More progress, moving forwards, making
work and curating another week on isthisit? Now that isthisit? has become more
of a ‘thing’ I feel more and more pressured to curate high quality exhibitions
when it’s my ‘turn’ on the platform... What else? Dollspace show is happening
soon, and finally got the space for the end of year show at uni sorted; a huge
room all for me. Lots of pressure, lots of excitement…
Let’s see… Let’s begin with some new
work I started making over the last week. A video about Pepe the frog, once a
beloved meme and now an alt-right hate symbol, culminating with the original
creator of Pepe officially killing off the character a few days ago in a comic
strip as part of Free Comic Book Day. When Pepe was originally created by an
artist called Matt Furie, the character was slightly lewd, throwing up (like a
frog does) and urinating with his pants down, declaring it ‘feels good man’.
After this he was appropriated and associated with many things, different philosophies
and ideologies by different groups, eventually becoming a symbol for the
alt-right and fascism. In the video piece that I’m in the middle of building,
Pepe is seen to be dancing throughout the film, neither happy or sad, in a kind
of neutral state. For me, this dancing is showing him continuing forwards, like
a worker who doesn’t enjoy her job, continuing in a neutral state, picking up
their pay check at the end of the day even if they’re becoming a hat symbol,
surviving. Throughout the video Pepe is subjected to various abuses, from being
burned by fire to being stabbed by a headless swordsman clad in black armour
(Monty Python reference "Tis but a scratch"). He’s also coloured blue
at one point by being under a waterfall, eventually being turned back to green
before the video loops. The main idea was to see Pepe as this character who we
as internet meme creators use and abuse, not thinking about the feelings of
this animated frog, alongside how Pepe is a blank canvas for others to push
their ideals onto, and however much you distort this character, he will
continue to dance and move forwards. It’s a very simple video, utilising pixel
art/8 bit gifs from video games, for example Minecraft with fire or Mario with
a bullet/bomb. This attempts to reinforce how utilising Pepe as a symbol is
seen to be a joke by figures on 4chan and these websites where the Pepe image
proliferates. The sound is taken from general ‘corporate music’ on YouTube,
which continues to fit in with the theme of my entire practice. When it’s
eventually finished I’m thinking of showing the piece on my cracked iPhone,
continually looping, in some sort of installation. For now, it’s called ‘The
Pepe Trials’ - www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMlXluIbFLY&feature=youtu.be
What next? Ah I finally began making
the acrylic sculpture, with varying results. It’s slowly coming along, although
(who’d have thought it) making stuff with your hands is kind of hard. I managed
to make the box, although it wasn’t cut as well as it should have done, so who
knows, maybe it’ll fall into disrepair and not be finished… Who knows?
I also have a quick idea of what to do
with the 3D printed Bitcoin I’m yet to utilise. Spraying it blue, placing the
little people on it and putting it on the floor, making it a sort of life raft
for a future economy, with the blue figures of capitalism grabbing hold of the
raft. This works well with my current idea for the end of year show too…
So, happily, I was given this large
studio space to work with for the exhibition at Chelsea, so I’ve come to the conclusion
that I’m going to hold my own ‘solo show’, filling the room with a few pieces
from the past 6 months or so. Once I actually looked at the space after
submitting my application, I realised that to carpet the entire floor would be
too much money, so I’ve decided to buy a blue tarpaulin for the floor, transforming
the usually dull floor of the studio into something a little more interesting.
This will serve as the base for the Warhammer sculpture that is currently on
its way to me, alongside 2/3 blow up stools (originally a blow up mattress but
then a bigger fabric print = more money) that will be covered in fabric prints,
the single 3D printed bitcoin sculpture and the artwork that’s a cable. On the
walls will be my big TV showing the bot video, the small print from last term
showing the cityscape and the drone, and I’ll also be putting the VR sculpture
in their somewhere. Rather than protruding out of the wall however, I’m going
to slightly re-think that idea, maybe positioning the device hanging from the
ceiling or something? Or on one of the stools? I’m also going to build a press
release for the space, ‘doubling down’ on the idea of it being a solo show,
with a work list and floor plan. Terrible but useful I think, showing the
professionalism that I’m slowly (hopefully) moving towards. A vague idea of the
show is the future, the future of technology, or how we utilise space, how we’re
becoming more immersed in virtual spaces and virtual people, with (as always)
the consumerist nature of capitalism being a continuous thing. Either I will
write the description, or someone else will… I think/hope that it will actually
look really good, and I could parse it off as a solo show. Oh and I think I
might also throw in a stack of isthisit? magazines, maybe, if I feel like it.
I also began the install of the first
show at Dollspace, basically a dollhouse that’s been cleared out and is now an
exhibition space set up by artists Sid and Jim. I decided to utilise old/new
work, creating this utopian office space, or a space that you want to escape,
carpeting all three floors of the house and creating tiny prints made from the
water textures that you get in Unity. Alongside this there will be my VR piece
that shows you walking up a mountain in GTA5 and the water video from last
year, charting the evolution of water graphics in games. It’ll be a fun solo
show, which will happen probably early next month. Go to their Instagram to see
progress/updates and apply if you have an idea - www.instagram.com/dollspace_projects
I also applied for another online residency
with a new project proposal, one where I capitalise on my old Facebook data
once again, looking through all of my ‘activity’ on the platform and combining
the different updates, likes or comments with an image taken from Google. These
would function as digital prints, with the website being an interactive
timeline of events, with the different events slowly becoming fictionalised as
the residency continued, eventually resulting in the persona of me deactivating
Facebook because of the assumed surveillance that was occurring. Hopefully I get
it so I can develop this body of work, or maybe I just will anyway? Here’s a
few concept images:
The publication to do with uni is also
coming along, with each of the participants in last terms SNAP group show being
interviewed by a different person of the group, about their work for the show
and their practice in general, being accompanied by two ‘playful’ images of
their own work to go alongside the ‘after school’ aesthetic and philosophy of
the show. I’ve produced two digital images to be played with. One is a dot to
dot, with the dots as Facebook emoji’s, eventually uncovering a CCTV camera, with
the other ‘activity’ being a bunch of Snapchat icons falling onto the page,
which readers will be encouraged to colour in. I think it’s a great thing to
interview/be interviewed by your peers, it’s genuinely interesting to hear more
about their practice…
What else, what else? As I said last
week, I curated the exhibition on isthisit?, here’s the curatorial notes for
that show:
Have you ever looked in the mirror and
felt the need to escape from the western world’s hyper connected virtual
sphere, dreaming of leaving your technological devices behind as your physical
body goes for a mindless walk into the unknown? When did this idea leave your
consciousness, being brushed away by the ping of your iPhone, disrupting your
brief encounter with the pre-internet manifestation of yourself and pulling you
back into the reality of the now; you’re unable to function without your
micro-computer in your pocket. For this weeks exhibition on isthisit?, marking
one year of shows on the platform, ‘future.esc’ engages with artworks that
embrace the internet of things, accepting the future whilst knowingly indulging
in the analogue essence of the past. Gaia Fugazza’s painting ‘Birth in the
river’ depicts a woman giving birth in the middle of a forest, assumedly at one
with nature, whilst a man films the delivery on an iPad. This ongoing,
increasingly subservient, relationship with machines is explored in Karl Sims
web based artwork ‘Hyper World Tour’, where an ever-growing number of figures
(which you can contribute to) are randomly placed in front of various locations
taken from Google Maps, from a mountain road in upstate New York to a flowing
downstream river in France. Explore the world through your screen, with
locations chosen for you by the websites algorithm, not dissimilar to eBay
tracking your viewing habits or Facebook keeping your private messages in a
server farm. The final piece, a video by Kristina Pulejkova titled ‘Atom C’,
compliments the other works by contributing a repetitive and melodic soundtrack
whilst visualising the journey of a carbon atom, from its birth to becoming a
part of the human consciousness. Carbon is an essential part of the Earth, from
being in our food to partly powering our cars. It’s hard to imagine a life
without carbon, and (for a millennial living in the western world) even harder
to imagine a life without the internet…
As I’ve said in the past, and will say
again now, I do love writing the notes. I also curated this weeks show,
annoyingly as two people postponed their exhibitions for the last two weeks,
annoying but manageable. This weeks show utilised a bunch of sound work, from
previous shows as well as everyone who’s ever submitted a sound piece to
isthisit?, as well as a video by Will Kendrick in front of an ever changing background.
The show is called ‘you did make her happy, but then she changed into someone
you couldn't make happy’ and can be seen here: www.isthisitisthisit.com/you-did-make-her-happy
It’s subtle and pretty great (I think). Here are the curatorial notes, which
are a little different from my usual writing style, a little more loose and ‘floaty’.
Things change, people change, time
moves on, we grow older, but a web page left to its own devices will stay the
same, eventually being lost to the ether of the internet once the domain name
expires. After being abandoned by the owner, the page can’t change, can’t grow,
it can only wait, waiting to be re-configured whilst simultaneously counting
down the days until its URL becomes obsolete. I’ve been thinking a lot about
time recently, especially in relation to isthisit? turning a year old and my
own insignificant milestone of a birthday approaching. How have I changed in
the past year, what’s happened in the world, what have we gained, what have we
lost? The name of the exhibition ‘you did make her happy, but then she changed
into someone you couldn't make happy’ is taken from a TV show I recently
finished. The line, although clichéd, felt genuine when Tom gave Josh the
heartfelt advice, and can obviously be attributed to many in the same position,
including myself. The exhibition features several artworks interspersed between
a murky background of continually moving particles, simulating the effect that
occurs when dust is disturbed in darkened cinemas by animated projectors. There
are 14 sound works in total, allowing the user to pick and choose a soundtrack
to watch the dust or alternatively indulge in the silent film by Will Kendrick,
composed of various appropriated consumerist imagery, from GTA5 to the dancing
humanoid persona of Hatsune Miku; A virtual performer who functions as both an
online and offline entity, traversing the IRL and URL spheres, sometimes
simultaneously. The 14 audio pieces make up the entire collection of sound
works submitted to isthisit?, archiving these individuals and their works
before a new year begins. What happens now?
I’m still in the midst of organising
the second issue of the mag, emailing artists and writers. Daniel Keller got
back to me, an amazing writer, as well as a bunch of other amazing artists like
Charles Richardson and Elliot Dodd. These artists will be among some lesser
known artists who I’ve already been involved with in past projects, from Bex
Isley to Jake Moore. I need to research more artists and artwork to be involved
however, as I think I need to involve more established artists, making isthisit?
more of a known thing, as well as the fact that not many people have actually
applied to the second issue yet.
I also had a meeting with a new
collective this week, a group of students currently undertaking an MA in
digital media at Goldsmiths. They were super nice, and basically wanted to
collaborate on a curated project in the future, alongside being a guest curator
on isthisit? So, that’s going to happen sometime in late July? compiler.zone
I’m also thinking about a future
offline show with isthisit? that I’ll curate myself, as I haven’t done that for
a little while now. Or maybe it will happen as part of the launch for the
second issue? I just need to start planning/emailing…
I think that might be it for art that I’ve
been involved in making/curating/creating this week? Let’s move onto galleries…
Ah and this weeks artist talk was pretty
great, featuring Jennet Thomas, an incredible film maker and artist. I saw her
show last year at Block 336 which focused on Margaret Thatcher and colours
having various connotations. I love her work and would recommend watching the
40 minute most recent film of hers here - jennetthomas.wordpress.com/videos/the-unspeakable-freedom-device/
Unfortunately I didn’t manage to go on
a ‘gallery day’ this week, only being able to attend a few private views, with
some more interesting than others, beginning with the new exhibition at LD50.
After writing about the space for my recent essay, I thought it would be
ignorant of me not to visit the space. Although it was the first time I’ve been
worried to go to a private view, I’m glad that I did, simply to see what it
was. I’ve never had my bag checked at a private view before, or given masks to
hide my identity if you were too embarrassed to visit the space. There were
only three works on display, although arguably the space was a work within
itself. The windows had been previously smashed by protestors, so glass covered
the gallery floor, alongside rough, unpainted walls and paper shredders. These
could be utilised by using an installation which was basically office cubicles,
filled with printed out pages and various pens/markers, inviting you to
highlight and censor various texts. It was full of relevant articles and tweets
from (I assume) a spam bot, although maybe an anonymous individual was behind
the thought-provoking tweets? Along one wall were a set of prints with (I assume)
distorted images of people’s social media profiles whilst two screens in a
different area of the room showed a man wearing a balaclava, exclaiming through
the screen. The figure was proposing a new start up aimed at innovative methods
for the elimination of hate speech, pretty interesting. That was the work,
interesting, interactive but overall very plain, although I assume that’s the
point, especially if you were worried that your gallery was going to be filled with
protestors… I look forward to seeing what happens next in the LD50 debate.
Next up was a super basic MA private
view at Chelsea, with one or two interesting works, an incredible oil painting
featuring a monolith by Naoya Inose and a kind-of-fun video by Anqi Zhao
featuring stretching fingers on a hand. Fun but ultimately dull. Why are the MA
students at Chelsea so shit?
After this I went to The Dot Project
for a show that a friend of mine co-curated, featuring some amazing artists,
from Jonas Lund to Michael Pybus. It was a surprisingly fancy gallery, full of
paintings about the digital, with one video piece by Das Balloon which was all
the content on Netflix in alphabetical order and a website by Lund that was
programed to continually show every tweet that contained the words ‘@realDonaldTrump’.
Great work, with a fairly vague premise. However, I did get to see a bunch of
famous artists at this thing, so that’s always a plus. If you’re into painting ‘of
the now’ you should definitely visit.
The final show of the evening was a solo
affair by Harry Meadley at Window Space opposite the Whitechapel Gallery. I’m a
big fan of Harry’s work, with this show being no exception. The space is
basically, as it says, a former shop window display, with large glass windows
with the inside space being about a metre or so in width, very similar to
Vitrine’s space. The work on show manifested as large vinyl prints attached to
the glass, these were copies of the volume icon on a Mac. Behind one of the vinyl
prints was a special vibration speaker that increased in vibrations/noise the closer
you got to the glass, ultimately resulting in the viewer slouched against the
glass hearing the sound of the ‘pause’ menu taken from the PlayStation 4. The
final work is a cracked iPhone that is attached to the speaker, playing this
music. The premise of the show was to take the idea of the pause screen, taking
a moment to reflect, to stop, to pause. I loved it. Something to note, which I completely
forgot about when I was introduced to Harry on the night, was that his work
about KFC was the piece that The White Pube rallied against on Instagram that one
time - www.instagram.com/p/BMUS2_eBrvw
- how weird...
That’s it for private views, let’s now
move onto television and film. I only watched a few films this week, as I’ve
been indulging in multiple different TV shows. I watched the new Ghost in the Shell, which was okay, but
not that exciting. It felt a little… watered down and not that engaging? The fact
that she is being controlled by individuals, rather than being her own person,
is a little disorientating. I’m not that bothered by the apparent ‘white
washing’ as the director of the original film spoke about the issue: "What issue could there possibly be with
casting her? The Major is a cyborg and her physical form is an entirely assumed
one. The name 'Motoko Kusanagi' and her current body are not her original name
and body, so there is no basis for saying that an Asian actress must portray
her. Even if her original body (presuming such a thing existed) were a Japanese
one, that would still apply.” I’m a big fan of Scarlett Johansson and her
various roles, lots of which have been for sci-fi films like Under the Skin
(amazing) and Lucy (not so amazing). Anyway, I want to see more films in this
new franchise, as I do love the original films and the overall concept of this
cyborg entity, etc.
I also watched Colossal, a great film about a woman who realises she’s controlling
this massive monster who’s destroying Japan. It starts off funny, but slowly becomes incredibly fucked up and distressing... Definitely watch it, cos it's pretty great but very mental and pretty dark, a lot less fun than the trailer portrays.
The final film I watched was Dear White People, due to me simultaneously
watching the Netflix commissioned tv show of the same name, focusing on the
lives of four black students at an Ivy League college in America. The film was
fair, bringing up a range of interesting ideas and provoking extremely current
thoughts. I enjoyed it, but I had previously watched the show, which is far
superior.
The tv show Dear White People takes the end of the film and runs with it. The
film culminates in a party where a group of white people dress up as black
people, or more specifically stereotypes of black people, afro wigs, guns and
gold teeth, alongside donning black face. It is a terrible and very real event
that occurs a lot in universities (as you’re shown in the credits), which is
the beginning of this incredibly well written satirical show. I recommend you
take a watch and find out for yourself.
Another show that I watched this week,
all 4 seasons of, was Please Like Me,
detailing the exploits of a young Australian man who recently broke up with his
girlfriend and now realises that he’s homosexual. It’s an incredibly loving,
beautiful journey of love, friendship and general youth. It discusses homosexuality and mental illness incredibly well. Yet again, highly recommended
and am kind of annoyed I watched the whole thing so quickly.
The final tv show that I became
slightly obsessed with was (weirdly) Lego
Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures, basically centred around a family of
scavengers who build and sell starships from space battles. It’s slowly realised
that the youngest of the trio is more important than it would seem and the
group get embroiled in a plot with galactic connotations. I really enjoyed it,
simply because I love that universe and Lego. So, if you’re into those two
things, watch it and watch the drama play out. The world building is great.
So I think that might be it? In the
next week I need to buy some tarpaulin, finalise the edit of the bot video,
keep making this blue acrylic sculpture, finish the Pepe video, email more
artists to be involved with the magazine, maybe start a new piece of work and
do a couple of university focused activities for assessment in a few weeks
time. I think I have it vaguely handled...
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