Thursday 31 March 2016

Firewatch, Laura Poitras and New York

I’ve spent the last week and a bit seeing a lot of things whilst doing a minimal amount of work. The amount of exhibitions that I’ve been to has been slightly overwhelming, similar to the feeling that I have when I go to the Venice Biennale. It’s not a negative feeling, just a feeling one has. A fullness.

I have, however, been using the time to apply to a variety of exhibitions as well as writing a short artist statement. I feel that applying for things should become part of my daily routine, now that I have a variety of works that I’m proud of/happy with. I’ve only heard back from the 12o collective so far, and am going to be participating in a thing that they do called ‘30days/30works’. It consists of creating a new piece of work every day during the month of April, submitting an image of the different piece every day. This mass idea generation is interesting to me and is a somewhat exciting prospect. I also think that if I actually manage to create a new piece every day I get to be a part of an exhibition that they put on, consisting of all the people who made it through the month.

This is my artist statement:

I’m a London based artist working in installation, sculpture, moving image and other digital mediums. Issues of surveillance, the internet and the consumer capitalist culture within today’s society form the main issues surrounding my work. I explore these themes using tools and technologies, which are relatable but not restricted to art.

Due to the sheer amount of art that I’ve seen in the past week, the majority of exhibitions/galleries will only get small mentions, with the most interesting ‘things’ obtaining centre stage.

So, in no particular order, I’ll start with the Guggenheim, which was being dominated by a Fischli and Weiss retrospective. I always love watching The Way Things Go, it’s just such an impressive work, even if the cuts between takes aren’t quite as subtle as they ‘should be’. The cacophony of adverts and music videos that imitated the piece, OK Go with This Too Shall Pass and the infamous Honda Cog commercial, are no real match compared to the original 30 minute masterpiece. Another highlight was getting to see a small selection of sculptures from Suddenly this Overview. I remember first seeing these at the Venice Biennale in 2013, exploring the maze like structure that the plinths had created with vigour, reading every title and silently laughing to myself at the genius of it all. A favourite of mine is Mick Jagger and Brian Jones going home satisfied after composing 'I can't get no satisfaction’. All of the work on show was pretty great. Also on display in the Guggenheim was a photography show which was also incredibly positive. A series of photographs by Claudia Angelmaier caught my eye, called Works on Paper where she had photographed the backlit versos of postcards from museum gift shops. It was a very clever concept that was deceptively simple.

Another big gallery was the MOMA, whose ‘special exhibition’ was a retrospective of Marcel Broodthaers work. Some of the early work was a little obvious, especially a piece called The Watching Camera where squares boxes with eyes imprinted onto them had been placed on top of a tripod. The later work surrounding his museum, among other things, was a lot more in depth and interesting. Another show within the space called Projects 102 featured the work of Neïl Beloufa, who had created this crazy installation-like structure that felt increasingly home-made, but not in an 80s sort of way. An updated version of that, with projectors, televisions and CCTV cameras embedded into the assemblage of materials. It was a really exciting piece that I want to look into a little more. There was, of course, the huge permanent collection to sort through, which had some highlights, including Hito Steyerl’s November, Camille Henrot’s Grosse Fatigue, On Kawara’s One Million Years and Feng Mengbo’s Long March: Restart, which I’d seen before but never had the chance to actually interact with. I love the way in which it completely distorts the ‘usual’ way in which one plays video games, converting something personal into the public realm. Obviously there was a lot more, but I have so much to go through.

Going to the new Whitney was an interesting, incredibly commercialised, experience. The Laura Poitras show had some really exciting parts alongside some old ideas, which was a shame. A favourite piece of mine was a dark room with a huge square block in the middle, with a projection of the sky on the ceiling. The different sky scenes were shots from different parts of the world where the use of drones is prominent. As you’re lying down on the block, looking up at the sky (peaceful and calm), you don’t realise that in a different room there’s a television screen showing live footage from an infrared camera hidden on the ceiling. The live footage being of the participants in the installation piece. This realisation that you were being filmed/being fucked with is something that’s used a lot within art, the revelatory moment when the man comes out from behind the curtain: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!” Even though it’s been used many times before, for me it actually worked really well within the context of the work. I was first slightly distressed, as the space was a dark space, a space that I had felt vaguely safe in because of my anonymity, and the infrared camera had penetrated that space, but then that turned to me not really caring. Who cares if I was seen by a random person, laying in the dark? This directly links to how people seem to feel about the Edward Snowden revelations, the ‘who cares, I have nothing to hide’ attitude, so that’s why I think the revelatory moment was used very well in this instance. Another favourite was a screen on the wall, showing a range of numbers and WIFI codes running down the screen. The monitor was hooked up to a program that was observing everybody’s phones within the exhibition space, showing everybody’s wireless activity. This was also distressing, even though the data was useless to most people, I still felt slightly violated. A feeling that intrigued me, a feeling that I am exploring within my own work at the moment. Other works included lots of transcripts, which is sometimes interesting, but merely showing pieces of paper that you have found is kind of dull, you haven’t actually done anything with the information. I can definitely see the parallels between this and my screenshot works, but I hope that the strides I’ve been taking to get away from simply displaying accumulated knowledge have been at least vaguely successful. There were a bunch of other exhibitions going on too, but mostly old paintings/sculptures, which were all kind of dull. The whole space felt a little like the Tate Modern, overcrowded and full of families, there because it’s on a list of the ‘top ten things to do in New York’ not because they’re actually interested in art.

The next place was the New Museum, which had a few really great exhibitions, the main one being centred on Anri Sala. Lots of video work focused on music making and the idea of music in general. There was so much good work, Air Cushioned Ride being one of my favourites. An incredibly low quality film where Sala is driving around a truck stop whilst listening to Baroque music. The sheer amount of ‘truckers’ that were parked who were listening to Country music kept interfering with his car’s radio station. So as Sala circles the parked trucks the Baroque music repeatedly gets interrupted by Country music. Really simple and incredibly beautiful. Another exhibition that was going on in the building was focused on Cheryl Donegan and her commercial empire. Lots of ‘classic’ feminist work, painting with your ass and pouring paint over half naked bodies, but some of the ideas were interesting, and the work list was printed on newspaper and laid out as if it were an eBay web page. Another plus. Pia Camil also had some work being shown, an ‘evolving installation’ where you were encouraged to take away one of her pieces to give back your own object. The different objects were all displayed on a variety of grids, referencing vendor machines and Sol Lewitt. Unfortunately you were only able to swap an object on set days at set times, which kind of takes away from the whole thing. Also, because the swapped objects are going to be displayed, it becomes a sort of competition, with the person who contributes the weirdest object effectively ‘winning’; which is annoying to me.

Cooper Hewitt was another place to visit. More design than art, but it was worth it for the interactive pens that you were given, allowing you to draw on huge panels, ‘designing’ buildings and chairs. Beauty was the main exhibition that was going on, full of fancy cutlery and architectural models. The highlight for me was seeing Monument Valley being displayed. Unfortunately the curator(s) had only purchased the demo version, which was a bit odd. A few other notable things include an immersion room, where you get to create your own wallpaper that distorts the walls in real time (with the help of a projector) as well as Thom Browne heralding a room full of shoes and mirrors.

The Museum of Moving Image had an impressive(ish) exhibition that focused on 2001 and the letters between Kubrick and a company called Graphic Films that helped to keep the science behind all the space exploration ‘realistic’. Another exhibit focused on all the art that reimagines and recycles Hollywood iconography. So obviously there was Fiona Banner with The Nam and John Stezaker with the majority of his work but I was more interested in the room that focused on Hitchcock and a variety of works that used the imagery within his films. Vertigo@home by Gregory Chatonsky was a particular favourite. In the piece, Google Maps is used to follow all of the car routes that are taken throughout the original film, with the different sound segments layered on top of the digital journey. It was a weird experience, to see the artwork alongside the different films that had inspired them. The museum also had a load of exhibitions on surrounding film and the camera, these were fun, but not really ‘art’ based.


The Fisher Landau Center for Art had an exhibition occurring that focused on ‘Altered Appearances’ which featured a bunch of well-known artists, from Matthew Barney to Robert Mapplethorpe. A particular favourite was Nancy Dwyer with Entitled to What which is a digital print that’s made up of many stock-ish images found (presumably) on Google Images, arranged so that the white space between the different images spelt out ‘Entitled to What’, which is unreadable unless you step back and squint your eyes. Very interesting.

The Noguchi Museum had a Tom Sachs exhibition on, which was… Okay. I’m not sure whether I particularly like the ‘messy’ and ‘bodged together’ aesthetic that Sachs employs in his practice. The objects and structures that are created are surrounded by some interesting themes, but because of the aesthetic I have no real incentive to look closer. The space also had work by – you guessed it – Isamu Noguchi. I’m not a particular fan of the Barbara Hepworth-esque sculptures. The relationship between the different materials is always a nice thing to see, but nothing more than that really, for me, ‘other opinions are available’ however, to quote Mark Kermode.

The last vaguely big museum/gallery space was the Sculpture Center, which had a few exhibitions on, the main one being The Eccentrics. It was a group exhibition, with Adriana Lara’s The Non-object (frog) being one of the highlights, where a silicone sculpture of a frog, laying on its back seemingly dead, has been placed on a plinth. You only realise, once you get incredibly close, that the frog’s stomach is slowly rising and falling, which is delightfully clever. There were other exhibitions too, one featuring work by Jessi Reaves (kind of boring chair-like structures) and another with some very odd fish-like sculptures by Rochelle Goldberg.

Now, onto the smaller galleries. Freight + Volume was showing some dull, seen before, textile work by Meg Lipke. Loretta Howard Gallery had some abstract paintings by David Row whilst the Pavel Zoubok Gallery was showing some sculptures and collages by Ivan Chermayeff. All very old work that belongs a few decades in the past.

Sue Tompkins at the Lisa Cooley gallery had some more paintings, alongside some interesting text based works, which was definitely intriguing to me, but ultimately dull. The paintings worked well in terms of punctuating the space and creating a context for the text to work within, but at the end of the day they were boring and didn’t do anything for me. The Simon Preston Gallery had a group exhibition called Signal to Noise on show, which was really good. The minimal aesthetics accompanied by solid curating worked well for the artists, with Iman Issa’s use of plinths as a medium being a particular stand out.

The James Fuentes gallery had another bad exhibition full of paintings, but, the one aspect of the gallery (I think it was this gallery) to definitely take note of is that the door looks like a brick wall, with an incredibly subtle handle being the only indicator that there’s an actual building/space behind this fake wall. That was a definite plus.

47 Canal was showing a few good paintings (surprising I know) by Gregory Edwards, working off of a Vaporwave-esque theme as well as using a grid like pattern to evoke that video game/computer aesthetic. Although I’m aware that Vaporwave is a genre associated with the screen and the internet and that translating that into a painting is problematic, I still enjoyed them for what they were. So very A E S T H E T I C. Continuing on with paintings influenced by the screen, the Jacob Lewis Gallery had an exhibition on by Michael Bevilacqua called The Owls a Re Not What they. s EE m, one can’t really go wrong with a Twin Peaks reference. Well, you can, but Bevilacqua did not. The paintings/prints were made up of many different cultural icons and symbols, from a Minecraft ‘Creeper’ icon to screengrabs from his IPhone’s background. These were juxtaposed with a variety of museum objects, tying the new to the old. I really liked the work.

Gavin Brown’s Enterprise had a thought-provoking exhibition by Oliver Payne called Elegant Code on show. A number of elements were involved, from a school desk that had been transformed into a Street Fighter II arcade machine to a variety of colourful plastic cannabis containers elevated and shown on shiny black plinths evocative of high-end cosmetic salons. It brought together a lot of ideas within my own work, as well as Jon Rafman’s (his video lamenting the death of an arcade Codes of Honor being a definite connection). The Candy Crush-esque computer collages was also a ‘good thing’. I enjoyed myself.

One of my favourite exhibitions was at the Jane Lombard Gallery, which was showing work by James Clar (who’s also represented by Carroll/Fletcher). I’m pretty much a big fan of the majority of his work, but I’ll only talk about one in particular; SEEK. An installation that features a computer alongside a microphone, an audio rack and a tv, where the contact microphone is recording the sounds that the hard drive from the computer is making in real time. The clicking sounds are re-routed back into the computer and analysed by sound-reactive software, creating a system that self-generates its own sound and visuals. Aesthetically it looks amazing, using extensive wiring to its advantage, alongside an awesome idea that comments on our computer generated existence. I may have bought the exhibition book.

The Doosan Gallery had an exhibition showing many screen-based works by Jungju An. Although the show was badly curated, with so many screens crammed into a tiny space, some of the work was really interesting, Concerto for Saw and Drum being a favourite. It’s a two channel video piece, where one screen is showing a man sawing down a tree whilst the latter screen features a man playing the drums. The resulting sound is definitely ‘something’.

Let’s get some more dull ones out of the way, starting with the Zieher Smith & Horton gallery, which was showing balancing sculptures accompanied by gestural paintings. Alden Projects had a tiny show on Marcel Broodthaers, which was only really worthwhile if you could speak French and, unfortunately, I do not. The James Cohan gallery had some terrible paintings full of detail being shown, and so did the Sikkema Jenkins & Co gallery. The Davidson Contemporary gallery had a show of very intricate and simple drawings by Sam Messenger, the type of work I want on the walls of my house rather than in an art gallery. The Shin Gallery had work by Hyon Gyon which was slightly weird, but in a boring way, 3-dimensional heads made from canvas piled up to the ceiling. James Austin Murray had some work at the Lyons Wier Gallery which was very aesthetically beautiful, black wave paintings, but still very dull and not entirely worth my time. The Skarstedt gallery had a group show of paintings which weren’t exciting, nor was Ted Larsen’s intricately made sculptures at Margaret Thatcher Projects (I’m not sure if there’s any relation or not). Gary Leibowitz at Invisible-Exports was dullness in a bottle.

At the Gagosian Taryn Simon had some amazing work that I’d previously seen at the Venice Biennale last year, her political flower pieces, where she photographs bouquets of flowers that were present at a range of incredibly serious political meetings, putting a short description of the meeting and origins of the flower beside the image. Really well done work that is always interesting to look into. The idea alone is so intelligent that the work isn’t even needed!

The Gladstone Gallery had an amazing exhibition on featuring work by T. J. Wilcox, who seemingly has an obsession with clouds and the sky. The work is made up of ‘digital skylight’ type contraptions, I can’t really do it justice by describing it, and so I’ll leave you to Google. The Miguel Abreu Gallery was showing a bunch of work, with the main draw for me being a bunch of glitched images. These were nice to look at but didn’t really add to any of the ideas surrounding ‘glitch artwork’ that we already know about. At the end of the day a glitched image is quite boring at this point in time.

Marcel Wanders had a show at the Friedman Benda gallery, where he completely took over the space, creating his own carpet and ambience (how does one create their own ambience? Google the exhibition/go there and take a look). It was interesting to see the first exhibition from this designer, as it tied in well with Laura Poitras’ first show at the Whitney. The contrasts being significant. The gallery was full of digitally moving images, showing creepy faces slowly moving from side to side as well as some small sculptures of an abstract dog, which was probably referencing Jeff Koons. Who knows? It was all very obtuse.

Turi Simeti was at the Rosai Ugolini Modern, with more of his beautifully simple canvas works. They are quite stunning, but yet again more like a thing that I want on my wall rather than in a gallery setting/something that I’ve made myself. I didn’t really pay much attention to the work at the Denny Gallery, the black and white paintings at the Cheim & Reid gallery, the terrible figurative works at the Ryan Lee gallery or Koen van den Broek’s ‘super dull’ paintings at the Albertz Benda gallery.

A particularly exciting exhibition was going on at the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery where the work of Mark Dion was on show. The ‘main event’ was a life-size birdcage where 22 live birds were flying around, exploring the space that had been fabricated for them. Visitors were invited to enter to get a closer look at the 11 foot high white oak tree that was also in the space, alongside a number of books and other products relating to birds in general. It was supremely clever and immersive.

Paula Cooper Gallery had an enticing display of works by Walid Raad, where the shadows of different artworks were highlighted and displayed for all to see. It was an amazing concept, but for me the outcome was kind of basic, and didn’t really do anything more than the original idea.

The William Holman Gallery had some more paintings of things whilst the Luhring Augustine gallery was showing some infamous works from the sixties, from Nauman’s Violin Turned D.E.A.D to one of Kawara’s Date Paintings. These were all enjoyable to see but nothing new to me. Rhyme. Yeah.

Marlborough Chelsea had two exhibitions happening, one with Edie Fake (incredibly detailed ink drawings whose meanings did not translate well) and the other with Mark Hagen, which was good; gotta love the juxtaposition between wood and titanium. I did fall for the wondrous colour gradients that were created. A similar thing happened at Hauser & Wirth with Berlinde De Bruyckere’s sculptures of dead horses. I’d first seen these incredibly evocative sculptures at Venice in 2013 but had since forgotten. I’d recommend looking at them online, as I can’t do the distressingly dark but beautiful work justice by merely describing it.

Feur/Mesler had some work by Jeremy Deprez, coming back to the idea of the net, etc. It was cool, but nothing more. The Pierogi gallery had a group exhibition that was vaguely okay, the highlight being that, as you walk in the door, you’re confronted with two ATM machines created by Andrew Ohanesian. Very exciting.

David Zwirner had multiple exhibitions going on, my favourite being Michael Reidel with a wallpaper created by appropriating a website selling fine art supplies, plastering the walls with glitched words/phrases relating to painting. To accompany this he had also created a number of prints of book reproductions of animal skeletons, seemingly ‘branded’ with scanned images of the vinyl stickers that feature on the plastic bags of the art supply store. Did you not hear? Painting is dead. Obviously Raoul De Keyser did not because the show in New York was the exact show that I went to at the David Zwirner gallery in London. This was frustrating. Karla Black on the other hand was continuing on with her use of traditional artistic materials to create incredibly elaborate sculptures. They were nice, sensitive and delicate; not entirely my thing but still good to see. Sherrie Levine also had some work being shown comprising of SMEG refrigerators and paintings of pure colour. The colour paintings are derived from nudes by the impressionist artist Auguste Renoir, which is definitely interesting, especially when you pair that with the fridges. Very interesting and evocative.

The ‘bitforms’ gallery was another favourite of mine, showing work by Marina Zurkow all about data and the ocean. It all fitted, from the 3D printed products to the screens made to look like cargo containers. It was really well done.

Mike Weiss Gallery had a group exhibition that was kind of messy and not very fun. Chamber gallery was showing work by Makoto Azuma, who I’m not entirely sure of as an artist, some of it is good and some of it is bad and so clichéd. The David Lewis gallery was showing work by Greg Parma Smith. The press release alone is ‘wanky’ enough for me not to even bother talking about it; “This painting is not mine, not about me… It’s an allegory of being” The Company gallery was showing some work that’s not really worth mentioning, neither is the work at the Andrew Kreps gallery or ‘Envoy Enterprises’.

The Pace gallery had an exhibition featuring Tim Hawkinson, full of all these bizarre machines centred on clocks. Kind of weird but kind of interesting too. There was also a piece called Signature which was literally signing the artists’ own signature continuously, which is a fun thing. The Nathalie Karg gallery had work by Dorian Gaudin on display which was enticing, sculptural wall pieces full of aluminium and rivets were being shown alongside a kinetic sculpture that was moving around the space, disrupting ones view of the wall works, which was an interesting choice. I liked it.

The final gallery that I’m going to mention is The Kitchen, which had an exhibition featuring a few favourites of mine. From Trevor Paglen’s photograph of an undersea cable tapped by the NSA to Jennie C. Jones’ sound masterpieces. Christine Sun Kim was also present, who I’m a big fan of.

Alongside this overwhelming number of exhibitions, I went to two performances. The first was called De Materie at the Park Avenue Armory. It was a very weird experience, at one point one hundred sheep swarmed the stage and were directed by a flying, brightly lit blimp for a good 30 minutes. Although this wasn’t the worst part of the experience, it did make me feel incredibly uncomfortable, thinking about how the sheep had obviously been transported into the city to be kept in an incredibly unnatural environment before being shuffled onto a stage where a group of voyeurs watch and laugh at how stupid they are. There was also an incredibly distressing ode to Mondrian, where a ‘Mexican Wave’ was involved alongside the spinning of coloured pieces of card. I did not enjoy the two hours that I spent in that room. Also, when it ended, many people left before the performers had even finished bowing and hardly anyone clapped. The embarrassment from being a part of the audience was devastating.

The second performance was a lot simpler, Repercussion at Dixon Place. It featured three men who spent the hour interacting with and dancing around a drum kit. I enjoyed the beauty of the dance and the incredibly visceral nature of the choreographed routine.

Since coming back from New York I haven’t really done much, mostly catching up on lost sleep and relaxing. I watched season 10 of Trailer Park Boys which was well done as well as season 2 of Daredevil, a lot darker and bleaker than the first; in a good way.

I’ve watched a number of films, Down Terrace was classic Ben Wheatley fare; I’m really looking forward to watching High Rise. Suffragette was okay, but not that amazing, and didn’t really push me to sympathise with the characters enough. The Walk was a bit weird, having the story narrated to me from Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s position on top of the statue of liberty was slightly off putting, the green screen getting a little laughable at times. The final film (I know I’ve been sorely lacking in film watching) was Hotel Transylvania 2, not as ‘original’ as the first one but still enjoyable to just relax in to.

I did play a really interesting video game called Firewatch. Within it you step into the shoes of a man (Henry) who’s recently taken a job as a fire watchman in the ‘Wyoming wilderness’ due to his wife suffering from dementia. Henry wants to escape from it all. One could describe it as an exploration game (or even a ‘walking simulator’), as the majority of the gameplay is spent navigating through beautifully rendered forests and caves, slowly learning the different paths and routes around the map. I feel that this is a slightly derogatory statement though, as the story does an incredible job of drawing you in within the first five minutes and there’s a variety of mechanics that stop the game from simply being a ‘walking sim’.

Whilst you’re traversing Shoshone National Forest, your character begins to form a relationship with his supervisor (Delilah) via a walkie-talkie. This for me was an intriguing plot device, one we’ve seen in many films, from Phone Booth to Play Misty for Me, but one that was enhanced by you actually embodying this character, rather than simply watching it on a cinema screen. On top of this, the fact that you don’t actually see another human-being (up close) until the last few seconds of the game did well to enhance the feeling of loneliness that occurs, adding to the escapism aspect of the story.

Due, in part, to the incredible voice acting, I found myself forming a connection with Delilah, a connection that was cut when the video game ultimately ended, revealing to me that this character that I had shared around 4-5 hours with, was, in fact, escaping from her own past and her own self, like my character was. Reflecting back on my experience, the little vignettes of information that you acquired throughout the game hinted at this, concluding for me that the central theme for the game is escapism and that some of us just need time to reflect and consider what’s actually occurring within our lives.

It’s definitely worth playing, and falls (for me) into the ‘video games as art’ category, alongside The Beginner’s Guide, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and Journey.

Oh and I’ve come into a dialogue with a third year called John Hui who I’m going to collaborate with on his end of year show, which is kind of exciting. I think the work is going to be somewhat centred around video games and dreams, which is kind of exciting.

This one and a half-ish week period has been packed full of stuff that I’m going to slowly digest during this holiday period, picking out a few of the artists to write about in my essay as well as just considering what I want to create whilst I’m at uni next term.

Thank you for getting to the end of this, my biggest and 95th blog post.

Enjoi.

Monday 21 March 2016

Martin Creed, Unknown Knowns and Greyson Perry

I’m currently writing this on a plane, which is kind of exciting; mostly because I’m going to New York and partly because of that enticing idea of ones perceptions being distorted and altered when you go about regular activities in irregular locations. In terms of my week, it was mostly centred on documenting all the work that I had created this term, something that’s boring but necessary, although sometimes when you take pictures of your work you do learn more about it, but mostly it’s an annoying process.

I managed to photograph pretty much everything, using the white walls of the studio to my advantage. All the images are on my main website if you want to take a look: http://www.bobbicknell-knight.com/

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to decide on how I wanted my fabric/tripod set up to work, so that will be something that I’ll return to when the new term starts. I did experiment a little with the layout, considering whether to attach the tripods to the wall or not, etc. It was also suggested that the tripod may be the wrong item to hang the fabric from, and that a CCTV camera mounted on steel would be more appropriate. I’m still considering this, and have many weeks to do so before I return to the work.





I also had my end of term review, which was mostly positive and went well. That was that.

Other points of interest this week was going to a Martin Creed talk, which was more of a performance than a knowledge enriching hour and a half. It was enjoyable, but I feel that it was only good because it was Martin Creed. After the first ten minutes it slowly dawned on me that it was a performance, so I slowly closed the lid of my laptop and embraced the middle aged man playing guitar for what it was.

Annabel Frearson gave the artist talk on Tuesday, which was maybe the best Chelsea talk this term. Lots of the work was looking at text, deconstructing whole books and slightly distorting them. She seemed particularly fascinated by the novel Frankenstein, which was never really explained or questioned. A particularly hilarious piece, called Rotten Tomatoes Review, involved the paying of a magazine to write a review for I, Frankenstein. The harnessing of a magazines reputation was an interesting idea, and something that I may look into doing.

This idea leads into thoughts that I’ve been having after reading into Constant Dullaart’s High Retention, Slow Delivery that I mentioned last week. Since then I’ve been looking at how to buy followers or likes on Instagram, alongside how to become one of these people who are payed to follow people. The idea of buying reputation, fame or interest is really interesting and I want to look into different ways to do this, be it buying ad space or something else, à la Jeff Koons. What I would be effectively ‘selling’ is another thing to think about. Maybe it’s something just to think about, and will never transform into work, who knows.

I went to a few seminar/lecture type things too, the first being called Feminisms – Arts of a Woman. It was interesting, and more of a conversation than about gaining any additional information. Dialogue is always good though. Later on in the day I went to a drag panel, featuring a number of people, one of which was Grayson Perry. I found it to be an interesting compliment to the feminist panel, giving multiple sides to a complicated story. I’m unsure what my position is on matters such as these, but I feel that educating oneself is always helpful, and being able to join in on the conversation is fundamental for growth.

At one point during the week I went to the Jerwood Space to experience two film works. I really enjoyed The Eye That Articulates Belongs on Land by Karen Kramer, which looked at the ‘re-wilding’ of the landscape around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor. Some really still, beautiful shots occurred, alongside the unique use of a smashed HTC phone.

On another day I went to a terrible theatre performance at the National Theatre called The Solid Life Of Sugar Water. The plot was terrible, the set was terrible, and the music was terrible. Everything was terrible. I will never get that hour and a half back.

Since being in New York I’ve been to a few galleries/museums, the Brooklyn Museum being the first one. It had a bunch of different shows on, all quite basic/boring work. The highlight was seeing The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, and how bad it was. The cliché-nuss of the whole thing was a little too much to handle, the amount of feminist imagery was overwhelming and way too obvious for me. There were a few other exhibitions going on there, mostly photographic works which were kind of dull and only pertinent because of the locations that they were capturing through a lens. It feels like a lot of the time work is simply about being in certain locations, with the locations making the work important, which is kind of dull to me. It’s like when young people take a gap year to ‘find themselves’, relying on the location to have some significant effect.

I also went to the Museum of Arts and Design. One of the highlights was an exhibition called In Time (The Rhythm of the Workshop), which mostly consisted of video works and an installation called The Speed of Markets by Varvara & Mar. The work contained seven metronomes set to follow and translate into rhythm the real-time trade volume of the stock markets, which was kind of exciting. On top of this I went to a, shall we say unique (for me), exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum centred on Masonic and Odd Fellows Folk Art. In one way it was incredibly boring whilst on the other hand it linked quite well into my screenshot pieces, thinking about how much information/meaning can be embedded into symbols within paintings or sculptures. It was definitely a weird thing.

During the week I managed to see a bunch of films, Johnny Mnemonic being the first on the list. It had a lot of interesting ideas, similar to all the other films about virtual reality or ‘exploring the internet’, eXistenZ, Strange Days, etc. The next film was Hotel Transylvania which was a lovely little animation. Videodrome was a beautiful experience, one which I was surprised that I hadn’t experienced already. The parallels to Solaris (the proper version) were interesting to consider. A few years ago I watched the first twenty minutes of Cosmopolis and just stopped watching because I hated it so much. After re-visiting it this week I can appreciate it slightly more, but it still comes under the banner of ‘white men debating the meaning of life’, similar to Waking Life, Knight of Cups or Youth. It was one of my more negative Cronenberg experiences. The Irrational Man seemed to be a pastiche of the shit films about university, philosophy students and having a relationship with your tutor. It slowly began to be interesting, with odd things occurring throughout, but I still couldn’t get over the overtly cliché nature of the whole thing. Everest was obvious from the beginning (spoilers) everyone dies. Jurassic World was a nice call-back to the first film in the franchise, and was overall a light and enjoyable affair. Finally, I watched The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, which was an increasingly quotable piece of education, but maybe too quotable. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I’ve heard Zizek being quoted so many times before that I feel that I wouldn’t want to reference him even if it was appropriate to do so.

Oh and during this holiday period I really want to build a NewHive, experimenting with the layout and the opportunities that the website allows; I think it’s definitely an interesting platform to explore. Alongside that I want to work on my collaboration with Laila, so that it’s finalised before the offsite shows in a month or so.

During the next week I intend to go to many galleries and see many exciting things. I look forward to this enriching experience, before going home to a place where no art can be seen for miles and miles.


Oh and I’ve 'officially' finished with Snapchat, so during the next few weeks I’m going to put all of the footage together and create the film, which will probably be around four hours long. I am, however, still on Instagram.

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Sunday 13 March 2016

Liam Scully, Éloge de l'amour and Jack Brindley

Many things have occurred this week, from going to a variety of exhibitions and an artist talk to progressing forwards with my own works. I feel that it’s been a good week, steadily moving closer to the end of term with projects coming together and the last delights of London being used to their full potential.

In terms of my own work, I’ve begun to transform the data works into more substantial sculptures whilst also enhancing the relational aspect of the work. This has manifested in the form of forcing multiple blocks (or monoliths) together to create a wall/tower of some sort. This within itself is simulating the form of a data tower or cell tower where data is communicated – personal and impersonal – between different sets of people. I also installed an external charger within one of the blocks which allows participants of the work to charge their devices whilst they interact with the work. This slightly reminds me of Alex Dordoy and his work Consumer (MacBook Pro) where he embedded a MacBook pro in a plinth-like structure. I think that this a really interesting progression, moving from the individual bricks on the floor to the delicate yet strong tower that holds a range of private information. By adding external charger to the work I feel that it gives the viewer an incentive to investigate what’s going on, even if it is to simply gain free electricity. 

I did experiment a little with adding colour to the assemblage/sculptural works, but it slightly took away from the dull/raw aesthetic of the objects. And who wants to paint anything anyway?

After a lot of thought this week I’ve decided to simply use one image/video per USB stick. This is a direct reaction to how I’ve been feeling about stealing people’s data, dirty and uncomfortable. I hope to rectify this by using someone else’s picture that functions as if it could be mine, or anyone’s; a ‘traditional’ image, if that’s the right word. The video/photograph that could be from anyone’s collection, one that doesn’t actually identify any of the individuals that are caught on the camera but simply embodies your own experiences, or, in actuality, my own. To say ‘everybody’s experiences’ would be entirely wrong, maybe ‘every middle class person’s experiences’ for lack of a better explanation. These clips are chosen because of the affinity that I have to them and the mixture of private/public inherent qualities that are present within them. People will still be very welcome to add/take away/delete files, but now there will only be one per USB to view. Although the lack of files within the different USBs will definitely discourage participants from adding to the work, I think that this is a small price to pay to feel better about robbing people of their data. Although information is beautiful (David McCandless) it is also cheap and easy to get a hold of, something that Constant Dullart makes clear through his piece High Retention, Slow Delivery, where he bought over two million Instagram followers, distributing them to a range of prominent people in the art world.

In this last week of uni I hope to make two more of these towers, to re-reference the three monoliths in 2001, three monoliths made up of many monoliths within themselves. To have created three would also be interesting in terms of installing the work for next terms offsite shows, as they would affect the way in which one explores the space, slightly mimicking Jack Brindley and his installation Untitled (Handrails). This work forces you to navigate the exhibition space in an unnatural way, simulating the ‘digital shepherding’ that occurs on the internet. I like this concept, even though at The Ryder the installation didn’t really force me to walk around it in a distinctly ‘different’ way. I do like the concept though, that is intriguing. A concept that I may choose to appropriate as my own.
In terms of my screenshot assemblages, I’ve been making ‘leaps and bounds’ this week. I moved away from the idea of hanging the fabric from two television mounts, as that felt too literal, too obvious – it’s already a screengrab of a screen, I don’t really need to make it even more evident by hanging it from the mounts. Instead of this I decided to use camera tripods, which brings the concept back to surveillance and the voyeuristic nature of surveillance in general. I’m also a big fan of Rear Window, and even though James Stewart never uses a tripod in the film, I still think it’s relevant to the work – someone being able to see everything but do nothing. Kind of like everything really.

I also had one of my images printed out fairly large onto paper, just to see how it would work. I really enjoyed how it turned out and seemed to work a lot better than the canvas works did. Although I can now look back at the canvas pieces as a failure, I feel that I can still incorporate them into the installation, be it by showing the progress/process that occurred in the lead up to the ‘final piece’ or for another purpose entirely. I have vague plans for the ‘test’ large scale image, maybe crumpling it up into a corner or something similar… As of this moment I’m unsure of how to proceed.
I also made some progress with the collaboration this week. I began to combine the various videos that Laila and I have been creating, making a sort-of narrative. This is what I have so far, which is in itself the very beginnings of a thing. I am thoroughly enjoying working in a collaboration though, sharing thoughts and being honest about the work that you both create for one another is an interesting experience. The very monotonous scrolling through of the 3D Warehouse reminds me a lot of Camille Henrot’s Grosse Fatigue and parts of Lucy Clout’s Warm Bath that partly features various videos of a man filming a drainage ditch, twice a day, every day. The repetitive nature of this is overwhelming to say the least, something that we may (or may not) be attempting to reciprocate in our own video piece.
As well as this I made an incredibly didactic film about bitcoin. It’s basically a compilation of various YouTube videos, each of them attempting to explain what ‘bitcoins’ are, how they’re used, etc. These videos act as voiceover to the ever spinning bitcoin coin that’s on the screen. This isn’t quite a ‘finished video’ just yet, but will become one soon. The idea initially stemmed from encountering people who didn’t actually know what bitcoins were, which blossomed into this un-interpretative, extensive and repetitive way of informing people. The video is around two hours long and will (hopefully) be incorporated into my installation for the offsite show. This concept of an assemblage that I’m playing around with in both of my projects at the moment was best summed up this week when I saw an installation at the Cabinet gallery produced by Ed Atkins. It was basically four different things placed in a room, all responding off of one another. It formed a collection of sorts. The compilation aspect from my video comes back to what I was thinking about a few weeks ago, where every artist has to make a compilation video during their life, whether they like it or not. I think that this ‘bitcoin compilation’ is a much better idea than my previous one, collecting all the times where someone in a film says the films name. This new concept is a lot more suited to what I’m interested in and a little less basic and ‘BuzzFeed-esque’. In a video piece by Louis Judkins, the different production companies of various films keep popping up in an endless cycle, which leaves the viewer to wait for a film that will never start. This is an example of an idea that was better than my own, with ideas surrounding capitalism built into the work from the ground up. Unfortunately I'm yet to upload a more 'up to date' version of my film, so you'll have to make do with a very early version.
Oh and I also started a new project; buying different domain names and having them re-routed to my own website, creating a ‘domain dynasty’ if you will. For the moment I’m collecting names that are very similar to the most used sites on the internet, like Facebook or YouTube. I think that this is an incredibly humorous way of ‘claiming’ various parts of the internet as your own. I hope to continue to accumulate these domain names, adding to the piece over time. This comes back to the idea of data being cheap and easily gotten, buying your way to ‘fame’.
I had my last lecture of the term this week, which was looking at The Emancipated Spectator and Jacques Rancière. Although it was an interesting talk about the viewer and emancipation, I’d already read a lot of the books mentioned, including T.E.S, Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship and The Society of the Spectacle. So it was more of a re-hash than a presentation of new ideas/information.

On Tuesday the artist talk was actually good at Chelsea, after two weeks of not going because it was literally figurative painting it was a relief that the artist, Colin Priest, was in fact interesting. Lots of his work was centred on interacting with the community of a given place, gaining commissions and being invited back for more. This way of working, coming into a community as an outsider to create something that’s personal to a location reminded me of a lot of different artists, but in particular it made me think of Spotlight and all of the things that was said of ‘the new boss’ of the newspaper, coming into a place as ‘a Jewish man who doesn’t like baseball’ – ‘shaking things up’. I did enjoy the series of installations that he created under the title Flash Fog, where he built an environment for people to manoeuvre through and interact with, but I’m unsure if the idea of the commission is something that entirely interests me; it feels very commercial, an incredibly obvious thing to say.

We also had a lot of discussion this week focusing on the offsite shows, and even went to see the exhibition space that we were able to secure. The space is quite awesome, with white walls and concrete floors, and big enough to house us all, located in Dalston. We’re slowly moving towards an overarching theme for the exhibition, which was helped further by having the discussions surrounding what to do for the essay with the same people from my exhibition group. This is another aspect of my week which went well, finding a (loose) title for my essay; when did the future become a dystopia? How technology and the internet is viewed in today society. This is, as I say, a ‘starter title’.
I also went to various exhibitions this week. I feel that this term I’ve probably been to less exhibitions but have been a lot more careful about which exhibitions I’ve actually been to. This ‘quality control’ has saved me a lot of time from going to galleries filled with paintings but has used up a lot more time researching the different spaces and the different exhibitions that were occurring in each.

During the week I went to a range of second year offsite shows, with a variety of results. It was more of a relief than anything, seeing how bad (or how good) different people’s work was. It’s kind of obvious really, but comforting nonetheless. The only work that I really loved was the video piece that I already mentioned that had been created by Louis Judkins.

In terms of ‘professional’ shows I went to the Photographers Gallery, which was incredibly dull and disappointing as usual. The only highpoint was the Media Wall, which featured a variety of videos using PowerPoint, considering the platform as a place to create work, which was interesting. Another – small – enticing element was the interactivity of the slide projectors on the second floor. You were allowed to turn them on after they had turned off after a certain amount of time. How exciting…

I then went to Pilar Corrias which was showing a film by Rirkrit Tiravanija called Chew the Fat. I haven’t seen a lot of his work, apart from the relational stuff he’s most known for, so it was refreshing to see this video piece, discussions with artists and collaborators about their practice and what interested them. As I was right next door, I had to go into Carroll/Fletcher again, which was as good as it was the first time I visited Neoliberal Lulz. I’ve also heard that Eva and Franco Mattes will be having another show their soon, which is a truly exciting prospect.

Raven Row was next on the list, with a retrospective of Channa Horwitz’s work. The details within the assortment of works was incredibly precise and elegant, but – to me – it had no real substance. The colourful lines were fun and aesthetically pleasing for the eye. From there I went to the Cabinet Gallery, which had the aforementioned Ed Atkins assortment of assemblage. I did enjoy the use of the live Sky News broadcast. I’m very wary to whether or not you’re officially allowed to use such a thing as the connotations are so broad. I did enjoy the whole production though, in a stand-offish way.

I then walked to Modern Art, which had a group of sculptures accompanied by music, a collaboration between a poet and an artist. It was the kind of work that I might have loved a year ago, but now, not so much. The use of ‘live’ wax did remind me of Urs Fischer and his installation of continuously melting wax sculptures at the Venice Biennale in 2011, a work that I loved at the time. After Modern Art I travelled to Beers London, for a show dedicated to some quite dull paintings… Studio Leigh had some cool glass sculptures which were hung from the ceiling elegantly. It was more technically impressive than anything else.

Carl Freedman was next, which had work by Tori Wrånes being shown. The performance work (from looking at images online) seems amazing, whilst the sculptures/installations/paintings that are left over are not as exciting. I did enjoy some of the subtler things happening in the exhibition, an always-spinning cross embedded in a painting as well as paintings embedded within beanbags. Both intriguing elements. From there I went to Kate Macgarry, which was pretty much glorified pottery. This was the same for Betty Woodman’s exhibition at the ICA, So many fucking pots. Since when did pottery become art? Did I miss the memo?

After that I went to the Laura Bartlett gallery, which Becky Beasley turned into a sort of ‘mini-retrospective’ for herself. Taking old pieces and re-working them, using the space to try out new ideas interwoven within old artworks. I didn’t really like the work, but I enjoyed the idea of re-working old work and doing so in a gallery setting. I’ve already talked a little about the Ryder gallery, which was really quite good, work about the internet that wasn’t being shown on a screen. This small show gets a thorough recommendation from me. Campoli Presti was on the same stretch of road so I went there, and, to my surprise, paintings were being shown. Exciting.

Union Gallery came next, with a very well put together idea by Liam Scully, taking all of his meta-data from Facebook, reclaiming the data that’s stolen from you by Facebook every day. The drawings that occurred on top of the data wasn’t really my thing, very simple childlike drawings, but I enjoyed the concept enough that they weren’t too much of an issue. Another good exhibition was Iain Ball at Cell Project Space, considering the relationship between being shown a space and being inside that same space. It consisted of a video of a constructed space which was accompanied by the space in real life at the gallery. This duality, between the screen and real life space reminds me of Nam June Paik’s very simple and brutal work titled Three Eggs, where a real life egg is monitored by a camera and transmitted live to a nearby monitor. I find these concepts and considerations very interesting.

Seventeen gallery had a show of paintings, where some of them were actually good, curated by Gabriel Hartley and Rhys Coren. I remember Hartley giving a talk at the beginning of this term which was vaguely okay, vaguely. I don’t know whether I consider them to be paintings, but Letha Wilson had some work there, which is always good to see. I’m a big fan of the embedded images, especially when they’re incorporated within the space. The final gallery of the week was Limoncello, which had a film (that I’ve already mentioned) by Lucy Clout, whose work I actively like and want to see more of. This is discouraged by the lack of an internet presence, which is always annoying.

I’ve also consumed a number of films this week, starting with The Wind Rises and Ponyo, beautiful films from the genius that is Miyazaki. After watching all of his films now, I still think that Spirited Away may well be his best. Mad Dog Time was this week’s choice for film club, which was a very weird and humorous experience. Definitely not a film that I would have seen of my own accord, which is obviously a good thing. Watching Freedom Downtime just made me slightly depressed and reinforced how fucked prisons and the legal system is. Strange Days was interesting, and reminded me a lot of David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ. The concept of ‘plugging in’ to a space was explored a lot better in Cronenberg’s film, the classic ‘gross parts’ of Cronenberg’s films are always delightful to watch.

I wanted to watch many of the Coen Brother’s films, as I decided that I hadn’t seen enough of them, so I watched Burn After Reading which was hilarious and great, then Raising Arizona which was more fun than anything else, then Inside Llewyn Davis which I wasn’t that fond of. It missed the dark undertones of a classic Coen Brother’s story for me.

Thelma and Louise was next, which is always good to watch now and again. I went to the cinema to watch In Praise of Love (Éloge de l'amour) which was a mind-fuck of a film. I literally have no real idea what happened, it started with a documentary about a painter for some reason and then the film started again with the title card! I was outwardly shocked and worried about what kind of film I’d come to; I have no idea what happened. The accompanying text slightly helped, but it still felt slightly impenetrable to me. Maybe my mind is too dulled by popular culture to understand the true depth of Jean-Luc Goddard’s films. 99 Homes was an interesting side dish to The Big Short and Margin Call whilst The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (my final film of the week) was as dull as part one.

Umm, I think that’s my week.

The seven days that lie ahead are going to be full of admin things, showing the work that I’ve made this term to a group of my peers and filling out various forms. In a week I’ll be in New York City, which is exciting, gorging on all the art that is going to be available to me. I’ve been researching a range of galleries, with Laura Poitras’ exhibition at the Whitney being a highlight, alongside many others. I thoroughly look forward to it.

Enjoi.

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