like this used for tournaments. Solid fun work from Oliver Griffin.
Upstairs was a fairly subtle show from Nick Jeffrey in celebration of a new publication from him, which actually seemed very exciting. I may have to take a look on Amazon or something… Anyway, the show consisted of various flowing material, opaque and not really wanting to be there. A few sculptural works on the floor, a video piece, some paintings and a speaker that was unfortunately inactive when I visited. An interesting fluctuating layered space.
From there I went to Arcadia Missa for a solo show by Ann Hirsch, who’s always been an incredibly exciting and interesting character to me. She’s made some amazing work in the past, creating YouTube characters and game show contestants, all created from her own narcistic personality. This show consisted of paintings and wall based drawings alongside a series of videos featuring pornography with subtle animations overlaid. The drawings were fragile, not in their content but in their form, and a stark contrast to the slightly overwhelming video works. It’s a good show.
South London Gallery had an exciting show on downstairs, a bunch of video installations by Erik Van Lieshout that were very long and very layered. One was about the cats that live under a museum to catch mice, another was a series of interviews with his family. It was fun and you should go.
Upstairs was a less interesting show featuring Alicia Reyes Mcnamara. Kind of aesthetic-y sculptures and a boring video. I dunno, felt very weak.
Ida Applebroog at Hauser and Wirth was boring.
Philip Guston on the other hand was quite fun, a bunch of drawings of Nixon from the 70s. It is what it is I think, but very fun.
Pace was super dull, coloured blocks by Joel Shapiro.
I went to Morguefest, a day festival of performances basically, all very fun, from a ceremony by Sid and Jim to an intriguing performance involving dildos and ghosts. Weird but great, it surprised me.
Another performance event was La Ribot at The Place. This involved a very big room with a central structure in the middle covered over by a big black tarpaulin. This was used as a stage of sorts, to be manoeuvred around and interact with. The performers danced and swayed with the crowd who were continually following them, ebbing and flowing like a music concert. It was great.
And the final show of the week (I think, unless I have missed some out, which is very likely) was Maeve Brennan at Chisenhale Gallery with an exhaustive video piece The Drift, running for around 50 minutes! The film itself was beautiful, charting comparisons between drifting cars and excavating spaces. I can’t really do it any justice, so I’ll simply say that it was a beautiful film with crappy chairs, so do prepare yourself to be uncomfortable.
That’s it I think, now onto films and TV. I watched Mindhorn, which was ‘fine’. Funny at times but overall a kind of boring experience with no real jokes.
Sahara, an animation about a snake who is discriminated against for the colour of his skin, was actually quite cutting for a children’s TV movie. Actually, fuck that, children’s TV and films are amazing. If you’re looking for a sophisticated animation then this may interest you.
T2 Trainspotting was painfully disappointing. It felt a little contrived, although I do have a soft spot for these characters and the journey that this film took me through as someone who adores the old film. I guess it was nice to be in these people’s company once again but other than that it was a bit ‘meh’.
Speaking of sequels, Alien: Covenant was not very interesting. It was another Alien film, sure, something I’ve wanted to have for a while, but it was basically Prometheus 2, and who actually enjoyed the first Prometheus for anything other than its visual aesthetic. I don’t know, disappointing would be the word to describe this I think. Disappointing.
The Boss Baby was fine, sweet, nice. Not that interesting.
War Machine was fine, a vaguely interesting drama about the Iraq war starring Brad Pitt as a disgruntled army man. Yeah, it passes the time but isn’t going to win any awards I don’t think…
The final film of the two week period was Raw, an incredible watch. You’re first introduced to a young woman going to a prestigious university to be a veterinarian. Due to being made to eat meat for the first time she begins to have urges, specifically to eat human flesh. It slowly gets more and more fucked up as the narrative continues and I did feel like throwing up multiple times. It’s incredible though, very well shot and amazing acting from the lead actress Garance Marillier. It’s a must watch really.
I’ve also been watching a bunch of TV. I got really into Chef’s Table for a little while, a show about famous chefs, their lives and their technique. I slowly questioned why I was watching this shit and abruptly stopped.
From there I moved onto Avatar: The Last Airbender, a fun cartoon with no real narrative structure. Most of the episodes could be randomly watched, probably created to be indulged in after school or something, but it does the job of small little injections of enjoyment every now and then.
I obviously watched the first few episodes of the new season of Twin Peaks and obviously have no idea what the fuck is going on already. I think that probably explains that!
That may well be it I think… Maybe? For the next week I need to concentrate on dissertation proposal and presentation alongside isthisit? stuff. For this version of the magazine I think I’m going to have all the work as if it’s been inserted into a 4chan forum post. I think this would work quite well with the overall theme of memes and such… Now, what to put on the cover…

Monday 15 May 2017

Kate Cooper, Lawrence Lek and Reliable Trends

The majority of this week has been focused on admin based activities, creating a portfolio of all the stuff I’ve done since Christmas for uni assessment and just making sure I have everything ready for installing my work in the space during the upcoming week. A few exhibitions were also involved alongside watching the new series of Master of None and indulging in a bath bomb that I haven’t used since Christmas. I know, it can’t get any better than this…

After being told last week that I secured the fairly large space I began to embrace the idea of holding a mock/not so mock solo show, starting with the task of putting together a press release. So far this is what I have, obviously not finished but you get the idea:

It’s always a little weird writing in third person, but in this case I think it’s necessary. I’m still thinking about the name of the show, as Reliable Trends isn’t that great. I need something that combines the idea of capitalist underpinnings/underlying nature, referencing utopias both in video games and in books, with virtual worlds as escapism accompanied by the automated future that’s going to be security and surveillance obsessed… If you have any ideas throw them my way.

As you can see from the work-in-progress map/work list I have about ten different works, which does feel like a lot, but in reality because things like the tarpaulin floor and the extension cable are considered to be ‘artworks’ I don’t think it will be that packed. The main attractions will be the VR artwork featuring GTAV and the big video piece, now titled Zo. I also thought to include the video Automated Compression (the one looking at airports/Friends as that’s fairly recent and considers future spaces/future ways of living, so seems to be fairly pertinent.

I also decided what to do with the 3D printed Bitcoin finally, building up on last weeks idea of putting the little blue people on it like a raft, attempting to strike out from their capitalist ways by grabbing a hold of the life raft of a future economy. It’s also nice to have multiple pieces (I think) that utilise the blue figures, making that a general theme of the show alongside the blue tarpaulin pervading everything. So far the blue figures feature in Extended Self and Life Raft, although I’m thinking of making the door stop into an art piece within itself (basically spraying it blue and having little figures sitting on top of it). Although that may be pushing the metaphor too far!
I realise I haven’t actually talked about why the blue tarpaulin yet, or at least why tarpaulin specifically other than that it’s a fairly cheap and easy way of covering a large floor area. Blue is obviously capitalism being embedded within the very fabric of the planet, from the infrastructure that we rely on to navigate through the world to the supposedly free governments that are obviously motivated and controlled by money. Now, why tarpaulin? The product is arguably best known for being used as a shelter, both as a roof of a makeshift house or to cover your car to protect it from the elements. I’m utilising it as a platform, with the different works being displayed on top of the material rather than beneath it, shielding the work from the ever pervasive eye of capitalism whilst using it as a barrier against itself. It’s basically being aware that it’s both an all encompassing system (which could be seen as either a negative or a positive) whilst at the same time being a protector, that being within this system affords certain privileges, allowing access to various environments and activities that I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for capitalism.
As you may also have seen on the above press release, the blow up stools from last week have developed into custom made bean bags. In reality, stools are shit. No one wants to watch a video on a stool or a bench, so the bean bags will hopefully be inviting enough for people to both enjoy the video and the VR for various lengths of time. I utilised some of the images I produced for the Sketchup Residency last year to print onto the bean bags, digital collages that involve various images, from Ready Player One to Shadow of the Colossus, Invasion of the Body Snatchers or various other video games and snapshots from the 3D model that I ended up producing for the res. I just sowed the fabric together tonight and will be packing the balls into the custom bags tomorrow. Here’s a little image I posted to Instagram of the fabric prints before sowing:
The model of the building arrived earlier in the week. To my dismay it turned out to be very small, around 8cm cubed and in parts. I had assumed it came pre-made, but obviously that was very naïve of me. I spent a day gluing the thing together, with the final outcome actually looking quite nice. At the moment I’m considering putting a sound piece inside the structure, or maybe simply a light and drilling some holes so that it will shine out of the windows or something… Something to make it more of a thing rather than simply a structure that I bought online… The building is a depiction of what a future building will look like, a habitation block where people are crammed in and kept in a tightknit community.
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been putting together a bunch of pages for assessment in a week or so. It’s supposed to be a document containing finished works alongside moments of reflection and research. At the moment I’ve been going through all the work I’ve made since January and just putting it into A4 pages to be printed. Basically my website. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, producing a portfolio of sorts, so it’s actually really beneficial to do. Here’s a bunch of the pages so far:


I’ve also written a slightly updated artist statement:

I’m a London based artist and curator working in installation, sculpture, moving image, net art and other digital mediums. Online and offline surveillance accompanied by the consumer capitalist culture within today’s society are the main issues surrounding my work in association with current and future utopian environments, the continued automation of our daily lives in relation to the internet of things and the various cultures associated with online communities. I explore these ideas by using tools and technologies which are relatable but not restricted to art, usually having been made readily available via the expansion of the internet. I work with a variety of materials to fabricate my ideas, from found objects to video animations and digital prints.

By the end of this week for uni I need to write an evaluative report, finish the document of work and begin thinking about my dissertation. The last few films to do before the summer will be a dissertation hand in thing, where I have to write about 500 words outlining what I want to write about alongside a dissertation presentation that will happen next month on the 6th or something. Basically, there is not a lot to do left… Fuck this year has gone fast, although a fuck load has changed…

Hmmm I don’t think anything else related to my art has happened this week… I’ve kind of given up on the blue acrylic piece. I didn’t want to, but it slowly just got worse and I didn’t have the skill to actually make it look great, so I assume it will eventually fall into disrepair.


I had an extensive meeting with Adeeb this week, someone who’s curating a week in the future on isthisit?. We talked about how I should have a time plan, 6 months in advance, considering the magazine and offline shows, alongside making the magazine a mostly digital thing, selling it for about £2 or so online as a PDF and creating 20 or so physical, premium copies, to be ordered only when 20 people had ordered them. It’s an interesting plan and one that I’m still thinking about. I definitely need some sort of business plan where I at least break even or make some sort of profit which could go towards paying artists/writers for future services. God, services… We also talked about curating a show together over the holidays in July/August time at SET in Bermondsey. So that’s two vague offline shows in the future now, one with Adeeb and one with Compiler.
The production for the second issue of the mag is going well, people are still applying to the open call which ends in less than a week! I need to email more people, I need more people to apply, I need better artists involved, etc, etc… The USB drives are going well, Charles Richardson has pretty much finished his and Owen Thackeray has sent work-in-progress models through. I’m still waiting on lots of other people though, about 4/5/6 others. I think that’s a nice amount of people. Do I make my own one too?

Someone, yet again, dropped out of curating a show so I’ll be curating next weeks exhibition. I’ve already contacted a bunch of people, now I just need them to reply! This week was Jacob Watmore with a pretty basic exhibition featuring one video covering the entire page. And that was it. I’m looking forward to his notes on the show. As always, see it by going to www.isthisitisthisit.com
What else, what else? I think that may be everything from my week with regards to art generation. Now for the exhibitions I’ve seen, or have attempted to see, during the past 7 days, beginning with Jerwood and the exhibition Neither One Thing or Another. A few weeks ago I visited, but was unable to fully see the show due to it being made up of 2 fairly long films, the main one was about 40 minutes long whilst the other was only 20. The main attraction for me was Lawrence Lek’s piece Geomancer, for me a reference to William Gibson’s famous cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, although in this case the geo may have references to the method of geomancy whereby you interpret markings on the ground formed by thrown detritus. Within the exhaustive film an autonomous artificial intelligence considers the limits of their intelligence, reflecting on the past from the year 2065, where AI artists have been banned from exhibiting. It’s very dense and contains some beautiful ideas. Today was the last day of the show, but you can go here for a little more information on the piece - lawrencelek.com/geomancer or go and see it at the Hyper Pavilion in the Venice Biennale...
Speaking of Venice, I’ve been incredibly jealous of everyone at the opening ceremonies of the biennale, scrolling through my Instagram feed, seeing what I’ll be seeing in a month and a bit. I’m incredibly excited and look forward to a time when hopefully I’ll go to Venice as part of my job or something related to my job, to these opening ceremonies and shows of extreme wealth, basking in the sun and the money being exuded.
I attempted to go to a bunch of private views on Thursday evening, but there were many problems with the tube that evening, so I ended up only going to one; an exhibition at Assembly Point called Obscene Creatures, Resilient Terrains. Why haven’t I been to this space before? It was a duo show from Eva Papamargariti and Theo Triantafyllidis, artists who share an interest in future utopias and science fiction imagery. The main event was a three channel video piece from Triantafyllidis showcasing a 3D rendered landscape apparently progressing and learning in real time, much like Ian Cheng and his simulation artworks, constantly changing and evolving. It’s a fun show, although fairly clichéd in relation to sci-fi futures. Very nice animations and some lovely aesthetic prints.
On another day I went to Gasworks, another first. They had two shows on, one was an exhibition of work by Filipa César and Louis Henderson, considering various lenses, their archaeologies and ideological approach behind their manufacturing in the western world. This manifested itself as a number of tables with various ephemera marked as research, obscured and confused by glass Fresnel lenses, alongside a film that apparently details their journey, from being created to being exhibited in galleries or light houses. I only watched ten minutes or so. A very clean exhibition.
In another show in the same building an incredibly interesting piece was being performed and continually re-worked by the artist group Itinerant Assembly. The one week event, (play)ground-less: hollow tongues, is focused on a sound piece and VR artwork embedded within an immersive installation that is apparently re-worked and changes as the week long project continues, giving each participant a new experience. You walk into a darkened room, seeing pillows and two headsets. You strap on and a group of women begin to speak simultaneously into your ears and around the room. The four artists are based around the world, each presumably hooked into an internet chatroom where they’re reciting a script that supposedly changes as the week continues. The content that you’re seeing through the VR device is apparently changing too, beginning as fairly basic objects in a room, slowly gravitating and changing into more impressive 3D graphics. What was it actually about? I don’t know, other than there being lots of evocative imagery of tongues and bubbles repeatedly moving and the sounds of the artists fumbling over their words in my ears. I’d go and see it whist it’s on, as a live VR experience is incredibly unique…
Next up was Newport Street Gallery with a solid show by Ashley Bickerton. Lots of sculptures about money, lots of stuff about the mass of a thing, incredibly well made sculptures of sharks and sculpted ogre like heads. It was fun enough, although the annoying element that threw me was being asked to put my backpack in a locker. Obviously this just annoys me from the start, am I not trusted to not knock into incredibly expensive artworks with my bag? This would have been fine, but then you had to deposit a pound to use the lockers. Who carries around physical money these days? I ended up simply stashing my bag in an open locker, which is just annoying and affected me throughout my viewing experience of the work. So, even though it was a good show, I didn’t really feel like I could stay long enough to actually absorb the work because of the stupid regulations, thus taking over this whole text that was supposedly going to be about the artist and their work…
I then went to the ICA. I’m kind of annoyed that I forgot about the PV for this one, due to the ICA always serving literally thousands of Peroni on their opening night. The artist Stuart Middleton did a classic, albeit great, thing where one considers the institution and wants to strip it back, showing the insides of the space whilst reflecting on what the history of the space was, and is maybe still a part of. Basically he completely stripped both the downstairs and upstairs galleries, taking down the false walls and exposing the crumbling paint work and electricity boards, erecting a floor of creaking wooden planks and opening up the entire downstairs room. That was it in the downstairs area, whilst upstairs there was a stop motion animation of a model dog whining and sounding vaguely persecuted being projected onto the wall. Pretty great stuff.
Another exhibition in the exposed wall gallery was a series of woodcuts from Frans Masereel’s wordless novel The City, basically depicting every day life within an unknown location. Quite beautiful, incredibly evocative and obvious scenarios that echoed everyday life for the average individual.
After that was Tenderpixel with a packed show where each artist had been presented with the book, The Queen’s Gambit, a novel which tells the story of chess prodigy Beth Harmon’s rise to fame in chess tournaments. It’s quite a nice conceit for a show and works quite well on a surface level, although I unfortunately haven’t read the book so was a little lost at times. A really fun idea that was slightly lost on me.
I then made the trip to Camden Arts Centre. Another new space for me, surprisingly, as it’s had some amazing shows that I have missed and is actually an incredible space, holding reading workshops and pottery classes. They had a number of exhibitions on, the first being a show from Martine Syms presenting her great video piece A Pilot For A Show About Nowhere, which sees Syms deconstructing and analysing popular, predominantly African American, tv shows and adding in her own narrative to imagine, as the title suggests; what would happen if her life was a tv pilot. It’s like this, but less shit than I’ve made it sound.
There was another, more extensive show, featuring Geta Bratescu. She was born in 1926, I think I’ve said enough.
Paul Johnson also had a solo show there, basically depositing the bulk of his studio into the modest exhibition space. This seems to be a trend in the art world that’s been going on for years, simply using your studio as an art piece. However, it was done very well, utilising cargo boxes that also seemed to be art to create this totem like structure in the middle of the space. Other than that there was various detritus, the door of the studio, many prints outs and layers of concrete alongside tables and general crap. It’s good but obvious, deconstructing your practice, etc.
From there I went to DRAF (David Roberts Art Foundation) that was having multiple shows, one that had been curated by another gallery space called Kunsthalle Lissabon with a bunch of sculptural and video work that felt slightly dated. You begin by walking through various dining tables set up as if the products on them are for sale, past a room with orange lights and (assumedly) an image of the planet Mars being projected onto the wall. A particular fun piece saw the viewer turning into the participant, being asked to climb a set of worryingly wobbly stairs in order to see a triptych. Fun but felt a little 1960s.
The other exhibition there was called (Enter – Greek chorus into the echo chamber) and I was presented with a bunch of sofas creating a lounge-like vibe accompanied by a series of digital prints, fun textile like sculptures and a few video works. I didn’t really know what to think, it was very emotional, very in your face. One of the videos by Casper Heinemann saw (presumably) the artist speaking at you, at the viewer, through the screen, attempting to penetrate into you, to get into your mind. I forget what was said.
Raven Row was next, with a bit of a disappointing show. From the website it seemed like the whole space had been turned into an installation, with various artists involved. In reality it, yet again, felt very 60s, vaguely immersive environments full of rust and torn bed sheets and fluff. To fully ‘get’ there shows I always feel like I have to be there for hours when in reality I don’t have the time to indulge myself in a show like that when it doesn’t immediately interest me. Maybe this is incredibly shallow and conforms to the classic cartoon where someone is going ‘why can’t I understand this piece of art in 2 seconds that someone spent their whole career working on’, or something like that…
One of the pieces there was quite incredible though, unsurprisingly from Martine Syms again with a piece titled An Evening with Queen White which involved a three screen installation made with a 360 degree camera, with the piece installed in the top floor flat of Raven Row, which is a pretty iconic space. The piece involved an improvised monologue consisting of conversational dialogue interspersed with a fictitious character partly inspired by Syms’ great aunt playing various instruments. It’s very good and the installation pushes it into great territory. Syms’ does like her impressive video installations. Highly recommended going to Raven Row for this piece alone.
I then attempted to go to Union Pacific, which turned out to be closed. If you say you’re open on a Saturday until 6, be open until 6 on a Saturday. Don’t not be open for unknown reasons.
The same thing happened with Castor Projects when I attempted to go today, although this time it was my fault, as the exhibition ended yesterday…
After this I went to Carlos Ishikawa for a solo show by Evelyn Taocheng Wang, which was pretty cool. The space had been painted a light green, filled with living room lamps and very subtle watercolour paintings on the walls, hung with bulldog clips. There was a table with desk lamps and a scroll, also painted green, but my favourite part of the show were two video pieces focused on the artist and a series of nearly naked models. I’m not totally sure I understood what was actually happening, various figures performing whilst being seen to be performing. It’s an interesting show and you should go.
The last show of the week was Vitrine gallery featuring a large scale print by Kate Cooper. She was making some interesting correlations between jellyfish and the time it takes to render a CGI image, but the lack of video work kind of got to me. I’ve always wanted to see her films, so a severe lack of content was annoying. In saying this, I think an interview with her is being included in the next issue of the magazine, so that’s kind of exciting…
Now for films and tv, beginning with Furious 7, a beautifully terrible film. When a film involves a car driving off of one skyscraper, crashing into another, then into another, you have a certain type of film. However, I am a big fan of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (I’m aware some people hate the film) and enjoyed the call backs to that film. It is what it is, a terribly great film.
The same goes for the latest iteration in the franchise; The Fate of the Furious, although I think I liked 7 more than 8...
Glengarry Glen Ross was great, lots of hustling, lots of business talk, lots of shouting. The whole film revolves around a cold calling office and ‘leads’, phone numbers to call that will hopefully lead you to a sale. The better the lead the more likely it is that you’ll be able to sell to them. It was very well done.
Finally got around to watching 13th, a documentary about the prison system in the United States and how they’ve been slowly distorted to work against African Americans, pushing them into prisons for profit, etc. It’s pretty great, as you probably know as it’s a fairly old documentary. Watch it if you haven’t.
Oh I also watched Guardians of the Galaxy 2. It's pretty good, although I think I preferred the first one; more planet hopping, more character development, more interesting ideas... Although tiny groot is brilliant.
Moving onto tv with Master of None season 2. A beautifully sad experience, beginning with the main character Dev, enjoying his time living in a small city in Italy. The type of place where everyone knows everyone, leaving your bike unlocked is normal and saying ‘hi’ to everyone you see on the street because it’s a friendly place. The narrative soon moves away from Italy and brings Dev back to New York, an unfulfilling job and a woman to fall in love with. Utterly heart breaking and incredibly beautiful. Go watch it, please.
I also re-watched all of season 1 to prepare me for season 2. Unneeded, but a great watch all the same, updating me on the various characters back stories, etc.
The final viewing activity of the week was Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On, basically a look at the various avenues of the porn industry and how the internet has affected it. From the advent of free porn viewable online to cam girls, etc. It’s an interesting watch, well considered and well researched, etc, etc, etc…
I think that’s it? I have all the content for the show, I just need to collate it together into a well curated experience, filling out various forms and other things. I also feel like I need to make a new piece of work, although maybe I’m a little busy right now and should wait until uni is over to embark on anything new… Hmmm… Anyway, next week it’s my birthday on Sunday, so there may or may not be a blog post. I guess we’ll wait and see…