Franko B, Wearing White and 17 galleries in a day

Another week has just finished, a week of enrichment and enjoyment in a place that’s slowly becoming more of a home to me rather than a space that I’m simply inhabiting for a short period of my life. This may turn out to be a negative thing, the exciting becoming mundane and known, but who can say when there’s so much to do. This in itself is inconsequential though, as who really cares about how one small person functions in this life. I think it’s something that we all think about at one time or another, and it’s kind of an obvious thought really, which is a weird thought within itself.

Monday started with the second Science Fiction seminar, where we began to look at the ‘golden age’ of science fiction (mid 20s – late 50s-ish). As usual we were given some context as to what was going on at the time. In American, consumerism was on the rise and the idea of space travel was being fetishized as the fascination with new technology increased. This is a stark contrast to how it was in Europe at the time with extensive rationing schemes. During this time we also saw the rise – and fall – of the pulp magazine; the medium that made science fiction what it is today.

After discussing a range of writers who contributed to this we started to talk about the short story, ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ by Ray Bradbury. In it we are presented with a house that slowly dies during the course of a day, a house that is automated to fulfil your every need but sorely lacking a human to cater to. It was an interesting story that was surrounded by the idea of technology going too far, and the increasingly worrying thought that a bomb could be dropped on your head at any point (following the dropping of the atomic bomb in the mid-40s).

After the seminar I continued to experiment with the video work that I’m currently creating. I began to think more about the colours, and how I could relate them to the meaning and overall concept, rather than just choosing colours that clash or make you feel sick after looking at them for too long. After reading Gamer Theory (McKenzie Wark) and The Society of the Spectacle (Guy Debord) I started to think more about my work and how the books related to what I was attempting to communicate through the repetitive nature of the films; how ‘we’ live mundane lives that are exactly the same every day until we eventually die. Through the books it became apparent to me that this state of being has been constructed by capitalists, using techniques like consumerism to keep ‘the people’ at bay. So after ‘discovering’ this I started to use colours that are usually associated with capitalism within the work. I feel that this first experiment went slightly overboard, and needs to be re-worked.

I also put a few videos into one long clip, and decided that the mixing of the aspects didn’t really work, and there needs to be some sort of continuality between the different videos. As this just looks messy and un-thought out.

Later in the day there was a lecture on medium titled ‘Black Arts Medium’. It’s primary purpose being to make us think about why we use the mediums that we use to communicate the ideas that we’re thinking about. A number of artists were talked about who might work outside of their chosen medium or within the boundaries, but slightly distorting them. Eva Rothschild and her minimalist ‘sculptures’ were talked about, alongside Glenn Brown’s appropriation paintings, Ian Davenport’s ‘drip’ paintings that are created using huge syringes and Robert Smithson’s video work that essentially spawned the idea of ‘land art’. It was a thought-provoking talk that made me think about why I use the mediums that I use, as well as making me consider branching out into other’s to better represent my ideas.

Tuesday was labelled as ‘blog day’ which consisted of everyone in the group printing off two of their blog posts and displaying them on the wall. Everyone then went around as small groups of three, labelling the different blogs with a variety of buzz words that best suited what their practice was about. This was essentially the start of sorting out who is going to be displaying their work next to each other in the show during week 9, which was kind of worrying. After discussing our posts, I was placed in the ‘Constructed Realities’ group, which I was happy about, as the title encapsulates my art vaguely well and the I liked the work by the people within the group. We then had to discuss how our work linked to one another’s, as well as coming up with a few things within popular culture that looks at the ideas that we are thinking about. We thought about films like ‘Fight Club’ and ‘The Truman Show’ as well as books like ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep’ and ‘Solaris’.

There was also an artist talk during the day from Lucy Gunning, which was pretty great. She began by showing us a very thought provoking piece of work titled ‘Climbing Around My Room’ which showed a woman navigating around the outside of a room without touching the ground. We were also shown a film called ‘The Horse Impressionists’ which involved a variety of women doing impressions of horses, it was hilarious. A bunch of other pieces were shown, as well as the idea of not being able to see the ‘whole thing’ which seems to come up a lot within artwork, and something that I’m beginning to become interested in too within my video work and how I intend to display it.

During the day I also started to think about a new idea, how in video games when you look down (in an FPS (First Person Shooter)) you rarely, if ever, see your legs/feet. In reality you obviously do, but in video games this isn’t the case. So I began to create these legless people. I don’t know where this will go, but for now it’s an idea to come back to later in the year.

I was also thinking more about my main project and the relationship between the visible and hidden space, in terms of displaying the video work. Alongside this was thoughts about my sculptural work, and what I wanted to do with the actual things that I’ve created in real life, and how to fit that into the new avenues that I’m taking with the work. I thought about how the sculptures could be sinking into the idea of capitalism, being absorbed by it as a whole. The sculpture would be glitching into the wall which would be partly painted in the colour of capitalism. This would signify the enveloping nature of the thing, but the fact that the whole wall isn’t painted would come into how the government allows people to slightly rebel against the system, making them think that they’re making a difference when in actuality they are not, and confined within the over-arching system. This idea is a work in progress, as I also like how the sculptures are moving into the wall at the moment, white on white. I just need to think about it a little more.

On top of these thoughts I made a short video looking at change and the idea of an invisible ruler who manipulates what you think and say, through technology and just in general. I don’t know whether it will be something or nothing.

Wednesday started with editing and ended with editing. The process is long and painful, doubly so when you end up only creating part of a thing after spending many hours working on it. It’s weird to think how, in a very short amount of time, video work has become quite important to my practice. It’s definitely made me think about how I value video work, even though the work I’m creating has no real narrative at the moment, so you wouldn’t have to sit through the whole thing to ‘get’ it, which is usually infuriating to me.

During the day someone said something about how the worlds that I’m creating are a lot more real than a photograph. How a lot more effort has been involved in making the world, rather than simply duplicating the one that surrounds us. It got me thinking about the idea of something becoming something else. At what point does nothing become something? Or a chair become a broken chair? When it cannot function as a chair anymore, is it now a broken chair? It just made me think about what I could do to change the spaces that I’m creating from fiction into non-fiction, and whether that is important. Is that in itself important?

In the evening I went to see The Lobster, which was great. The idea that you can only be with someone if you have at least one thing in common (however trivial) is absurd and darkly comical. This obviously makes you think about your own relationships with your friends and loved ones, questioning the idea of what a friend actually is. Within the film, even the ‘rebels’ rebel against the system by creating their own system! So embedded within the idea of having systems that they make their own to contain themselves within it. I really liked the film, and how it made me think about how I function within this world. It also related to my project quite well too, which was a bonus and not entirely unplanned.

I didn’t go into uni on Thursday as I decided to go to see the Jon Rafman show (for the fourth and final time). I’m glad that I did, as I was able to experience the closed off spaces within the cabinets as well as the water bed installation, which was amazing. As you got into the bed, it moved with you, but once you lay down and fixed your eyes on the screen above your head it calmed, mimicking the wave pool’s movements that you’re being shown via the monitor above your head. The beads pressing down on your chest contributed to the sense of discomfort that you would feel if you were a part of that wave, and the cold water adds to the experience on a whole other level. It was great to go back. Whilst there I also saw work by Kate Lyddon, which were some really weird paintings that considered narrative and obscure animal creatures.

I then went to the Wellcome Collection to see Ann Veronica Janssens’ installation titled ‘yellowbluepink’. You walk into a room full of coloured mist that completely disorientates you, deliberately changing how you manoeuvre within the space and disrupting your flow of consciousness. I really enjoyed the experience, and spent some time within the space, exploring and thinking about the idea of time and change.

From there I walked to the Richard Saltoun gallery, which had work looking at performance art in relation to gender and the body. The work was interesting to read about, but it wasn’t really my type of work, in terms of aesthetics.

After that I went to the TJ Boulting gallery that had an installation being shown called ‘Running Naked’. It’s a completely crazy exhibition full of colour and kitsch, with plastic tablecloths taped to the floor and synthetic hair forms attached to the walls. A favourite of mine was ‘#NUDES’ which showed two butterfly catchers placed behind a piece of perspex. The first layer of the work was humorous to me in itself, let alone the multiple meanings below the surface.

I then wandered across the street to the Josh Lilley gallery that had an uninteresting exhibition titled ‘Homeful of Hands’ going on. The majority of the work was paintings (Ann Toebbe) that showed a bird’s eye view of flattened interiors. I remember seeing her work at the Saatchi gallery a few years ago, and it just reminds me of something very child-like and dull, interesting but overall not so interesting, after just having seen an artist called ‘Shoplifter’ working with large amounts of hair at the previous gallery it all felt rather quaint.

I journeyed on to the Bartha Contemporary. I’d already seen the current exhibition, but I was near and wouldn’t miss a chance to see the amazing work once again. So minimal and beautiful. A few doors down there was another gallery called ‘Ibid’ that I went into, which had some Alexander Calder-esque work being shown by the artist ‘Rodrigo Matheus’. Made up of found objects though, rather than thinly sliced metal. I liked the assemblages and enjoyed the thought processes going on behind the seemingly random connections between the objects, as well as the form and structure of the metal holders which enabled the work to be.

Tiwani Contemporary was next on the list, who had work being shown by Francisco Vidal. It was okay, but slightly overwhelming, which was obviously the point, as Vidal believes that ‘the artist is a machine and the studio is a workshop’ but this ideology isn’t really for me. I think I saw his work in the Angolan Pavilion this year in Venice, and I didn’t really find the work that interesting then either. It’s a little too much in my opinion.

I walked over to the Ronchini Gallery, which had some beautifully minimal work by Rebecca Ward being shown. The canvas work is exciting, but I preferred the marble pieces, as well as the wooden structure. This comes back to the idea of form, and how one idea can be translated into many different mediums. Wards work captures this notion incredibly well.

I went next door to the Jerome Zodo gallery which only had half of the exhibition (Painting after Painting) up, which was quite humorous within itself; maybe making a statement as to how painting as a form is slowly dying out? Walking around a blank room full of white walls and metal plates the guy working in the gallery remarked ‘maybe this is the art’ which was obviously a joke, but it perfectly encapsulated what I was thinking in terms of painting and so on.

I then went next door again (have I mentioned how great it is to be able to go to one gallery after another like this after being in a place for so long with no galleries to speak of?) to the Vigo gallery where work by Leonardo Drew was being displayed. It’s very cool work, in an aesthetic way, and I do enjoy how it’s coming out of the wall, as if to attack you. Burned wood within art always makes me think of Roger Ackling and the very precise work that he made concerning wood. I remember seeing work of his at the Chelsea Space many years ago, it’s very weird to think about time once again, and seeing that space now on a daily basis. To quote Wheezy from Toy Story 2, ‘What’s the point in prolonging the inevitable? We’re all just one stitch from here, to there.’

I then went to the MOT International that had some work by Beatriz Olabarrieta on show. The incorporation of technology within the installation was very intriguing, with video work I feel that artists’ have a choice, whether to work with the wires and create a feature out of them, or to completely hide them all under tape. In this work Olabarrieta collaborated with them in a delightful way, distorting where the work starts and finishes. The ‘hidden’ projectors were also tantalising, being embedded within the work, making a 2D object into a 3D one by utilising the projectors. This ‘working with’ aspect really interests me.

Timothy Taylor Art Gallery was next, with some work by Josephine Meckseper shown. The pieces that were windows within the wall captured my attention, as well as the random rat that was near one of the corners, skulking around the outside of the room. Which was very weird. I liked the work overall, but didn’t like the occasionally smudges of paint that was used throughout the pieces.

As I was on my way to the tube I stopped off at a couple more, Philips being one of them. I’d previously walked past this building, and deemed it too fancy to be an art gallery, but low and behold it was. So I entered and was greeted by Juergen Teller and his series in collaboration with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. At first I thought he was mocking them, but later on I realised that it was an actual thing. So I’m not completely sure that I like it anymore. I’m slightly conflicted. I recommend googling ‘Kanye, Juergen & Kim’ to find out more.

The mini Gagosian on Davies St was next, featuring some photographs by Cy Twombly. These were nice, but it kind of felt like some ‘suit people’ were attempting to squeeze all the money out of Twombly that they can (even though I really like his work). It was just a little weird, being greeted by a suited man addressing me as ‘sir’ and handing me the press release. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. Who’s to say?

Maddox Arts was my next gallery on the way to the tube, which had some really quiet multi-disciplinary work by Nicolas K Feldmeyer being displayed. His slight manipulations within photographs and paint are really interesting. I particularly liked when I approached what I thought to be an abstract painting, but in actuality the bottom half was a projection, that allusion and mixing of mediums was an engaging thing that occurred, and actually worked for me.

The last gallery was the Grimpel Fils gallery, which had some paintings of female figures, which were incredibly dull and don’t need to be talked of anymore.

I then travelled to Queen Mary University of London to see Franko B as part of a series of ‘Action Lectures’ being held there. The actual lecture took place in complete darkness, where he spoke to the audience through a speaker system, talking about his work and the road he’s taken within it. At the end of the text he turned the lights right up, which were faced towards us, literally destroying our eyes for a few minutes. It was a really great talk, the take away for me being ‘do everything with style.’

In the late evening I went to an event at the ICA called ‘UNPLUCT’. It was an interesting experience, full of people posing in front of art installations, dressed in full white. It was definitely an experience, one which I’m not entirely sure if I liked or not.

Friday was a good day, where I started to put together a few more films, and thought about adding extra aspects to the work in terms of titles and how I want it to be displayed in a few weeks. I think I’m fully set with having the videos be videos inside of Photoshop, as it adds new meanings to the work, but it does take away from the clean aesthetic of the original movies. I’m also slightly deliberating on whether to show both the video work and the sculptural pieces, or just the video installation. As well as whether or not I’ll even have enough space to show both. I’m sure this will be revealed in the next few weeks.

This also became a thing which I've been thinking about:

On top of creating and re-thinking the looping videos I thought more about the Snapchat work, and made another example that worked well. At this point I just need to put them all in one long video and see how I feel about it all.

This is obviously going to be a continuous project that spans until I either get tired of using snapchat or some other, unknown reason. I kind of want there to be some significance with the time and amount of videos involved, but maybe the significance is that it’s an ever-growing thing, similar to exhibitions that are added to during their duration. In Peter Kennard’s exhibition ‘Unofficial War Artist’ this change is currently occurring. It’s more common in interactive art though, when you’re encouraged to write your name on the wall, or add a spot to the ‘board’. It makes me think of the exhibition at the Wellcome Collection that was on last year titled ‘An Idiosyncratic A to Z of the Human Condition’. I dislike this kind of ‘audience participation’ in artwork, and feel that it’s incredibly focused on attracting children to come and ‘play with the art.’

Later in the day I wandered over to Tate Britain and saw the Frank Auerbach exhibition. I preferred the early work, imagining how much money it would have taken to create each painting was fun, as the amount of paint being used was ludicrous, but as the show went on it just fell into the usual painting thing, which I’m not a fan of.

Whilst there I did however go to the free exhibition titled ‘Vanilla and Concrete’ which was really inviting. Lots of marble pieces as well as the insides of concrete backpacks were being shown, and some well hung abstract paintings, which was fun to see. Just being able to cross the street to take ten minutes out of my day to see this work is quite exhilarating and a really cool thing that I’ll miss when I go home in about a month.

On Saturday I just thought more about my work and continued to create the controller videos. I also went back to the idea of adding music to the work, and thinking about what kind of music works well with the clips. I started to consider using a robot voice to say something, and then stretching that voice, finding music within it and just diluting it down to the bare bones of the thing. I went from there to thinking about relating it to video games, thinking about how all the sounds and voices that we hear within them are fabricated from real things. So I considered taking a sound, like the PlayStation start up clip, or the ‘Segaaaaaaa’ from Sega. This thought process looped me back to thinking about what I’m trying to do with the music, that idea of monotony and continually waiting for something, anything, to happen. This is when I created a sound file, that you can access here if you want to listen:

http://www.filedropper.com/untitledsong1

At first you think something is going to happen, but it slowly dawns on you that, in fact, nothing is ever going to change. With every loop there’s a tiny possibility that this time something will be different. It’s kind of like a lot of things within life, when you think they will be good but in the end it’s as you expected. Its pace is a little too slow to actually use for my videos, so I need to experiment further, but I like the initial idea. I also like how the video is fast (as well as the sound maybe), but it’s looking at the idea of a slowed down society where every day is the same. The irony is fun.

After making that initial piece of music, I then stretched it to make something new, which is very intriguing. Unfortunately its over 6 hours long, so it's too big to upload to anywhere.

I thought more about how to display the work too, and started to formulate these using Sketchup. In a perfect world I would love to be able to chop into the wall, but I’m aware this may not be possible, and intend to discuss this during my tutorial this week. 

So instead of changing the wall I created these objects that make you contort your body as if you’re looking over the side of a bridge, down at the continuously moving water. Forcing you to do so if you want to access the work. This links back to the talk by Lucy Gunning earlier in the week, and how she made people climb under a thing to see her video in an exhibition at Matt’s Gallery called ‘Esc’ in 2004. I’m still thinking about how I want it to be displayed, and this will be an ongoing thought process in the next few weeks.

Today I’ve been thinking more about this, and have also been considering my video game thing, that I haven’t really touched this week. I’ve been thinking more about the ideas within it, rather than actually changing it in any way. I’ve been considering having a timer in the corner, so that there are two options to ‘complete’ the game, one is to run out the timer (which will be the average life span of a human being). The second option is more immediate, which is to jump off into the abyss. At the end of either outcome a message will flash up on the screen informing you, the player, that ‘YOU WIN.’ Both endings will show this screen. This is one of my early ideas for the game, but I want to actually make this happen over the course of this week.

On a lighter note, I watched a really enjoyable new Netflix show called 'W/ Bob and David'. A kind of sequel to there earlier TV show together that was titled 'Mr. Show with Bob and David'. It's a hilarious sketch comedy program which focuses on issues that surrounds our every day lives.

I’ve really liked how much I’ve progressed within my work this week, and hope that next week will see a similar ‘jump’ in terms of work created. It’s been a good week.

Snapchat

bob.bk

World Making, Inextinguishable Fires and Tate Late

This weeks been incredibly productive in terms of ideas generated and art work created. The really unfortunate aspect of my week's that I haven’t actually been to any galleries, I did go to a few performances however, which were all superb.

Monday began with the first of four seminars which are all centred on Science Fiction. I chose this area of study over a range of other choices because of my general love for science fiction, and more specifically Philip K. Dick and his vast array of novels and short stories. Before Monday’s session everyone from the group had been instructed to read the short story ‘The Machine Stops’ by E. M. Forster. It was an intriguing read, which seemingly predicted the life that we’re all (in the western world) slowly migrating towards, where we can’t do anything without being hooked up to the internet and are slaves to the very thing that we believe enables us to live complicated lives full of wonder and excitement.

During the seminar lots of ideas surrounding the origins of science fiction were discussed, as well as gaining a perspective of how it must have felt living in a time where these things were being imagined by people who didn’t even have a horse and cart. There was talk of the industrial revolution inspiring sci-fi, by creating a mixture of fear and hope for civilians in a new age of wonder. Many sci-fi figureheads from around that time were all discussed, like Edgar Allen Poe, Mary Shelley and Jules Verne. After being given some basic context of the time we discussed the short story. I found the whole thing incredibly enjoyable and thought-provoking, and can’t wait for tomorrow’s session where we will be discussing ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ by Ray Bradbury.

For the rest of the day I was setting up my work to be shown at the group crit that was happening on Tuesday. This involved preparing my sculptures, and considering how to display them, as well as thinking about my videos and whether or not I wanted to display the physical original controller anymore. The end result looked like this:

I chose to have the plaster controllers blending into the wall, which confronts the idea of reality vs virtual and a lot of thoughts looking at the loss of memory, among other things. As I was putting up the plaster work it was also suggested that it looked like a climbing wall, which tied into the idea of duplicating reality and referencing play, free time, childhood activity and bettering oneself.

To replicate the sense of being in a box or a small, cramped space I decided to display the video work rested against the wall on my kindle, which was partly inspired by Eva and Franco Mattes’ ‘Breaking Banality’ exhibition, where the televisions are displayed at awkward angles, forcing the viewer to crane their neck or lie down on the floor. I spent many hours creating the series of 7 short clips, and putting them together to represent 19 years of my life. After displaying the – almost – 3 hour video however I’ve been slowly thinking that that may not be enough hours, so currently I’m thinking of making one showing an average lifespan of a human being, which was my initial thought anyway. Unfortunately I can't put the video here, as it's way too big, but here's a short clip:

In the end, as you can see, I decided to display the controller, but with only the insides of the thing. This brings into question a lot of the ideas that Rachel Whiteread is discussing within her work, thinking about what you’re actually casting when you create a mould? This is a wild contrast to my early concept of taking the object and changing something very subtly, with ideas of reflection and re-thinking. I feel that these thoughts are still present within the work, but aren’t as key, which is both good and bad; ‘we fear change.’

Later in the day I had a lecture on Conceptual Art, which was really exciting. So many interesting aspects of conceptual work were discussed, and many awe inspiring artists were brought up, including Lawrence Weiner, On Kawara, Carl Andre and Joseph Kosuth. Just that initial idea of dematerialisation is interesting to me, as well as all the aspects of the work that come after that. The writing of a manifesto is also fascinating, and seems to be key in terms of creating something from a pure idea. Whatever that means? Questioning the relationship between the idea and the actual manifestation of the object also intrigues me, Sol Lewitt’s ‘Wall Drawing’ series was brought up in connection to this idea. It was an inspiring lecture that makes me think about my own practice and which forms I want it to transform into.

On Tuesday the group crit occurred, which I do always find to be interesting, whether it be good or bad work being displayed. It’s an experience that helps you to understand other people’s thinking, as well as visualising your own and gaining important feedback from your work. The crit was also being run by a visiting artist, who was – in our case – Georgina Starr, whose work I do find very interesting and layered. The feedback for my work was helpful, with thoughts about losing control (there’s a joke in there, too) and how to display that within the video work, the idea of broken sculptures and the rejuvenation of them (referencing old statues that are remade), the wire of the controller being a loop, referencing death, and the umbilical cord nature of it going into the wall, showing life, which is ultimately portrayed in the video which loops for seemingly forever. There were many more paths that were pointed out to me, which were all really helpful, but I’ll keep those to myself until I’ve incorporated them into my work.

During the day there was also the artist talk, who was Jem Finer. I’m definitely a fan of his work, especially ‘Longplayer’, which is a piece of music that spans 1000 years, as well as a more recent piece titled ‘Supercomputer’, which was extensively talked about. Some interesting thoughts that I wrote down include the idea of overwriting the writing, in connection to his piece titled ‘Everywhere All The Time’ and that art discovery is encouraged, and that the ambiguous nature of something is positive. A lot of the work, for me, was being allowed to develop throughout its life cycle, left to its own devices, to see what would occur if you took the human element out of the equation. This suggestion intrigued me. He finished the talk by showing one of his Piano Pieces, which are always hilarious to see, the subversion of what is and isn’t is always fascinating to observe.

On Wednesday I was back in the studio, considering all of the feedback that I had been given. I started to think about how to make my models on Sketchup into an environment that you could explore, so after looking around I started to use a program called Unity, where I was able to transform my model into a world of its own. After many hours and helpful YouTube tutorials I was able to manoeuvre a figure through this micro world that I had created, using an Xbox controller hooked up to my computer.

This is a completely new avenue of work for me, with many things to consider. The possibilities within this program are endless, but to cope with that I think I’m going to create something that’s very simple and small. This conforms to the central concept of everything being enclosed within a tiny space that feels endless, be it in reality or in a fictitious game state. I have a number of different ideas for this real but not real space that I’m working in, tying into the frustration that occurs within video games, as well as the fact that I’m building a space that you can only observe, that there is no ‘next level’.

On Wednesday I also began to compile a list of the jokes that don’t work when they’re written down, as a sort of break from the mind-bending computer based work. This is the short list that I could come up with, via the internet and from talking to a few of my peers.

I also started to look into creating my own music for the long video. My thoughts are to craft a very long and monotonous sound that slowly changes throughout the films length. I began to use a range of software that was designed to be used by children, appropriating it for my own art work that looks at the youth of today.

I also experimented a little by creating a sort of distorted controller, made from chopped up plaster pieces. The end result was interesting, but was a step away from the questions that I’m exploring surrounding space and the blending of reality. I also played around with paint.

On Thursday I continued to think about my videos, and started to add colour back into them. My initial thought was that throughout the long period of time the colours could ever so slowly change from being bright and shiny to a very dull grey. After a while I soon realised that to do this it would literally take weeks, maybe months of my time, turning me into ‘The Boy With The Square Eyes’. So I conceded to simply create a few videos with colour and move on from there, and to see where it goes.

As well as this I carried on with making the worlds to walk around in. I’ve been slowly familiarising myself with the software, but it’s incredibly difficult to get my head around.

In the afternoon I had a recorded tutorial with John Douglas Millar. It was an incredibly thought-provoking experience that opened my eyes to many artists and books that I wasn’t yet aware of but must read immediately! I’ve started to read Gamer Theory, the first of many books in response to this encounter, that looks at how ‘gamified’ our lives have become in everyday society. I’ve come across some of the ideas before via podcasts and other mediums, but it’s still a great read which relates to my practice.

In the evening I went to a Spill Festival ‘Think Tank Salon’ event titled ‘Demise of the Urban Free’. The conversation was good, but not as art-based as I would have liked. A few simple thoughts and ideas that I enjoyed were comments like “it’s all dirty money”, “we’re all workers”, and the idea of artist gentrification and the commodification of performance work. I was definitely happy that I attended the event.

            Friday began with a short meeting/lecture where we as a year group discussed lots of thoughts surrounding the studio space and how it could be used in a better, more productive way. A few people talked about why they’re not in the space on a regular basis, the reason (or excuse) being that no one else is working in the space. I think everyone can see the irony in that statement…

For the rest of the day I continued with my ongoing projects, thinking more about what I could do with the video, reversing it back at the half way point in a humans life, or layering multiple videos on top of one another, having one going forwards in time and another going backwards, thinking about the ‘if I’m not moving forwards then I’m moving backwards’ philosophy. I quite like how, in this clip, the software has decided to put it's watermark on my work, I'm still considering whether I like it or not.

Whilst opening up the images to edit on Photoshop, I had a thought, which is definitely something that I want to explore, which is shown below.

On top of this I had a new idea of how to display the video work, as opposed to using a screen inside a box. Here’s a mock up that I created using Sketchup:

In this installation model the television at the top of the plinth can only be seen by putting your head into the hole at the bottom, forcing the viewer to interact with the object in ways that they wouldn’t usually do. It can also be seen by not doing this, but only parts of the screen, snippets if you will. This made me think about Trisha Donnelly’s work at the Serpentine last year, which I’ve talked about before, where she slightly manipulated the space by painting part of the wall in an off white colour and took away parts of the ply board, exposing the inner workings of the wall. In a way this piece of work could function if you had to poke your head into the wall, to see a screen embedded within it, but I’m aware that taking away a part of the wall could be complicated and messy.

In the evening I went to ‘Late at Tate’ at the (you guessed it) Tate Britain. This was a fun event, but was incredibly crowded (as you’d expect). So I was unable to go to the talk, or see any of the performances. However it’s always cool to be in a gallery, drinking a beer and enjoying art in the evening.

On Saturday I took a day to simply be, which I haven’t done in a while. Rather than doing work I spent the majority watching the new Netflix series titled ‘Master of None’. It was an incredibly heart-warming and very real portrayal of a short moment in a young-ish man’s life. It reminded me of High Maintenance and the lives of the people that ‘The Guy’ interacts with on a daily basis. I would highly recommend it.

In the evening I went to Battersea Arts Centre to see a performance titled ‘The Notebook’. This involved two actors, each reading from individual notebooks, every so often changing their position around the room, either standing or sitting on chairs, facing forwards or facing towards each other. The content was quite scarring, and I’m not going to say anymore, as that would ruin it. All I will say is that it was an intense experience that was easily visualised, even though there were no real props to speak of.

Today I went to two different performances as part of Spill Festival. One was titled ‘The Privileged’ which was a stressful 60 minutes that ended when literally everybody walked out of the performance. It primarily involved the audience being put into a zoo keepers’ shoes, and following instructions via pieces of paper enclosed within numbered envelopes that had been left on the chairs that we all sat on, arranged in a square so that we were all looking at each other. The ‘performer’ of sorts was a man dressed in a polar bear costume, who appeared to be sleeping when you walked into the room. What followed was quite incredible, with a lot of discussion about whether we as a group should follow these rules or not, and it all coming to a head when we were told to undress the ‘animal’. If you want to re-consider everything I would recommend going to this, if you don’t mind finding out that you’re, in fact, a closet psychopath.

The next show was a very short event that was called ‘Inextinguishable Fire’. This began with a women - nearly naked – standing on the stage, who was slowly dressed in many layers of clothing that had been thoroughly dipped in a fire retardant substance. She was then lit on fire for a very brief 14 seconds, it was then promptly extinguished and she was pulled out of the room. There the performance ended. The second part was a slowed down clip of the fire lighting process occurring, which was projected onto one of the walls of the Southbank Centre. I found it to be really awesome, but incredibly controlled. Obviously this was the point, but still. The previous performance was ultimately more interesting.

The week ahead contains another seminar on Science Fiction, an artist talk, a lecture and a recorded tutorial. I also hope to visit many shows this week, but who knows what will happen. I’ll also be continuing on with my projects, progressing forwards with some and not so much with others. I look forward to how it will unravel and reveal itself to me in the next few days.

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Minimalism, Mould-Making and Performance Art

I've been focusing a lot more on my own work this week, so haven't been to as many galleries as I usually do, which is a shame, but there's always next week.

On Monday I went into uni for the day to continue to work on my gifs that I've been creating. Over the course of the day I began to think about the addition of colour to the work, which takes away from the bland aesthetic that I've been attempting to create. On the other hand the use of colour adds another layer of meaning to the image, as I can reference a number of things with colour, and it adds to the idea of losing a sense of reality and makes the work a little glitch-y. These are a few of the initial mock-ups that I started to make on Monday using Photoshop:

In the afternoon there was a lecture on Minimalism, an art movement that I'm particularly fond of. Lots of artists' work was discussed, including some of my favourites like Donald Judd, Robert Morris and Sol LeWitt. One of the things that stood out for me was the idea of 'serial art', work that is imagined and then created, with no re-thinking of the initial idea throughout the process of making the work. A famous quote from LeWitt looks at this movement "The serial artist does not attempt to produce a beautiful or mysterious object but functions merely as a clerk cataloguing the results of his premise." This made me think of a project where you literally had an idea and followed through with it to the letter. Obviously I have no idea how you go about doing this, but it's an interesting notion to consider. Dieter Roth's 'Flat Waste' was also brought up, which made me think about Michael Landy's 'Break Down' project, where he made an inventory of everything he owned and then destroyed it all over a two week period. Overall it was a rich and nourishing lecture, and I can't wait for tomorrows one which is going to be centred around conceptual art.

In the evening I started to create the colourful gifs, thinking about the RGB colour model and how to use those colours to reference the electronic systems that I'm using within my artwork. Whilst working on these pieces in my room in the dark, I began to notice how the continuous array of colours was reflecting onto my arms and face, and how you could see that as reflecting on oneself in a conceptual way. It also made me think about how work is changed when you see it in different environments, which led me onto considering whether the different gifs could be downloaded to the viewers phones, to be played whenever they feel like it, changing the way in which I control the continuous aspect of the gif in itself. This would also be a form of interaction within the work.

On Tuesday I began to work on my two part mould of a controller; something that I've been meaning to do for a while now. It was a relatively easy process that I was able to complete on Thursday (as the workshop were closed on Wednesday). Unfortunately I didn't go to the Tuesday Lecture, as I was too enthralled with work, which is a definite shame as I liked the look of the work of the visiting artist (Daniel Sturgis). I was shown an interesting artist called Cory Arcangel however, someone I was only slightly aware of before, but after watching an in-conversation with him on YouTube I began to really like the post-conceptual artist and his work. A definite favourite of mine is a piece titled 'Working On My Novel' which is a book that features 127 tweets by people tweeting that phrase. The amount of mocking involved is hilarious.

I also made a few more gifs, looking at a part humorous, part painful way to play around with text as well as the ongoing repetition of the gif. At first I laughed at the thing that I had created, but as it continued I began to feel slightly distressed by it, the combination of colours and content begun to slightly overwhelm me. I don't know where I plan to go with this, as it was intended as a throwaway thing, but I kind of like it now. I'm just going to see how I feel in the near future when I return to it, and think more about the use of text and what it can actually do for the work.

The group had to meet at the Tate Modern on Wednesday morning to go to 'The World Goes Pop' exhibition, which I'd already been to many weeks ago. Going again just reinforced how much I like the political ideas behind the work, but not how the final product looks on an aesthetic level. I did find one piece that I did like by Peter Roehr which was a multitude of film montages, where the clips started with the title and how many repetitions of the very short film would be played. This made me think about the gif making that I've been doing, and the contrast between the two types of repetition. It was interesting to go back to it though, as it was the first exhibition I actually went to when I arrived in London, so it's intriguing to consider how much I've seen since then, and the contrast of how I've changed and how little the exhibition has, in my eyes. Or maybe I should see more in the exhibition now than I did before, I don't know...

I did get to see Abraham Cruzvillegas 'Empty Lot' though, which was a fun idea - taking different dirt from every park in London and seeing what happens. Although it was quite simplistic in nature, it was still enjoyable to see. Unfortunately it didn't even come close to Rachel Whiteread's 'Embankment' or Anish Kapoor's 'Marsyas'. Both of which were incredible.

After that I decided to go the Barbican to see Eddie Peake's 'Forever Loop' at the Curve. This was a really thought-provoking exhibition of sorts, that was a mixture of live performance with video, sculpture and installation works. I'd recommend going to see it, as the experience is a lot better than the description. Throughout the space there is a roller skater who interacts with the viewer, which made me painfully aware of how people act in a gallery setting. There was a lot more thought-provoking aspects to the work, but I won't talk about that here.

I then went to the exhibition surrounding Charles and Ray Eames that was going on upstairs with Rosie Abbey, which was vaguely enjoyable. The chairs are obviously awesome, but they are simply chairs when it comes down to it. I did like the educational films a lot though, especially the ones looking at the universe and different cultures.

From there I went to a few more galleries, as I decided it was too late to go to uni to attempt to work. I walked to BEERS London, which had some incredibly intriguing work by Jonathon Zawada on show. I'd previously seen his landscape images which were nice but not that great, however the mesh (I don't really know which medium they are) wall sculptures are intensely enjoyable to see and read about. The pieces are created using noise generation algorithms and seem to be continually pulsing with activity as you manoeuvre through the gallery space. The work that was shown was definitely enriched after I came home and read up on the pieces a little more. I'm definitely keeping the name bookmarked for future reference.

From BEERS I went to the Parasol Unit which had an exhibition going on titled 'The Gap: Selected Abstract Art from Belgium'. I unfortunately didn't note down any of the artwork that was displayed, but it was a really well curated show, blending new and old abstraction together. Annoyingly there was no helpful text to elaborate on the meaning of the work, which is always a shame.

I then went next door to the Victoria Miro gallery, which had many many paintings displayed, which I was quite neglectful of, as they were mostly simple and figurative. It was also the end of the day and I wanted to go home, as I hadn't made any work for myself all day. So that too, added to my neglect-fullness.

When I got home I started to use a program within Google Sketchup to make the gifs, rather than using Photoshop. Switching to this method made the quality of the image a lot better, but reduced the ability to edit the image, so I was no longer able to change the colour of the shadow. I can however change the environments colour within the picture, but I'm yet to experiment with that. They also had to be videos, rather than gifs. This takes away from the ideas surrounding the gif, but I can still have those embedded within the videos, even if I choose to move on from gifs entirely, something I'm yet to fully think about.

In the morning on Thursday I finished my mould and was able to create a plaster replica of the controller, it came out really well and slightly distorted already, as I didn't pour as much plaster as I should have done into the mould, which obviously turned out to be a good thing. I'm really happy with the outcome and have a lot of rubber left, so in the future if I want to make another mould I easily can without going to the shop.

During the rest of the day I was thinking more about the gifs and the films, continuing to create a few more videos using the Sketchup inner program. I eventually decided that I want to make 7 different videos in total, making a week in the day/night cycle that the clips feature. I'm then going to make the 7 videos loop 988 times, which is 19 (my age) years in weeks. This is a beginning thought though, so I may research a better number for the work to be looped for, the average life span of a human being perhaps. I'm yet to make all 7 of the videos though, which is something I'll probably do this coming week.

As I've said previously, I intend to display these on a handheld device, a PSP or similar to that. After thinking about it a little more this week, I think I'm going to get a Japanese 'rip off' PSP, as it continues on with the idea of a familiar but unfamiliar thing that I'm attempting to consider when I'm making the sculptures. I've also thought about creating a box for the console to be in, with a hole to put your face into, so that you're inside a confined space when you're viewing the work. I'm undecided whether this is going to be a temporary idea or a permanent one, I need to think about it more. This is a (very) quick mock up of what I'm considering.

Another aspect of the work to consider is the spaces that I'm creating within Sketchup to film the controllers. At first they were just the vehicle to create the gifs in, but now I'm beginning to think that they're something more, and the idea of making these things within a program on my computer in order to make a comment on how people spend too much time playing video games is intriguing to me. I'm not sure of what I want to do with it yet, but it's slowly becoming it's own part of this multi-layered project of mine. It would be really exciting if I could somehow make it so you could walk around the environment, but that's an idea to consider at a later date.

Friday was spent darting to and from the workshop, pouring a plaster and then coming back to work on my videos, this process was repeated throughout the day. Through making the plasters I've decided on what I want to do with them, as well as how I want to (maybe) display them. This could obviously all change, but for now I want to create a range of controllers in plaster, all distorted, but some similar to others (considering the Fraud principle still). I then want to paint them in the same colours as the original controller, but not in a precise way, so that there's something slightly off about them, in an uncanny valley type of thing. On top of this I want to chop them up and display them as if they're slowly sliding into the walls/floor, similar to how the controllers in the videos are. I may reconsider this though once I've actually experimented with it, as my original thought was to simply display them on the walls in the exact same way for each sculpture. I also started to take apart the actual controller, which I'm going to continue to do later in the week.

Another part of the project is going to be casting the controller in a bunch of different materials, thinking about the difference between the inner and outer self. Hopefully this week I'll get around to doing this.

On Saturday I spent the majority of the morning working on my videos, but in the afternoon I went to the Whitechapel Gallery to a performance titled 'Oliver Coates plays Hanne Darboven'. It was an engaging experience, watching a man play the cello for an hour and a half, but it sounded a lot more interesting than it actually proved to be, the description was along the lines of 'playing a musical instrument in response to an art piece' kind of thing, which is usually fun.

In the evening I went to a performance as part of the Spill Festival at Toynbee Studios 'FK Alexander: NO WHERE // NOW HERE'. It was an incredible 90 minutes where ear plugs were provided and definitely needed. It mainly consisted of a woman moving one huge pile of charcoal from one end of the room to the other, alongside a video piece as well as a swinging lantern and flashing strobe lights. For me it was a lot about the over excess of our society, as well as the monotony of our lives. Obviously there were many other meanings being conveyed, but after seeing someone take about 50 minutes to transport a material from one end of the room to the other, I couldn't really think about anything else. It was quite the experience.

I've just been writing this today, and thinking about a few ideas that I'm going to look into in the future. One that I'm especially curious of is to compile a range of jokes that don't work when they're written down, be it because they involve a silent letter or otherwise. The work would simply be a piece of paper with these jokes written on it, with the title, 'Jokes That Don't Work When They're Written Down' at the top of the page. Obviously this will be a short and humorous project that I'm going to look into doing in a few weeks time.

This week is full of seminars and group crits, which I'm really looking forward to, as it'll be intriguing to hear people's thoughts about my work and what it's all about.

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