The majority of this week has been
focused on admin based activities, creating a portfolio of all the stuff I’ve
done since Christmas for uni assessment and just making sure I have everything ready
for installing my work in the space during the upcoming week. A few exhibitions
were also involved alongside watching the new series of Master of None and indulging
in a bath bomb that I haven’t used since Christmas. I know, it can’t get any
better than this…
After being told last week that I
secured the fairly large space I began to embrace the idea of holding a
mock/not so mock solo show, starting with the task of putting together a press
release. So far this is what I have, obviously not finished but you get the
idea:
It’s always a little weird writing in
third person, but in this case I think it’s necessary. I’m still thinking about
the name of the show, as Reliable Trends
isn’t that great. I need something that combines the idea of capitalist underpinnings/underlying
nature, referencing utopias both in video games and in books, with virtual
worlds as escapism accompanied by the automated future that’s going to be security
and surveillance obsessed… If you have any ideas throw them my way.
As you can see from the
work-in-progress map/work list I have about ten different works, which does
feel like a lot, but in reality because things like the tarpaulin floor and the
extension cable are considered to be ‘artworks’ I don’t think it will be that
packed. The main attractions will be the VR artwork featuring GTAV and the big
video piece, now titled Zo. I also
thought to include the video Automated
Compression (the one looking at airports/Friends as that’s fairly recent and considers future spaces/future
ways of living, so seems to be fairly pertinent.
I also decided what to do with the 3D
printed Bitcoin finally, building up on last weeks idea of putting the little
blue people on it like a raft, attempting to strike out from their capitalist
ways by grabbing a hold of the life raft of a future economy. It’s also nice to
have multiple pieces (I think) that utilise the blue figures, making that a
general theme of the show alongside the blue tarpaulin pervading everything. So
far the blue figures feature in Extended
Self and Life Raft, although I’m
thinking of making the door stop into an art piece within itself (basically
spraying it blue and having little figures sitting on top of it). Although that
may be pushing the metaphor too far!
I realise I haven’t actually talked
about why the blue tarpaulin yet, or at least why tarpaulin specifically other
than that it’s a fairly cheap and easy way of covering a large floor area. Blue
is obviously capitalism being embedded within the very fabric of the planet,
from the infrastructure that we rely on to navigate through the world to the
supposedly free governments that are obviously motivated and controlled by
money. Now, why tarpaulin? The product is arguably best known for being used as
a shelter, both as a roof of a makeshift house or to cover your car to protect
it from the elements. I’m utilising it as a platform, with the different works
being displayed on top of the material rather than beneath it, shielding the
work from the ever pervasive eye of capitalism whilst using it as a barrier
against itself. It’s basically being aware that it’s both an all encompassing system
(which could be seen as either a negative or a positive) whilst at the same
time being a protector, that being within this system affords certain privileges,
allowing access to various environments and activities that I wouldn’t have if
it weren’t for capitalism.
As you may also have seen on the above
press release, the blow up stools from last week have developed into custom
made bean bags. In reality, stools are shit. No one wants to watch a video on a
stool or a bench, so the bean bags will hopefully be inviting enough for people
to both enjoy the video and the VR for various lengths of time. I utilised some
of the images I produced for the Sketchup Residency last year to print onto the
bean bags, digital collages that involve various images, from Ready Player One to Shadow of the Colossus, Invasion
of the Body Snatchers or various other video games and snapshots from the
3D model that I ended up producing for the res. I just sowed the fabric
together tonight and will be packing the balls into the custom bags tomorrow. Here’s
a little image I posted to Instagram of the fabric prints before sowing:
The model of the building arrived
earlier in the week. To my dismay it turned out to be very small, around 8cm
cubed and in parts. I had assumed it came pre-made, but obviously that was very
naïve of me. I spent a day gluing the thing together, with the final outcome
actually looking quite nice. At the moment I’m considering putting a sound
piece inside the structure, or maybe simply a light and drilling some holes so
that it will shine out of the windows or something… Something to make it more
of a thing rather than simply a structure that I bought online… The building is
a depiction of what a future building will look like, a habitation block where
people are crammed in and kept in a tightknit community.
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been
putting together a bunch of pages for assessment in a week or so. It’s supposed
to be a document containing finished works alongside moments of reflection and
research. At the moment I’ve been going through all the work I’ve made since
January and just putting it into A4 pages to be printed. Basically my website.
It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, producing a portfolio of
sorts, so it’s actually really beneficial to do. Here’s a bunch of the pages so
far:
I’ve also written a slightly updated artist
statement:
I’m a London based artist and curator working in installation,
sculpture, moving image, net art and other digital mediums. Online and offline
surveillance accompanied by the consumer capitalist culture within today’s
society are the main issues surrounding my work in association with current and
future utopian environments, the continued automation of our daily lives in
relation to the internet of things and the various cultures associated with
online communities. I explore these ideas by using tools and technologies which
are relatable but not restricted to art, usually having been made readily
available via the expansion of the internet. I work with a variety of materials
to fabricate my ideas, from found objects to video animations and digital
prints.
By the end of this week for uni I need
to write an evaluative report, finish the document of work and begin thinking
about my dissertation. The last few films to do before the summer will be a
dissertation hand in thing, where I have to write about 500 words outlining
what I want to write about alongside a dissertation presentation that will
happen next month on the 6th or something. Basically, there is not a
lot to do left… Fuck this year has gone fast, although a fuck load has changed…
Hmmm I don’t think anything else
related to my art has happened this week… I’ve kind of given up on the blue
acrylic piece. I didn’t want to, but it slowly just got worse and I didn’t have
the skill to actually make it look great, so I assume it will eventually fall
into disrepair.
I had an extensive meeting with Adeeb
this week, someone who’s curating a week in the future on isthisit?. We talked about how I should have a time plan, 6 months
in advance, considering the magazine and offline shows, alongside making the
magazine a mostly digital thing, selling it for about £2 or so online as a PDF
and creating 20 or so physical, premium copies, to be ordered only when 20
people had ordered them. It’s an interesting plan and one that I’m still
thinking about. I definitely need some sort of business plan where I at least
break even or make some sort of profit which could go towards paying
artists/writers for future services. God, services… We also talked about curating
a show together over the holidays in July/August time at SET in Bermondsey. So
that’s two vague offline shows in the future now, one with Adeeb and one with
Compiler.
The production for the second issue of
the mag is going well, people are still applying to the open call which ends in
less than a week! I need to email more people, I need more people to apply, I
need better artists involved, etc, etc… The USB drives are going well, Charles
Richardson has pretty much finished his and Owen Thackeray has sent
work-in-progress models through. I’m still waiting on lots of other people
though, about 4/5/6 others. I think that’s a nice amount of people. Do I make
my own one too?
Someone, yet again, dropped out of
curating a show so I’ll be curating next weeks exhibition. I’ve already
contacted a bunch of people, now I just need them to reply! This week was Jacob
Watmore with a pretty basic exhibition featuring one video covering the entire
page. And that was it. I’m looking forward to his notes on the show. As always,
see it by going to www.isthisitisthisit.com
What else, what else? I think that may
be everything from my week with regards to art generation. Now for the exhibitions
I’ve seen, or have attempted to see, during the past 7 days, beginning with
Jerwood and the exhibition Neither One
Thing or Another. A few weeks ago I visited, but was unable to fully see the
show due to it being made up of 2 fairly long films, the main one was about 40
minutes long whilst the other was only 20. The main attraction for me was
Lawrence Lek’s piece Geomancer, for
me a reference to William Gibson’s famous cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, although in this case the geo may have references to
the method of geomancy whereby you interpret markings on the ground formed by
thrown detritus. Within the exhaustive film an autonomous artificial intelligence
considers the limits of their intelligence, reflecting on the past from the
year 2065, where AI artists have been banned from exhibiting. It’s very dense
and contains some beautiful ideas. Today was the last day of the show, but you
can go here for a little more information on the piece - lawrencelek.com/geomancer or go and see it
at the Hyper Pavilion in the Venice Biennale...
Speaking of Venice, I’ve been
incredibly jealous of everyone at the opening ceremonies of the biennale, scrolling
through my Instagram feed, seeing what I’ll be seeing in a month and a bit. I’m
incredibly excited and look forward to a time when hopefully I’ll go to Venice
as part of my job or something related to my job, to these opening ceremonies
and shows of extreme wealth, basking in the sun and the money being exuded.
I attempted to go to a bunch of private
views on Thursday evening, but there were many problems with the tube that
evening, so I ended up only going to one; an exhibition at Assembly Point
called Obscene Creatures, Resilient
Terrains. Why haven’t I been to this space before? It was a duo show from Eva
Papamargariti and Theo Triantafyllidis, artists who share an interest in future
utopias and science fiction imagery. The main event was a three channel video
piece from Triantafyllidis showcasing a 3D rendered landscape apparently
progressing and learning in real time, much like Ian Cheng and his simulation
artworks, constantly changing and evolving. It’s a fun show, although fairly clichéd
in relation to sci-fi futures. Very nice animations and some lovely aesthetic
prints.
On another day I went to Gasworks,
another first. They had two shows on, one was an exhibition of work by Filipa
César and Louis Henderson, considering various lenses, their archaeologies and ideological
approach behind their manufacturing in the western world. This manifested
itself as a number of tables with various ephemera marked as research, obscured
and confused by glass Fresnel lenses, alongside a film that apparently details
their journey, from being created to being exhibited in galleries or light
houses. I only watched ten minutes or so. A very clean exhibition.
In another show in the same building an
incredibly interesting piece was being performed and continually re-worked by
the artist group Itinerant Assembly. The one week event, (play)ground-less: hollow tongues, is focused on a sound piece and
VR artwork embedded within an immersive installation that is apparently
re-worked and changes as the week long project continues, giving each
participant a new experience. You walk into a darkened room, seeing pillows and
two headsets. You strap on and a group of women begin to speak simultaneously
into your ears and around the room. The four artists are based around the
world, each presumably hooked into an internet chatroom where they’re reciting
a script that supposedly changes as the week continues. The content that you’re
seeing through the VR device is apparently changing too, beginning as fairly
basic objects in a room, slowly gravitating and changing into more impressive
3D graphics. What was it actually about? I don’t know, other than there being
lots of evocative imagery of tongues and bubbles repeatedly moving and the
sounds of the artists fumbling over their words in my ears. I’d go and see it
whist it’s on, as a live VR experience is incredibly unique…
Next up was Newport Street Gallery with
a solid show by Ashley Bickerton. Lots of sculptures about money, lots of stuff
about the mass of a thing, incredibly well made sculptures of sharks and
sculpted ogre like heads. It was fun enough, although the annoying element that
threw me was being asked to put my backpack in a locker. Obviously this just
annoys me from the start, am I not trusted to not knock into incredibly
expensive artworks with my bag? This would have been fine, but then you had to
deposit a pound to use the lockers. Who carries around physical money these
days? I ended up simply stashing my bag in an open locker, which is just
annoying and affected me throughout my viewing experience of the work. So, even
though it was a good show, I didn’t really feel like I could stay long enough
to actually absorb the work because of the stupid regulations, thus taking over
this whole text that was supposedly going to be about the artist and their work…
I then went to the ICA. I’m kind of
annoyed that I forgot about the PV for this one, due to the ICA always serving
literally thousands of Peroni on their opening night. The artist Stuart
Middleton did a classic, albeit great, thing where one considers the institution
and wants to strip it back, showing the insides of the space whilst reflecting
on what the history of the space was, and is maybe still a part of. Basically he
completely stripped both the downstairs and upstairs galleries, taking down the
false walls and exposing the crumbling paint work and electricity boards,
erecting a floor of creaking wooden planks and opening up the entire downstairs
room. That was it in the downstairs area, whilst upstairs there was a stop
motion animation of a model dog whining and sounding vaguely persecuted being
projected onto the wall. Pretty great stuff.
Another exhibition in the exposed wall
gallery was a series of woodcuts from Frans Masereel’s wordless novel The City, basically depicting every day
life within an unknown location. Quite beautiful, incredibly evocative and
obvious scenarios that echoed everyday life for the average individual.
After that was Tenderpixel with a
packed show where each artist had been presented with the book, The Queen’s Gambit, a novel which tells
the story of chess prodigy Beth Harmon’s rise to fame in chess tournaments. It’s
quite a nice conceit for a show and works quite well on a surface level,
although I unfortunately haven’t read the book so was a little lost at times. A
really fun idea that was slightly lost on me.
I then made the trip to Camden Arts
Centre. Another new space for me, surprisingly, as it’s had some amazing shows
that I have missed and is actually an incredible space, holding reading
workshops and pottery classes. They had a number of exhibitions on, the first
being a show from Martine Syms presenting her great video piece A Pilot For A Show About Nowhere, which
sees Syms deconstructing and analysing popular, predominantly African American,
tv shows and adding in her own narrative to imagine, as the title suggests;
what would happen if her life was a tv pilot. It’s like this, but less shit
than I’ve made it sound.
There was another, more extensive show,
featuring Geta Bratescu. She was born in 1926, I think I’ve said enough.
Paul Johnson also had a solo show
there, basically depositing the bulk of his studio into the modest exhibition
space. This seems to be a trend in the art world that’s been going on for
years, simply using your studio as an art piece. However, it was done very
well, utilising cargo boxes that also seemed to be art to create this totem
like structure in the middle of the space. Other than that there was various
detritus, the door of the studio, many prints outs and layers of concrete
alongside tables and general crap. It’s good but obvious, deconstructing your
practice, etc.
From there I went to DRAF (David
Roberts Art Foundation) that was having multiple shows, one that had been
curated by another gallery space called Kunsthalle Lissabon with a bunch of
sculptural and video work that felt slightly dated. You begin by walking
through various dining tables set up as if the products on them are for sale,
past a room with orange lights and (assumedly) an image of the planet Mars
being projected onto the wall. A particular fun piece saw the viewer turning
into the participant, being asked to climb a set of worryingly wobbly stairs in
order to see a triptych. Fun but felt a little 1960s.
The other exhibition there was called (Enter – Greek chorus into the echo chamber)
and I was presented with a bunch of sofas creating a lounge-like vibe accompanied
by a series of digital prints, fun textile like sculptures and a few video
works. I didn’t really know what to think, it was very emotional, very in your
face. One of the videos by Casper Heinemann saw (presumably) the artist speaking
at you, at the viewer, through the screen, attempting to penetrate into you, to
get into your mind. I forget what was said.
Raven Row was next, with a bit of a disappointing
show. From the website it seemed like the whole space had been turned into an
installation, with various artists involved. In reality it, yet again, felt
very 60s, vaguely immersive environments full of rust and torn bed sheets and
fluff. To fully ‘get’ there shows I always feel like I have to be there for
hours when in reality I don’t have the time to indulge myself in a show like
that when it doesn’t immediately interest me. Maybe this is incredibly shallow
and conforms to the classic cartoon where someone is going ‘why can’t I
understand this piece of art in 2 seconds that someone spent their whole career
working on’, or something like that…
One of the pieces there was quite
incredible though, unsurprisingly from Martine Syms again with a piece titled An Evening with Queen White which
involved a three screen installation made with a 360 degree camera, with the
piece installed in the top floor flat of Raven Row, which is a pretty iconic
space. The piece involved an improvised monologue consisting of conversational
dialogue interspersed with a fictitious character partly inspired by Syms’
great aunt playing various instruments. It’s very good and the installation
pushes it into great territory. Syms’ does like her impressive video
installations. Highly recommended going to Raven Row for this piece alone.
I then attempted to go to Union
Pacific, which turned out to be closed. If you say you’re open on a Saturday
until 6, be open until 6 on a Saturday. Don’t not be open for unknown reasons.
The same thing happened with Castor Projects
when I attempted to go today, although this time it was my fault, as the
exhibition ended yesterday…
After this I went to Carlos Ishikawa
for a solo show by Evelyn Taocheng Wang, which was pretty cool. The space had
been painted a light green, filled with living room lamps and very subtle
watercolour paintings on the walls, hung with bulldog clips. There was a table
with desk lamps and a scroll, also painted green, but my favourite part of the
show were two video pieces focused on the artist and a series of nearly naked
models. I’m not totally sure I understood what was actually happening, various figures
performing whilst being seen to be performing. It’s an interesting show and you
should go.
The last show of the week was Vitrine
gallery featuring a large scale print by Kate Cooper. She was making some
interesting correlations between jellyfish and the time it takes to render a
CGI image, but the lack of video work kind of got to me. I’ve always wanted to
see her films, so a severe lack of content was annoying. In saying this, I
think an interview with her is being included in the next issue of the
magazine, so that’s kind of exciting…
Now for films and tv, beginning with Furious 7, a beautifully terrible film.
When a film involves a car driving off of one skyscraper, crashing into
another, then into another, you have a certain type of film. However, I am a
big fan of The Fast and the Furious:
Tokyo Drift (I’m aware some people hate the film) and enjoyed the call
backs to that film. It is what it is, a terribly great film.
The same goes for the latest iteration
in the franchise; The Fate of the Furious,
although I think I liked 7 more than 8...
Glengarry Glen Ross was great, lots of hustling, lots of business
talk, lots of shouting. The whole film revolves around a cold calling office
and ‘leads’, phone numbers to call that will hopefully lead you to a sale. The better
the lead the more likely it is that you’ll be able to sell to them. It was very
well done.
Finally got around to watching 13th, a documentary about the
prison system in the United States and how they’ve been slowly distorted to
work against African Americans, pushing them into prisons for profit, etc. It’s
pretty great, as you probably know as it’s a fairly old documentary. Watch it
if you haven’t.
Oh I also watched Guardians of the Galaxy 2. It's pretty good, although I think I preferred the first one; more planet hopping, more character development, more interesting ideas... Although tiny groot is brilliant.
Moving onto tv with Master of None season 2. A beautifully
sad experience, beginning with the main character Dev, enjoying his time living
in a small city in Italy. The type of place where everyone knows everyone,
leaving your bike unlocked is normal and saying ‘hi’ to everyone you see on the
street because it’s a friendly place. The narrative soon moves away from Italy
and brings Dev back to New York, an unfulfilling job and a woman to fall in
love with. Utterly heart breaking and incredibly beautiful. Go watch it,
please.
I also re-watched all of season 1 to
prepare me for season 2. Unneeded, but a great watch all the same, updating me
on the various characters back stories, etc.
The final viewing activity of the week
was Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On,
basically a look at the various avenues of the porn industry and how the
internet has affected it. From the advent of free porn viewable online to cam
girls, etc. It’s an interesting watch, well considered and well researched,
etc, etc, etc…
I think that’s it? I have all the
content for the show, I just need to collate it together into a well curated
experience, filling out various forms and other things. I also feel like I need
to make a new piece of work, although maybe I’m a little busy right now and
should wait until uni is over to embark on anything new… Hmmm… Anyway, next
week it’s my birthday on Sunday, so there may or may not be a blog post. I
guess we’ll wait and see…
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