Ah another two weeks gone, laziness
is all engulfing it seems. I’m progressing ever closer to the launch of the
upcoming issue, with one or two things still to sort out, but overall I’m
fairly positive about the launch. I’ve sent off for a draft copy of the next issue,
updated my artist website, embarked on making some new work and have started
playing a new, all encompassing, video game. Let’s begin.
Starting with older work, I
eventually got around to photographing my previous new piece, The oldest and
strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown, with a nice and crispy camera.
Here’s the result:
After talking through it more with my
tutor alongside a few of my peers, I think it had a fairly positive reception,
although I do want to move away from utilising plain wood for my next piece, it
feels like I’ve outdone/outgrown it at this point, and using it too much may
become gimmicky and overtly obvious. So yes, I may have to discard the sliced
wood at some point soon.
I’m currently working on two new
sculptures, kind of a progression from what I began to talk about 2 weeks ago,
utilising tripods and metal objects bought for holding various sized devices.
The work consists of two islands of sorts, two oddly shaped simple desk like
works that utilise a bunch of the objects that I’ve produced over the past year
or so, from the Bitcoin puzzle piece to the 3D printed Mario Kart shell. All of
the objects are placed on these desks, made from layers of MDF, digital prints
and latex, with the objects lightly embedded into the latex. The sculptures
become futurist, ergonomically designed spaces for current devices and
technology, made up of a drone, a coffee cup, SIM cards, puzzle pieces, 3D
printed objects and one or two other things. These are visions of the now,
which will become relics of the past, which the works are supposed to be I
think. Relics of the now observed from the future, which the layer of latex
covering the print being a sort-of essence, like a dust, covering the space,
although then the objects are embedded within. Maybe the objects should have a
layer of latex on them? Future dust. But yes, those are being developed. The
objects are all made, I just need to bring it all together, and print the
pictures of. Here's a sketchup model, I am unfortunately yet to document any work-in-progress.
I thought about what to do for the
prints for some time, considering the image collages/assemblages that I’ve done
for previous works, and trying to go down that path, but realising for the
piece it needed to be less complex, simpler and less in your face. So after
going through various options I settled on utilising some beautiful screenshots
from a video game I used to play as a child; Rez. You play as a computer
program, embedded within a machine that’s slowly being overrun by a virus, a
virus that you slowly eradicate as the game continues. It was incredible then
and still is to this day, beautiful and colourful. Anyway, this idea of
infiltrating a computer, destroying the negative aspects and considering the
past, I think that’s quite relevant to the work, so I went with that. These are
the two prints, although they will be sliced up as the island desk spaces and ‘blobby’
rather than rectangular.
I’m thinking it would be quite nice
to produce a small book of short quotes, poems, etc, of everything that I’ve
been considering relating to the future, with the text used in Rez as a direct
influence, as some of the quotes are incredibly beautiful. But that’s only a
small thing that I’m thinking about.
Alongside this I’ve been considering
new video work, and the degree show too, as I guess I should begin thinking
about that now, as it is important. The best idea would be to have a fairly
obvious thing, one room/space to myself, a press release, artwork on the walls
and the floor, a free-standing installation, video work(s), some prints or paintings.
But yeah, video work, I’ve been compiling lots of videos that feature connected
devices, specifically connected work spaces and the ever-evolving internet of
things. I’m not sure what it will be, but I’m working on it.
And I think that might be it for my
own work, I’ve updated my website, twice this week, as the first update was
okay but once I actually went back to it I realised I didn’t really like it
that much. Anyway, I finally realised that no one would actually be able to
sift through the amount of work on my website, the amount of text was a little
much. With over 50 or so projects there was no easy way to discern what one
might be compared to another. So I decided to add photographs instead of just
text, boiling down my practice to aesthetics, as no one seems to care that much
about concept (lol). So yeah, it’s easy to navigate (hopefully) and simple to
see everything that I’ve done since first year, minus all the other crap art I
made and scrubbed from the internet. Or just look back a few years on this
blog, up to you – www.bobbicknell-knight.com
In isthisit? news I’ve been continuing
to plan for the show, happily I’m adding Harm van den Dorpel to the lineup of
artists involved with the exhibition, which is super exciting, but I’m still
working out what to show for Iain Ball’s work, as his sculptures that I originally
wanted to show are trapped in New York. With no budget for the show I assume it’ll
end up being either a print or a video/sound piece, a shame as having them on
plinths created by opening up the floors would have worked incredibly well, but
with unfunded projects I guess you must adapt and change. So that will be this week’s
job, then installing next week, fuck! So yes, that’s moving forward, everything
else is going well, please do come if you’re in London on the 22nd -
https://www.facebook.com/events/150302102309286/
The book was sent off to print this
week, which is super exciting, coming to 290 pages in total, quite crazy and
stupid really. It’s going to be very expensive to print, lots of my own money,
which I was hoping to avoid, but I’ve already sold over 20 copies, so that
makes up for it slightly! But yes, very expensive, but I think it’s worth it
for something I’m proud of. I just need to find someone interested in
sponsoring the issue or something similar. I don’t know… Anyway, I’ll release
the PDF version after the launch on the 22nd, so if you can’t be
bothered with the physical version, wait for that, but the physical is much
better, so please do order a copy here - http://www.isthisitisthisit.com/issue-04
Anything else with art? Just minor
things for the future, still putting together the 6 months of digital art,
still waiting to hear back from the final artist who I’ve now met, which is
always super important. This coming week I’m recording the accompanying podcast
with Jim and Sid, which should be a fun conversation. I dunno, I think there’s
a bunch of little things that are coming up but don’t feel necessary to say. Ah
the final thing, a press release for the show, which is below:
‘I'm sorry, I
didn't quite catch that’, a statement of sorts almost ingrained into my mind
from wielding an iPhone with the in-built Artificial Intelligence (AI) known as
Siri for the past five years. This response, seemingly obtained by silently
murmuring into your microphone, will soon become an announcement of the past,
an anecdote that Millennials and early Generation Z’s will gleefully tell their
screen obsessed children about through their hyper realistic virtual reality
goggles, developed by Amazon and distributed via their nearest drone depot.
Exaggerated encounters with early AI assistants will proliferate these virtual
encounters, the augmented elderly telling of a time that saw Siri and Alexa
unable to participate in any given social situation. Simultaneously the
in-house AI will refill everyone’s digital glass, laugh politely at the gentle
mockery of their ancestors and experience a thousand similar scenarios
concurrently occurring across the globe.
A stereotypical
scenario akin to this one is inevitable. The introduction of industry 4.0 has
seen a revolution in autonomous production, the Internet of Things continues to
evolve, intent on establishing smart homes throughout the western world and our
lives continue to be shaped and quietly adjusted by unclear algorithms. Will
the autonomous world of the future be a utopian paradise, where intelligent AIs
and augmented beings work side by side, enabling the widespread adoption of a
universal basic income, freeing the world from jobs deemed repetitive and
tedious? Alternatively will we as a race eventually become irrelevant, catering
to our complicated human needs whilst mechanical robots rise up, conspiring to
push us into a new age of mass unemployment?
I’m still thinking about it, whether
it’s way too obvious or not. I guess that will be this weeks work, I’m thinking
of making it into a fold out pamphlet of sorts, or perhaps just an in half A4…
Let’s do exhibitions, yet again
sorely lacking. I keep having work on Saturdays and keep not motivating myself
to go and see shows during the week, which ultimately fucks me. Let’s start
with GAO gallery, space that I am now inherently biased with as a friend of
mine works there. They do continually do painting shows though, which is less
my thing. This one was a little more interesting however, a solo show from
Babette Semmer (the first from a female artist I might add), concerning various
scenes from throughout London perhaps, various locations, various inhabitants.
These were mostly paintings and small watercolours, which didn’t really do anything
more me because of the style I guess. The press release however was the most
interesting for me. It came in two parts, so the unwitting viewer may only pick
up one part of the write-up, which I obviously did. At first you read this text
about gentrification, about how artists play a part in that, fuelling and
providing for the wealthy. This, I thought, coming from a white cube gallery space,
is incredibly ironic. I then found the second part, which is written as if from
an alien’s perspective, discussing how it feels to be transported into a human’s
world, where gender is performed and artwork will be displayed. It felt like it
was drawing parallels between how alien the art world is to the ‘real’ world,
how gentrification is simultaneously seen as a reward and a curse, how everything
seems to be fucked. It’s worth going for the press release I would say.
Next door was Carlos Ishikawa with
Rose Salene titled All These Events Are
True, But None of Them Happened, consisting of framed false newspaper
clippings, events that had happened but weren’t advertised as such, alongside
multiple sculptural reproductions, McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, a slice of the
Oval Office and part of a McDonald’s bench. It seemed almost too on the nose
when considering this ‘post-truth’ world we’re in, almost too crisp. Hmm…
Then came Eloise Hawser at Somerset
House, the finalisation of a two year residency there investigating water, how
it flows through the city and our bodies, mixing the city/Somerset House’s
relationship with pipes and plumbing with our own bodies in a semi-scientific
sense. I loved the show, made up of some incredibly beautiful sculptural works,
very nice prints and a multi-screen simulation of the Thames.
Andreas Gursky at the refurbished
Southbank Centre was next, which was fine, good even. You know what you’re
getting with Gursky, you’re never surprised, which is fine. I’m just like,
yeah? I like the prints, I like the fabricated realities that are being developed
within his practice as he gets older, it would be fun to have a huge one in a beautiful
modern house. It would be fun to have all these things, but in the end they’re
photographs in frames probably more expensive than the photos.
Mark Dion at the Whitechapel was
fine, the birds in the cage are nice, but I had seen them previously in New
York in early 2016, probably wrote about it in this same blog. Of course, the
birds and books are different, but does anyone actually care about that? You’re
here for the birds, for the pictures, for the everything. Not that that’s a bad
thing, but maybe it is? I’m not sure. It’s this collecting and displaying that
is kind of fun but kind of not, best summed up by his Tate Modern project,
walking and digging up parts of the shoreline of the Thames, then displaying
them in a museum cabinet. Boring.
I went to a discussion with Ian
Cheng, Nora Khan and Ben Vickers about Cheng’s new show at the Serpentine, which
is fun. It features so many screens and various different forms of AI
creatures, all named BOB (Bag of Beliefs), made up of various tangents and
parts. Of course, I love the work and the idea of these digital creatures
slowly growing and changing as the exhibition continues, distorting when you ‘interact’
with them through your iPhone. It does, however, when you interact with the
beings, feel extremely gimmicky, holding a selfie stick with an iPhone
attached, seeing your face on one of the creatures faces, changing with your
fascial movements. It supposedly changes and responds to your face, but does
it? It felt a little like when someone used to tell you how a machine would be
able to do X, Y and Z, or when you were told that there would be millions of
planets to explore in No Man’s Sky when in reality there are, but they’re all
boring as fuck with no content. This felt like a lot of chat (and of course the
talk was fantastic) but right now with the small team of 20 that help
facilitate Cheng’s practice it feels like the goals of this project, to create
a being that changes and reacts to you in real time, feel too far out of reach.
On the other hand I am wondering whether you need ample time in the space, to
allow the machine to interact and change to you perhaps? Maybe the AI is too
advanced and clever to change drastically straight after you get in contact? I
don’t know, but I still feel the technology isn’t there yet. I want more, or
maybe this is more and I’ve been trained to think there would be because of all
the sci-fi I watch, painting a false narrative of what the future will be. Who
knows, the show is fun though, still haven’t been to Sondra Perry though…
Aaaand I think that might be it for
shows, I told you, literally nothing. I’m going to try to go to shows this
week, there are so many open now that I just feel so behind. How do people cope
when they make art but don’t go to shows? How do they keep up to date? I guess
they don’t, thus bad art?
Now films/TV and video games. I first
watched the terrible People You May Know,
someone who doesn’t do social media does social media and gets millions of
followers from creating fake pictures. It was trash.
Derren Brown’s The Push on Netflix has gotten me back into watching old specials,
it is annoyingly good and addicting. If you haven’t seen Derren Brown, you
must.
I, Tonya was fantastic,
incredible acting combined with a wonderfully disjointed narrative that fit so
well into the storytelling aspect of the experience. Funny and bleak mixed into
one film.
I really liked The Post, it reminded me of Wikileaks haha, an old version of that,
and a nice anecdote to, yet again going to use this phrase, the ‘post truth’
age we’re currently living in.
Darkest Hour was fine, not
really that into it but a well done portrayal of Churchill.
Jumanji: Welcome to
the Jungle on the other hand was incredible, just so funny and enjoyable, ‘on par’
with Thor Ragnarok. Instead of the original Jumanji, with the players playing a
board game that affected real life, the players now play a video game, which
sucks them into the game space, turning them into characters which won’t affect
the real world, unless you die in the game of course. So yes, very fun, with
the running joke throughout being that a teenage girl, obsessed with her phone
and taking selfies is transplanted into the body of Jack Black. It’s just very
funny and a good film.
The Greatest
Showman was okay, incredibly uplifting of course but I just kept thinking how
the performers, labelled ‘freaks’ in the film, were being used and abused by
P.T. Barnum throughout the film, with no real redemption/apology occurring, or
no real acknowledgment from the film itself that that was what was going on. It
just felt a little like they (the filmmakers) missed a huge part of the plot,
that of exploitation, and in reality they wanted to create this film to sing
songs and tell a fictitious and romanticised version of how the circus came
about, an industry that persecutes the animals and the performers alike. I don’t
know, I wasn’t convinced.
Roman J. Israel,
Esq. however was pretty great, Denzel Washington as a lawyer out of touch,
learning about the new world and essentially being overwhelmed by capitalism,
with a plot that made me go ‘hmm’ throughout. Clever.
That’s it for films, as I say I’ve
been watching a bunch of Derren Brown, but also continuing with High Maintenance of course. I do love
that show.
I’m following season 2 of Atlanta, which is fantastic, and has
those little moments like in the first, little moments of absurdity which are
not quite real life moments but could be, or are for other people. In the first
season these became more outlandish as the show continued, ramping up and
creating a distressingly hilarious experience. I’m hoping this happens with
season 2 as well. If you haven’t seen season 1 I would highly recommend doing
so.
Season 3 of Love was gorged on, nice, quick, easy, throwing no real punches.
Nice but not great.
Ugly Delicious, a fun TV show about
food, was fine, definitely not the best TV show about food out there.
Finally let’s get onto videogames,
more specifically Horizon Zero Dawn,
an amazing sci-fi RPG focusing on a world hundreds of years in the future,
where machines have risen up and kind of dominate the world, Humans live in
tribes, hunting animals and machines with very basic equipment. You play as
Aloy, a newborn baby at the beginning of the game, you see her grow into a
fierce young woman, eventually venturing off into the world to discover who her
mother is, along the way potentially discovering why there are autonomous
machines ready to kill permeating the landscape. I’m yet to finish, but for now
I’m really enjoying the story and the rich world, finding out about its history
whilst having fun with the gameplay, fighting (some) intense battles with huge
machines and exploring the world. I do prefer more linear, narrative heavy
games, especially as my time is limited, but this is a special exception.
Anyway, it’s great, I’m like over a year late, but I’m glad I’m finally
playing.
And that might be it, the next week
will consist of picking more work up for the show, coordinating more, checking
out the draft copy of the issue and ordering all the copies (fuck), finalising
the press release, hopefully finishing the two sculptures I’m building,
considering a poetry book of sorts, continuing with the new video piece,
getting work off on Saturday so I can go to some shows, emailing people, doing
the podcast, private views, cooking, eating, sleeping... I am tired.
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