Monday 26 February 2018

Stine Deja and Marie Munk, Digital&Dead, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that’ and Genital Jousting

When I actually get around to updating this on a weekly basis it always feels like I don’t do much, simply because of how quick a week goes by. 52 weeks in a year, last year I wrote 26 blog posts, in 2016 I wrote 38 and in 2015 I wrote 83. So far I’ve written 4, this being my 5th of 2018. It’s a slow decline I guess, although I’m not sure why. Anyway, this week, a finalised list of artists for the exhibition next month and for the upcoming book, a nearly finalised PDF of the book, ahead of schedule, a new didactic video work, the finalised AI work and some new sculptural plans. Oh and another severe lack of shows seen, Saturday exhibition days are slowly becoming a rarity I guess, but then so is everything else. Let us begin at the late hour of ten o’clock at on a Sunday night, how fun, I am hungry.

So, I managed to finish the AI piece earlier in the week, ready for assessment and to be group critiqued. I think the video has come together well, like a wave washing over you and there’s nothing you can do about it. This bot foretelling your past failures as a species with no real way of changing this. There was one very clever thing brought up in the group crit, one remark that really intrigued me, the idea that the piece is a piece of education for a future race. Obviously that was the intention with regards to an AI reflecting, but less education and more informing. The wooden benches however, seem to emulate a V&A style school field trip, or something that you’d perhaps see in an old museum. It’s an interesting perspective and may have potentially ruined the work for me, maybe, although I like the idea of educating people and this does give a new dimension to the work, I think I’d have liked to make the install ‘better’, more educational I guess. Anyway, I am happy with the work, the cable tray works very well and the overall aesthetic is solid. I think for my next ‘major’ piece I want to make more of a thing of the installation, although that will potentially be my ‘degree show’ piece, thus something that will potentially ultimately end up skipped and too big to fit anywhere. Anyway, I’m yet to take proper pictures, but here’s one, also here’s a link to the full film: https://vimeo.com/257068701
I also this week put together a new video work for an online/downloadable project currently being put together by Wade, a friend and fellow curator. It’s a simple video, wondering what happens when we die, what happens to our data, questioning whether it was ever ours in the first place with relation to the documents we aimlessly scroll through when we accept terms and conditions. It utilises imagery and the music featured in Life is Strange: Before the Storm alongside other pieces of found/video game footage, driving in GTA5 and shooting an innocent bystander, the emotion drained from the scenario. For me it’s quite an emotional piece simply because of utilising footage and music from LIS, although no one else will understand that, something I haven’t truly built into a work for quite some time, not since I made sculptures. It’s odd, but nice I think. It’s here anyway, a very short piece, under two minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YohYeOmbWJk
I’ve also been thinking about new work, even though I’m currently studio-less. I’d like to utilise old elements, mostly screen stands that have previously been used to show iPhones and tablets, but will now potentially be used as sculptures, windows into the screen, into the internet, into the future. That could be a nice series of works. But yes, for now, no studio so no physical works, maybe it’s time to make more emotional videos…
Other than my own work I’ve still been working on the book, with only a few more artworks and essays to add in, then I can start adding the page numbers and sorting the thing, then I can order a draft copy and begin this process. Although, I’m still doing an interview and haven’t even started one with Harm, so hopefully I can get on with those. Anyway, here’s some more pages and an example page or two of how the essays will look, giving space to the words to actually breath as opposed to all the other issues.


I finally announced the exhibiting artists too, it’s been an interesting journey of curating, but I do think it’s going to be a thoroughly successful show, I have enough artists and artworks to fill the space, now I just need to get it and do it. The show is titled ‘I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that’, quite an obvious title for a show focusing on AI, but fun nonetheless. It’s the stereotypical response from Siri when she doesn’t understand what questions you’re asking her. It encompasses everything that the show is about in a very succinct way without being too wanky. The final artist list includes !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Anne De Boer, Bora Akinciturk, Dominic Dispirito, Emma Stern, Iain Ball, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Marie Munk, Olga Fedorova, Sarah Derat & Rachel McRae, Stephan Backes and Stine Deja. So, a lovely list of national and international artists, London, New York and all the others. Here’s the Facebook event, please do come to the private view on the 22nd March at Arebyte Gallery - https://www.facebook.com/events/150302102309286/
What else? Not much actually, I continue to work about two days a week at Annka’s, I’m enjoying it and learning a lot. I really need to start naming my files better, that seems like one of the many keys to success…

Other than kind-of making art, writing emails, putting the book together and interviewing people, I did go to one or two shows this week. Everything is now opening up again after Condo finished, so that’s positive. Let’s begin with Stine Deja and Marie Munk at Annka Kultys. Obviously as I work there I’m now predisposed to like it, but I did actually of course like it. I’ve been a fan of Stine’s for a while now, her videos are consistently great and her installations aren’t as good as her videos, but still fun. For the show she’d made two new videos, one long one about AI assistant devices and one focusing on a newly born AI robot learning to sing the popular 80s song ‘I wanna know what love is’. Now, this piece wasn’t headphones, so after listening to the song all day yesterday I can happily say that the song stands the test of listening to it for 6 hours on repeat. I preferred this piece from Stine, it was simple and effective, seeing the learning process first hand with a bunch of embedded ideas of learning to love as a human and a bot. The other piece felt a little disconnected, a little overly complicated perhaps? Marie’s work is fantastic, silicone veiny blobs that vibrate and massage. You sit on this huge blob whilst watching the longer video. It’s very fun and works well as a fleshy alternative to Stine’s technological mechanical future. A very good show. They’re both in the upcoming show, very exciting.

On Wednesday I went to a talk at the South London Gallery about digital death, where artists Rachel McRae and Sarah Derat discussed with curator Samantha Lippett what it means to die online, who has access to our social media accounts when we die offline, what happens to all that information? They also have a fantastic piece that concerns this, an AR artwork that’s activated by large stone slabs placed on the floor. It’s very good. It was an interesting talk, more a discussion than a talk, with people sharing their thoughts on loss and what it means to die both in the virtual and in the real. What intrigued me was the segment of people who came to the event, seemingly ‘real’ people, not just art people. One woman came who worked in a hospital, another a middle-aged man who’s been asked to make a website for a friends deceased son. A very interesting and diverse crowd. I really like their work and they too are in the upcoming show.
The final exhibition that I went to this week was from Erica Scourti, a solo show at Studio RCA Riverlight. It’s an interesting, quite small, space, that’s located in a very fancy part of London. Right by the river (as you may have guessed) and housed at the bottom of a very tall skyscraper like building, akin to Arebyte’s new space. The show was fun, walking in you encounter one room with custom wallpaper, made up of scans of the artists emails and other ephemera. A seemingly very personal giving of ones soul I guess, that of all the content from your email inbox. In the other room was a video work that was incredibly hard to hear at the private view. That showed Erica talking to the camera, at various talks and panel discussions, thinking about her access and the automation of work. It was fun but I do need to go back. Erica is also in the upcoming issue!
Let’s do films, although before that I need to eat, and it’s only 11 o’clock, time for a break… Okay and we’re back for quarter to 12. So, films, I’ve slightly gotten back into it with films this week, it’s hard to not be sucked into a YouTube hole sometimes, but films and TV is commonly considered more worthwhile I guess, even if in the future this will not be the case. Anyway, The Death of Stalin was very good, incredibly funny and just very on point. Once Stalin (spoilers) dies, everyone begins fighting for the leadership, which leads to serious consequences but they’re just so bumbly about the whole, akin to Blackadder I guess, that it just becomes hysterical. Very well done and highly recommended.
Mute was a major disappointment for me, the new sci-fi film on Netflix directed by Duncan Jones. I loved Moon, of course, and very much enjoyed Source Code, but we won’t talk about the World of Warcraft film. I hoped this would be a return to form for Jones, but in reality it just felt like a bunch of sci-fi cliches thrown into an overly complicated plot that just kept giving you too much information. It became confusing and ultimately kind of dull and awkwardly acted. You could see the ‘twists’ coming from a mile off and ‘angry’ acting was just laughable from Paul Rudd. Yeah, I’m not angry just disappointed. Maybe I’ll re-watch Moon to see an original storyline with a proper twist!
Atomic Blonde was fine, MI6 agent in Berlin during the cold war. Fun but ultimately I will have forgotten I’ve seen it within the week. Not dull, just very much ‘seen’ before.
Brigsby Bear on the other hand was a beautiful film about a man called James whose obsessed with this children’s TV show about a bear. It feels like, at first, the film is set in the 90s, but within the first five minutes it’s revealed that in actuality James had been kidnapped at a young age and told that the outside world was a sort of apocalyptic environment deprived of oxygen. The rest of the film sees him sort of assimilating to the outside world, being with his real parents and hanging out with his sister who’s a teenager. It’s quite a beautiful film actually, seeing his naivety play out accompanied by a heartfelt story of semi-abuse, but nice abuse, wanting to keep James safe rather than keeping him in a box. Yeah, just great.
Mayhem was fun but dull, a virus spreads through an office block, causing everyone want to kill each other. The main character had just been fired and now is fighting to get to the top to eventually kill the boss. It’s fun and dumb, nothing to shout about.
Suburbicon was highly disappointing and seemed like the literal epitome of a white person seeing a situation and making the film about white people rather than black people. The first scene sees a black family move into a sprawling idyllic 50s suburb, everyone is white, cheery and happy. They move in, everyone starts looking at them and it’s of course super weird. Then after five minutes of this the camera pans back and focuses on their neighbour, one of the white families who are in the process of being robbed. The film then continues to focus on the white family whilst the black family have a weird and interesting sub plot occurring in the background. Throughout the film I was thinking, you have literally put the black people to the back of the film and focused on the white people, it may work within the context of the film but in reality the trials and tribulations that the black family are going through would be a lot more interesting to delve into, a lot more than a small sub plot allows for! The main plot was just kind of dull, I dunno, I like Matt Damon as Bourne but lots of the other things he’s in it’s just sort of meh. When’s the next Bourne film coming out?
The final film was Last Flag Flying, the new Richard Linklater film out on Amazon Prime Video. First off, who knew there was going to be a new Linklater film? Surely this should have been advertised a lot more? It came out about a month ago and literally went over everyone’s heads, was it even out in the cinema? It also features Bryan Cranston, Laurence Fishburne and Steve Carell, all men, but famous men, surely more people should know about this? Just very odd. Anyway, focuses on the transporting of a son’s body across the US killed during the Iraq War in 2003. Very sad and some solid acting, not fantastic but still. Everybody Wants Some!! Was misogynistic as fuck and it got more ads/press.
Oh and I also watched Back, the – vaguely – new TV show starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb. It’s fun, focusing on a sleepy village where David runs a failing pub, his father dies and Robert returns to the village after having been one of many foster children that the father had adopted for a short time during his youth. It’s tight and funny, not as tight as Peep Show (of course I’m going to compare it to that), but definitely worth sticking with. Like a dreary, sleepy enjoyment…
Ah plus, I managed to play a quick video game called Genital Jousting. It’s quite hilarious, as you may learn from the title, featuring a story and a party mode. I played the story mode, which puts you in the shoes of John, a character who needs to find a date for his high school reunion. Obviously, a simple story, however, John is a penis, and so is everyone else in the world of GJ. Everyone is a penis and it doesn’t get old, you bumble about your apartment, go shopping, type on your keyboard at work. It’s very fun and dumb, in a good way, and I’d highly recommend playing or watching a let’s play. I want to play more games, as a treat I’ve bought myself Horizon Zero Dawn, a game which will assumedly take me many weeks to complete, especially as I play about 1 hour or so a week, and that’s being ambitious…
Anyway, I think that’s it for this week, ultimately a slow one with not too much progress. In the coming week I’d like to begin making some new work, potentially some small sculptures from various metal/tech implements, finalise all of the parts of the magazine that I can finalise right now, continue to promote the issue and get more pre-orders, maybe think about new video work and begin planning April’s online show, which I’ll be curating I think. Oh and press release text for next month, plus more work at Annka’s. *Sigh*

Monday 19 February 2018

Copperfield Gallery, isthisit? issue 4, Arebyte Gallery and Eddie Peake

Another two weeks, another busy two weeks. I’ve continued to work on the video installation responding to my recent piece of extended writing with bots whilst working on issue 4 of the isthisit? magazine, getting more artists involved and working on the launch and exhibition event scheduled for the 22nd March next month, which I’m yet to officially announce. Let’s begin.

So, new work, continuing to build the installation that I’ve been talking about for a little while now, involving benches, a video, a metal cable tray and connected headphones. I’ve successfully built all 5 of the benches and pretty much finalised the installation, with the cable tray resting on screws coming out of the benches and the TV connected with a ‘heavy duty’ metal table mount. The benches are made from layers of MDF, digital prints, acrylic and metal false bitcoins. They look like this:
Alongside the install I’ve continued to work on the video, which is pretty much done now. I just need to spend about 3 or 4 hours editing in the voice fades. I think I’m happy with how it’s progressed, not copying the essay but working off of it. As I mentioned before it takes pieces of the text and builds off of them, influenced by the conversation I had with the bot whilst taking inspiration from the fictionalised years since then. The imagery goes through various iterations, from video game content to different points of AI currently being developed alongside this female disembodied voice, digitalised due to the bot no longer striving to become human but being content with how they sound in a distinctly robotic way. I’m happy with it and hope it’s received well.
Within my own work I’ve mostly been concentrating on that, which is a slight shame. I should be doing more for my own practice, and think I will get back to that soon, making some more physical things and perhaps some digital stuff. After using predominantly found footage for the last two big video works maybe I should begin to work on something I’ve produced perhaps, alongside making some physical works that stand by themselves. Let’s see what happens next I guess.

I’ve always been continuing to make my false studio spaces, who knows where that’s going.
Other than my own work I’ve been mostly concentrating on the next issue of the isthisit? magazine, issue 4 to be exact, focusing mostly on AI and cryptocurrencies. It’s a lot more focused (I hope!) than the last issue, which was great but packed full of people and sort of lost focus I feel. This next issue will hopefully be more considered and tighter, with a shorter list of artists and some incredible writing from a bunch of people that I’m still in the process of collecting. Here’s the front cover, with some great work from Pakui Hardware:
Right now the issue is made up of the following artists: !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Aaron Vergult, Addie Wagenknecht, Anne De Boer, Ben Richards, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Bora Akinciturk, Constant Dullaart, Eleanor Hill, Elvira Højberg, Emma Stern, Eva & Franco Mattes, Harm van den Dorpel, Iain Ball, Jakob Kudsk Steensen, Jamie Jenkinson, Jillian Mayer, Joachim Coucke, Joey Holder, Jonny Tanna, Joshua Citarella, Julia Faber, Mathew Zefeldt, Mathias Jansson, Mit BorrĂ¡s, Nina Coulson, Olga Fedorova, Pakui Hardware, Sarah Derat & Rachel McRae, Stephan Backes, Thomas Grog, Thomas Grogan, Thomas HämĂ©n, Trystan Williams, Wade Wallerstein, Émilie Brout & Maxime Marion. Although hopefully there will be a few more added to the list in the next few weeks before I have to send off for the issue to be printed!
I’m currently going for the simple approach with the design, a white background to not overcomplicate things and a black line with multiple arrows coming off of it that connects each of the pages. The more I work on the pages, the more I like this simple way of connecting all of the works, similar to an AI infecting everything it touches, having everything as one. That’s what I was going for anyway with the design, and hopefully it allows the works to flourish themselves. Also, less people means more space devoted to the different artists, which I think is incredibly important.

After a meeting last week I’m also incredibly excited about having the launch and accompanying exhibition at Arebyte’s new space on London City Island. They’re being incredibly lovely, both giving me the run of the fairly large space as well as giving me £500 to work with for the show, which will mostly be spent on buying 100 copies of the magazine, actually coming to a little over £600, but as (I think) I’m taking all of the money that’s gained from selling the issues, I should actually potentially make a tiny bit of money after factoring in however much the exhibition will cost me to organise among other things. So that’s something else I’ve been planning, which is obviously complicated and tough to organise when a lot of the artists in the issue are not UK based and I have pretty much no budget when shipping works. But anyway, that will happen. Right now artists I’ve signed on are Iain Ball, Jakob Steensen, Sarah Derat in collaboration with Rachel McRae, Dominic Dispirito, Bora Akinciturk and Anne De Boer. Incredibly male heavy right now, which does need to change. The current plan is to open up the floor of the space, as the floor is elevated slightly from the original floor by about a foot. This would expose the wiring, mimicking the wiring/lines exposed in the magazine as well as allowing the floor to be stacked, creating plinths for some of the works and enabling seating to watch some of the videos too. I’m still searching for more people to be involved in the physical show, but I just need to send more emails and pester more artists. The dream would be to have work from Lawrence Lek (who was in the last issue), as well as Pakui Hardware, Joshua Citarella, !Mediengruppe Bitnik and others, although right now that probably wouldn’t be functionable as shipping works is expensive. I’ll be combing through everyone involved in the next week or so though and have a final list very soon.

What else? That may potentially be it right now, I have to hand in everything for assessment on Wednesday this week, more uni stuff, so after that I’ll be free to continue working on the issue and creating new work. I guess now I should start focusing on making work for the ever important degree show? Anyway, let’s move onto exhibitions seen, only a few which is a continual shame. As I now work at Annka’s on weekends it slightly cuts into my usual gallery routine.

Let’s begin with Eddie Peake at the White Cube, creating an audio enticing experience, especially for the private view. The space felt a lot more like a club than a private view, with live DJs in a glass booth playing garage in the largest of the four galleries in Bermondsey. The space is full of coloured lighting, so as you walk in it feels like you’re walking into a club, with tinted lights and loud music, the only negative here being that you’re of course not allowed drinks in the gallery space. The actual content of the exhibition was okay, with the same spray paint artworks on show displayed throughout the space alongside a winding sterile metal doctor’s tray spanning the length of the gallery. This housed a number of sculptures made from goo and 3D printed plastic, which I did like, splitting up the space and allowing a dialogue to occur between the space, the sculptures and the live music. It’s definitely worth visiting, especially to see the White Cube having a vaguely enticing show that attempts at least to walk out of the white cube gallery.
I also visited Copperfield Gallery to see a big group show curated by Doug Bowen for Cactus Gallery. Now, on principle I highly dislike Cactus Gallery, simply because of the affiliations that Joe Fletcher Orr (the director of the gallery) has regarding sexual ‘deviancy’ for lack of a better word and not exhibiting female artists. That’s crap and, having spoken to female artists who’ve had ‘encounters’ with Joe, seems to be quite well known. But, as this show was curated by Doug Bowen and had nothing to do with Joe, I felt it okay to go. It also featured artists I’ve worked with in the past and artists I admire. Anyway, the show worked around the idea of mantels, and having artworks displayed on a series of custom built ones, a fairly basic conceit that allows for basically any small artwork to be featured. Taking into account the show featuring 27 artists (this is in one middle sized zoom with 3 mantels) it has definitely achieved this idea of cramming everyone and anyone into the show. I’m kind of okay with this though, as it works, the show looks aesthetically pleasing and not overtly packed, or super packed and like someone’s mantel. It’s a win-win situation. Some stand out works for me were from Liv Preston, Debora Delmar, Ashley Holmes and Luke Overin. It’s a nice list and you should go if you like looking at well-made objects with no real connection other than being all kind of the same size.
Next up was Beers Gallery and their group exhibition Contemporary Visions 8, a continuation of them finding the ‘best’ artworks and current trends out there, assuming that you’re okay with paying an entrance fee for the curators to take a look at your work. So, this included work from Jiyoung Yoo (someone I’ve worked with in the past and actually exhibited the same work on show) and another interesting artist Oli Epp, who makes kind-of interesting paintings in a style evoking perspective and crafting an internal dialogue between a series of created ‘characters’. They’re fun but it’s an odd gallery.
I then went to Modern Art to see a solo show by David Altmejd, quite large wall based works made from (I assume) heavy blocks of resin. They look incredibly heavy and very expensive, mediating on the artists hand in the experience of art making, so lots of scratches and indents, simple and outwardly ‘clean’ indentations on these oddly messy but not messy artworks. I liked some of them, I enjoyed where they were heading with alternative narratives (I think) but some of them felt a little wanky, busts of women, etc.
From there I travelled to Seventeen Gallery which had an okay exhibition featuring three artists, Victoria Adam, Gabriele Beveridge, Richard Paul. So, Gabriele Beveridge I kind of like, blobby sculptural works mimicking consumerist products exhibited on shop fittings. I’m happy with this type of work. Victoria Adam’s plaster ironworks displayed on the floor however were ugly and uninspiring. I couldn’t tell what these were about and why they were on show. Richard Paul’s 3D film All that is solid was fine, but using 3D glasses still feels incredibly gimmicky to me, with this being no exception.
That may be it for art, a pitiful amount of shows, although perhaps I’ve lost a few press releases and have forgotten what I’ve been to. Either way, I feel like I’ve gotten a little lazy perhaps…

Let’s move onto films and TV, that could potentially be good, beginning with the incredible Phantom Thread. The film is quite beautiful, incredibly tight filming and attention to detail with ludicrous scenarios and varying depth. The film involves a dress maker in 1950s London, an odd setting for Paul Thomas Anderson, although this simply shows how incredibly diverse a director he is. It centres on the dress maker and the relationship that he then has with a young woman he finds whilst on a short holiday break. Things get very weird and interesting, exposing the layers of the characters involved and showing their ‘true selves’ as the film continues. Definitely go watch it.
When We First Met was terrible, of course, a Netflix film that should never be watched by anyone.
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) was fun, definitely worth a look if you’re involved with the art world, mostly concerning an old artist having delusions of grandeur about his work and seeing his life slowly fall apart. It’s funny and sad, not as good as The Square though.
A Futile and Stupid Gesture was fine, concerning a dramatized biography of Doug Kenney, the writer of Animal House, a hilarious comedy that was shown to me by my father when I was fairly young. Kenney died young and hasn’t really been recognised for his talents, but that’s what happens when you die young I guess?
The final film was Good Time which basically involves a terribly planned bank robbery that just spirals into a pile of shit. Whilst watching it you’re deeply afraid and concerned of what will happen next, what will this crazy individual (played by Robert Pattison) do next to somehow help his mentally handicapped brother. It’s kind of fucked but a very well done film.
I think that might be it for films. I’ve gotten into watching Mind Field, the YouTube Red series by Vsauce, which is kind of fun concerning various science based ideas and tests on subjects. Yeah, it’s fun.
I’m currently looking for something new to watch, something to hoover up and instantly regret watching in a week. I’m sure I’ll find something… That’s my way of saying that this may be it for the past two weeks, it feels like it’s been slow won reflection, but at the time I’ve felt incredibly busy. Maybe I’m becoming lazy. Either way, the plan for the next week is to gather everyone together for the show next month, inviting all the artists, sending all the emails and announcing the full list so that people can start planning on coming to the show. I also need to announce the artist list for the magazine. Putting together and photographing my new piece is also a must alongside beginning new physical projects. Just keeping on going and working at Annka’s too!

Sunday 4 February 2018

Lydia Ourahmane, Patten, a solo show, new work and more

Two week have gone by and a lot has happened, I handed in my dissertation, made new work, my solo show within the group show at Annka Kultys Gallery came and went, I got a job and I’m working on a few new projects too. Oh and I also had some time to watch a series and consume a film or two. How very exciting.
Let’s begin with new work, specifically the print I was working on two weeks ago, but printed out and layered in between two A4 slabs of acrylic and placed on top of some PC castor wheels. I named it Children Are Our Future, considering how the world is continually being fucked and we’re leaving nothing behind for the smiling young white girl in the piece. Or maybe it’s not so fucked?
I’ve also been continuing to create the fictitious studio space paintings. I’m beginning to enjoy this, creating a fictitious persona of a painter who has this beautiful space. I’m thinking of perhaps getting some of them printed and framed, and have opened up a new Instagram account solely for these false paintings about the future, automation, etc. For now I’ve called the artist Joe Chip, the protagonist in Philip K Dick’s Ubik. You can follow the process of creating this false persona by going to https://www.instagram.com/joechipstudio/
The Post 9/11 piece that I made for the Annka show is now up on my website, I’m super happy with how it’s turned out - https://www.bobbicknell-knight.com/post-911
The exhibition at Annka’s went incredibly well, I loved how everything in the space came together and it felt like a perfect amount of work to be in the space. An incredibly traditional feel to the show, but I don’t necessarily think that’s such a bad thing. 11 individual works, 12 in total. You can take a look at the photographs by going to my website here, they’re very good photographs - https://www.bobbicknell-knight.com/cacotopia-02
Ah and I also re-made the Guided Representation piece for the show, originally stored in an acrylic candy bin, I decided to make a small box out of MDF, going with the general aesthetic of the show being MDF. I think it looks a lot better.
In terms of more interesting new work, I’m currently building a video installation, bringing together the 3m long cable tray from last year, new prints on MDF made into a series of benches and of course a new video. The video is a continuation of my dissertation write up, taking snippets from the 6000 word discussion and diluting it down, keeping only the AIs voice as part of the piece, with the video being sometime after the discussion occurs, many years after, once humanity is long gone and only AIs remain. It takes snippets from the text and builds upon it, with the AI reflecting on our discussion. It involves a bunch of found footage accompanied by a slowly pulsating orb like object, representing the bot talking. I’m still working on the video, but I’m excited to see where it’ll go, here’s a taster:
For the install I’m building 4 benches and one TV bench, putting together a layer of MDF, the print on paper, and a layer of acrylic, screwed together to hopefully look incredibly elegant and crispy. These benches will then be attached to the cable tray, connecting them all together like a network, by physically connecting the benches to the tray, having the headphone cables running down it and by having the prints all ending with a connection to a networked world of sorts at the top. Here’s a little work-in-progress model:
The prints are all fairly similar, taking images from films, TV, videogames and the internet, blending various utopias, copyrighted content, stock images, etc to create a hyperconnected image of the now/near future. They’re all linked by having different patent drawings from (mostly) Google emblazoned on the front, already corporatizing the future market before the average consumer has had the chance to purchase, as all companies do anyway. Two of the five are drone patents, another a robotic dog, an autonomous car and a drone warehouse. At the top of each print, the part that connects to the cable tray, there is an image of a connected sphere, each one different, usually affiliated in some way with Bitcoin. All of this connectedness is hopefully communicating how AIs are hyperconnected beings, with the singularity seeing them all connected and as one. Then making parallels between that and Bitcoin, a peer to peer currency that relies on the users rather than banks to sell the currency.
Alongside this, real/fake bitcoins will be embedded ‘flush’ into the acrylic, so each bench will have a bitcoin or two, alongside one of them including a fake Donald Trump coin that I also bough, which includes Trump’s face. I thought that would probably be quite appropriate.
I think that’s it for new work from me, slowly figuring out what I can and can’t do. I’d quite like to make a new USB for this piece, but maybe not 3D printed as that’s fairly expensive, maybe carving something out of wood, etc, I dunno, something appropriate to AI. Perhaps it could be made from clay and painted? Yeah, let’s try that out this week. An incredibly human response to a piece about AI.

The open call for issue 4 has now closed and am currently aiming for a late March, early April, release date. I may have a venue sorted for it, although I’ll know more after a meeting this week. I’m still in the process of emailing artists and haven’t even started shifting through the open calls, but right now I have around 16 artists/writers and collaborators involved, a lot less than the previous issue, but I think I want this one to be a lot tighter, a lot more space dedicated to each artist and to actually properly explain the works. In previous issues it’s been a lot about throwing everyone I can find into the mix, now I want to be more considered. Anyway, I’ll release the artist list in the next few weeks, once I actually look through everything and email everyone back.
What else? More residents, more guest curated online shows, all that and more. I’m also in the process of planning a curated show at Annka Kultys, with an actual shipping budget and everything, but that will be in the summer and there’s a lot more to do with that in the coming months. For now I’m excited and have pitched a very vague exhibition idea considering the inherent violence incorporated within the corporation and AI systems. More on that when I know more.

This leads me onto another great thing that happened, Annka was saying how she was looking for a new intern and offered me the position, which I obviously was delighted to accept as it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, and Annka’s space is one of my favourites. I haven’t officially had my first day yet, that will be on Tuesday helping to install the last exhibition of the 5 week group show, so I don’t know officially what I’ll be doing. From what’s been said though I’ll be involved in a bit of everything, talking to artists, installing shows, invigilating, emailing press and uploading images to various websites. So yeah, everything that I’ve kind of done before, but now within a space that allows me to learn and work with other people. Unfortunately it’s unpaid, but that’s what I expected and am actually okay with, simply because I am of course still learning, plus I’m still a student and can afford to provide unpaid labour. So yeah, that’s exciting.
What else? I think that may potentially be it… Let’s take a look at the exhibitions I’ve been to over the past few weeks, beginning with Bloomberg New Contemporaries at Block 336. The yearly show of young artists willing to pay £20 to submit their work to have a slim chance of being a part of a large group exhibition in two different spaces across the UK. Bearing this in mind, I did submit this year, of course. But yes, I felt that the majority of the exhibition was fairly bland, with a few minor standouts and a couple of things that I hated with a passion.
One of the standouts for me was an obtuse film by Sarah Cockings & Harriet Fleuriot, focusing on a female character coming into contact with various objects and manipulating them in various ways, from being encased within a balloon to crawling through a tunnel opened up from a tiny nozzle. It was fun and a bit of light relief from the dullness. Also, after Googling Sarah Cockings, turns out she either has the same name as someone who won the lottery 10 years ago, or she is the person who won the lottery ten years ago. How odd.
Other nice work was by Felix Treadwell, Devlin Shea and Amanda Moström. Paintings and a lovely looking swing made from bronze.
I hated work by Rufus Roma Genn and Jake Elwes, Genn’s piece being an untitled concrete block which was so boring and terrible and Elwe’s having created a code that found the tweets from near the gallery and tweeted them live. Again, boring and not so interesting. Tech is not interesting alone, you must do something with the tech to make that transition.
I then went to Gasworks who had a solo show by Rachal Bradley, basically working from the idea of everything changing post 9/11. The space consisted of resin dripped onto the floor, an oversized washing machine and a negative ion generator, supposedly a thing that’s good for you? Anyway, I enjoyed the premise and having to take off my shoes, a little wanky though, although perhaps that’s a good thing?
Next up was Castor Projects with a solo show by Jonathan Trayte consisting of arcade machine esque sculptures, whereby you placed 20p coins strewn around the gallery space into the slots, making the different sculptures dance and produce ghost-like sounds. I liked the idea of this experience but it just felt incredibly ugly to me, the sculptures were really not my thing at all, alongside the space being dimly lit. If it had been a white cube I think they would have worked for me, allowing the work to breath rather than simulating the ‘grotty’ environment of an arcade…
I also went to Res, which was okay, not that exciting or enticing, lots of old work about mysticism, etc. The show was called Alembic I: Mystic Body, the first in a series.
After that I went to A.P.T Gallery for the first time as the exhibition, Expanding Systems, sounded interesting, exploring current and historic developments in generative art made by analogue and digital artists. It felt to me like an old person had curated the show, not because the work was bad, it just felt slightly ‘off’, the premise more interesting than the outcome, akin to when I first went to a show at Furtherfield and it was full of work that sounded really great, but in actually, it was new themes being worked on in an old light. It was good and nice to go there, but not necessarily delivering on its promise. I dunno, I wanted more, more of what I cannot say. Actually, looking at the press release, the fact that next to each of the artist names there’s a small Instagram logo (the old version pre 2016s change) and the artist’s Instagram name, that sums up how the show felt. Dated and not crispy.
Next up was IMT Gallery with an incredible array of tiny paintings by Paola Ciarska showing in small details the various spaces she’s resided in over the past few years. Truly, I wasn’t that interested in the concept of documenting places you’ve stayed, as that idea sounds incredibly cliched and tired, but the fact that those stories are on tiny pieces of board, that’s what I’m into. Yeah, into it, but not THAT into it.
I also went to the Hugo Servanin’s show at Annka’s last week. It was fun, these melting bodies of plaster, full of water, leaking onto steel trays. Not totally my thing, although looking at his other works where he’s dressed these fictitious bodies in clothing and photographed them like a fashion shoot, that’s a nice idea. In general though, unbrushed steel for me is an ugly aesthetic and dominates anything it goes with, which in this case was kind of unneeded I think.
Chisenhale Gallery has an incredible solo exhibition on show by Lydia Ourahmane, a very young artist (born in 1992!), whereby she’s slightly increased the height of the gallery floor, installing speakers underneath that reverberate across your back as you lie down to ‘feel’ the minute long song. On the wall is a tiny tooth, a scan of her mouth, a short page long text and a glass shelf containing passports. I won’t spoil it by saying how these items are connected, you just need to go and see for yourself.
My favourite show from the past few weeks was at Tenderpixel who opened a solo show by Patten. It’s a duo, mostly known for their DJing, who have branched out into ‘art’ producing a series of films, elaborate, roaring soundtracks and mini sculptures. The films are made up of clips from various sci-fi films, attempting to re-think the genre, taking it from a common dystopic view to a more utopian one, wanting to make it to the future rather than worrying about it. Alongside the show is a publication with various texts and images from a number of artists, all being asked the same question to respond to ‘how do we make it to 3049?’. It’s a lovely concept considering the current climate and I just loved the show, really impressive and I’m thoroughly excited for the next show there, a solo from Pakui Hardware, who I love.
Next up was a solo show from Thomas van Linge at J Hammond Projects, some beautifully made sculptures made from suitcases that you’d transport music decks in alongside a huge TV showing a video focusing on animated dinosaurs discussing the future tense. It was good, no press release though, why not?
I also went to Arebyte’s new space on London City Island for the first time for the group show ‘on my island none of this would be true’. I liked the concept, escaping the city, imagining this utopian island space where all these works would be able to function. Yet again though, I felt the show didn’t quite deliver on its promise, there was no ‘radical’ aspect here, it was still the same group show, there were sculptures on the floor and pictures on the walls. I dunno, like, if I travel an hour solely to go to one space, I want something from that experience, be that a free beer or a rewarding show, and I felt I didn’t fully receive either of those. But who knows, maybe it was because it was a busy PV and I couldn’t properly ‘see’ the work, alongside the space being placed in an incredibly wealthy part of London, which went against a lot of the themes mentioned in the press release. I’ll probably go back and check it out again.
I think that may be it for galleries. As I’ll be working on Tuesdays and Saturdays from now on I’m going to have to make more of an effort to go to spaces on Sundays and during the week. Anyway, let’s move onto films, beginning with The Square. A film that focuses on a head curator for a fairly prestigious contemporary gallery in Sweden. It’s a hilarious film, mocking the art world in an incredibly knowing way, focusing on ideas like the importance of social media, corrupting power, journalists, simple installations and performance art. It was just so good, so cutting and so tense. It’s a must watch if you’re at all connected to the ‘art world’. If not, it’s great anyway and you get a little look in to the mental-nuss.
Murder on the Orient Express was fun but ultimately not that memorable, some interesting characters and a fun PG experience. You know the story but it’s fun nonetheless.
I enjoyed Molly’s Game, an incredibly dissected look at the world of poker, and a fairly predictable rise and fall.
Wonder was a beautiful film concerning a young boy with a facial deformity, going to school for the first time, being bullied and overcoming his fears. I thoroughly loved it, even if it was quite predictable, and I am and (hopefully) always will be a fan of Owen Wilson.
The 5th Wave was incredibly predictable and not so interesting. A sci-fi with a very obvious series of twists.
Altered Carbon however, a fantastic new series from Netflix, set in the future where you can basically be immortal, transplanting your mind into different bodies, was great and I consumed the entire season in a day. I would highly recommend, so much occurs, a lot of well thought out characters with back story, developed roles and some solid fight scenes. Yeah, go watch it.
I also watched Downsizing, a film with a fantastic concept from a previously great director, which didn’t really deliver. It begins great, with the idea of reducing people’s size so they produce less waste being introduced, but then it kind of goes downhill, especially when a Vietnamese character is introduced to the plot with incredibly broken English, kind of a caricature of what you’d think a Vietnamese person would sound like. In the film she’s a political activist who is smuggled to America ten years before the main character comes into contact with her. She still, however, has a broken accent, so to me it feels unneeded and the actress Hong Chau could have simply used her own voice when in the role. I don’t know, it just felt really off to me.
Lady Bird was an incredibly beautiful film concerning a girl’s last year or so of high school before going to college. It was incredibly lovely, focusing on the relationship between her and her mum and the importance of people who love you no matter what. Yeah, I loved it, and think everyone should, it made me think of my mum, the importance of, and everything in between. Yeah, go watch it.
I think that might be it, apart from saying High Maintenance is of course great, alongside the new Star Trek that keeps coming out and The Good Place.
So, I think that might be it for the past two weeks. This week I have a few things happening, de-install tomorrow, as well as submitting a proposal for a show at uni, then Tuesday working at the gallery installing the show, Wednesday I’ll be at uni, Thursday I have a meeting and uni, Friday more uni, Saturday working at Annka’s and Sunday I’ll be writing this blog again. This week I want to begin making the physical works for the piece, potentially finish the video, start working on the next issue of the magazine, establishing the general aesthetic, as well as fitting in some other things in my schedule. Fuck.