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Really, really struggling today. Have no faith in any of my ideas, and I don't have many anyway. Not sure really how to move on from feeling like this... I have an experimwnt that I planned to carry out today but I'm too afraid to do it because I know it probably won't be any good, and it doesn't mean anything.

My plan yesterday was to carry out some quick trials with materials just to provoke some ideas amd so that I will have something to show at the crit... but I don't even want to do these now. Feeling very self concious of my work after showing the video. Worst of all, having doubts about whether I'm enjoying the course and whether I suit it.. perhaps I would be better doing prop design or something. Hopefully this is just the result of my unfamiliarity with this medium, but I am really disappointed in myself for having this reaction to something out of my comfort zone, as I want to learn new things.

Temporal Practice Week 2

Feeling fairly anxious at the moment over how to develop work involving an element of time.. presentation of my film today I don't think went well - I wasn't happy with it and have no ideas/little interest in taking it further. I have taken several books out the library on ephemeral installation, performance art and the use of the body as medium, sound art and the history of video art; I am hoping reading around the subject and learning about different artworks will give me a few ideas.

At the moment I think I am being held back by my nerves. I really don't want to produce something that I'm not proud of again - this I need to conquer or nothing will get done. I am also really trying not to revert back to my 'style', I want to try new ways of thinking and working so that I can use them in future work when I get back to the format's that interest me.

I think tomorrow I might go for a walk to try and get some ideas going.

'... Descending a Staircase'

Final idea for the 2-4 minute video task: multiple overlayed images of me walking down the stairs... a reference to Duchamp’s 1912 painting ‘Nude Descending a Staircase’. The process of filming was easy as the composition was inspired by the painting... the staircase filmed slightly to the left so that I would be travelling from the top left to the bottom right corner of the screen, camera in a fixed, stationary position.

 

I definitely did not plan my ideas enough... the decision to go with this new idea was spur of the moment and I think this made the whole process harder as I wasn't clear on what I wanted to achieve... I found the editing process very stressful, trying to understand how to use new software combined with not knowing what effect I was after anyway. I think overall I did well to produce the film that I did in a limited time (and this was something I shouldn't have allowed to happen - I should have allowed myself another day to edit the footage) and I did learn from the experience. I also found some reassurance in my ignorance.. decisions were made for me by the limitations that I had, such as turning away from an orderly, precisely timed overlap of images, to a more experimental depiction, that was more fun to make and conveys Duchamp's use of fractured shapes in the painting.

I am not exactly happy with what I have made... I think it is rushed, poorly assembled and gives very little thought to anything except the loose historical reference. I think the piece lacks a concept, which is what makes it most disappointing to me.. but this is something that I think would take me longer to develop than the time I had. Practicing using the software and becoming more confident with using different editing tools would also allow me to focus on details and sharpen ideas.

Having said this, I have taken some stills from the film which I think are really interesting visually.. very different to anything I have produced before, but I like the 'ghostly' element, and how parts of my body can be seen multiple times in the same image.

The aspect I find hardest about video is that I have no notion just yet of what makes it good... with sculpture/installation there are elements I recognise which interest me, and I feel able to judge the quality of my own work. With video, as with painting too, I find it very difficult to identify what the good qualities are or what doesn't work at all. To improve on this, I aim to look at more video art online, on Ubu etc. and maybe read some books that will introduce me to video art as it has evolved historically.  I really want to understand it more as I have enjoyed making videos in the past (on much simpler software) and it would be good to experiment with it more at some point.

Temporal Practice Task

Latest idea for the 2-4 minute video task is to film me 'completing a distance' in a certain amount of time, in different ways, at different speeds and perhaps from different angles, but using the same space... e.g. me walking at normal speed, me walking very slowly and then speeding it up on the computer, filmed from ground-level... I think it would look quite effective, or interesting, if I overlayed all this footage.. I'm keen to experiment with this at any rate.

I have been looking on ubu and on art blogs at different videos and performance pieces to get some ideas... really useful just to watch things quite at odds from the art I usually choose to look at, gave me a few ideas and things to think about. I am really enjoying learning about these new things, which I am sure will inform my future work.

Temporal Practice

I enjoyed hearing about some of the artists that use time as a medium or element in their practice. I've never considered this concept before and it is a really appealing one. I found I was drawn to artworks that point out natural phenomena like Hans Haacke and his 1965 'Condensation Cube' and Walter de Maria's 'Lightning Field', Both involve time in some way.


Hans Haacke - Condensation Cube, 1965

Walter de Maria - Lightning Field, 1977

The question was raised whether 'Lightning Field' only exists as art when lightening is present, or indeed if it is art at all: In my view it is art, and I think it always is because I don't think it is completely reliant on the visual aesthetic of the lightening bolts... It is about the concept, the anticipation, the way it makes the viewer change their behaviour and look to the sky to search for something that may never come (in this way I think it easy to interpret it as a metaphor for religion, spirituality etc but this interests me less). Walter de Maria's use of the whole landscape in the work I find hugely exciting, and it is something I really want to investigate further. I think I consider this in my own practice to some extent, involving the gallery space and outside environments in installations, but I intend to develop it still more.
My initial idea in reaction to the brief is to show one of my maquettes decomposing or losing its form over a period of time, such as the 'tentacles' of the cardboard 'spider' falling down from their positions. I have been thinking about Erno-Erik Raitanen's 'Cotton Candy Works' and how it disintegrates throughout the day. I have thought about tacking lengths of string or pieces of cardboard to the ceiling in a cluster, and then perhaps recording them gradually falling down or just documenting the end result: I quite like the idea of there being a missing time period, in which it is quite clear what has happened by the result, but the viewer is made to imagine something that is not presented to them ...as with Rauschenberg and Cage's 'Tyre Print', 1953.

 

 

 

Hamish Fulton Walk, Penzance

The walk was a strange thing. Something I found really odd was the lack of drama, the normality of it, how there was no klaxon to initiate its start and stop, no great talk at the beginning by the artist to impart some expectation, either of what we would experience or how we were to behave; I imagined he would be more protective when allowing us to participate in his work.

 

I also imagined more of a climax. I thought it might suddenly dawn on me what Fulton's work is about and why he is dedicated to walking. I thought about various things, the wind, the cold etc, what people on the opposite row were wearing, what time I thought it was. I guess these things all point to one positive aspect of the walk (which may or may not be part of Fulton's concept) ..because my familiar walking pace was slowed so dramatically, I was given time to notice and examine my surroundings: I was thinking about each individual stage of my body reacting to the cold, I noticed the moment my body started shaking in an attempt to warm itself, I felt the warmth of the sun and the lack of it; I was able to observe the reflections of Penzance on the beach, the clock tower, the cars on the roads, imagining them seeing us.

 

A question asked at the lecture came to mind, where the crossover is between walking, pilgrimage and protest. I was thinking it felt like a kind of prayer, perhaps subconciously because of the ceremonial set up of it, the procession as if to an alter. Maybe because it was in silence, and I didn't understand it, I was just doing what I was told - and this certainly reminded me of chapel or school assembly, where you are bound to conform by expectation alone. I found this particularly hard to fathom, because of Fulton's emphasis on the 'freedom of the pavement', and because beaches and the sea are places I associate with freedom; the strict order of the lines was a stark juxtaposition with nature and the seagulls flying freely around us.

 

Having said this, I was surprised at how quickly the time went. There were moments where it felt quite meditative,  and I slipped into long unconscious moments of thought.

 

Rereading the NatGeog article, and experiencing what he does for myself I think I am starting to understand and therefore appreciate his interpretation of art. The description "eschewing objects in favor of journeys" helps me comprehend the work a little more; just as there are different objects that artists create, there are different walks that do, or point to, or are informative of different things. Just as manipulating a material can be used to explain or express something, so can journeys.

 

I still don't get his typography though.

 

 

 

Hamish Fulton Talk

Talk today by Hamish Fulton. I had no expectations or real knowledge of his work beforehand, but that he is known as a ' walking artist ' - therefore intrigued to learn more and hoping he might explain what his process is and what walking art entails.

 

In truth I still don't understand his practice. He presented works that he has done or orchestrated but didn't make clear his reasoning behind them; I wanted to know what elements of a walk he is likely to pick up on and translate to his gallery work, is it the thoughts that are evoked within him as he walks, or the sounds, or something in the physical exertion of the activity...

 

An element I was surprised by was the political reference, support of Ai Wei Wei, Chinese economy etc. I hadn't considered walking a politcal business but more about nature and perhaps solitude. I suppose Fulton's art is as much to do with the people and societies he encounters travelling, as the ground he treads on and environment through which he navigates.

 

I wrote down in my notebook " Pavement - A walking surface " (not the dictionary's choice of definition) ...this was one of those (lovely) moments where someone says something really obvious that makes me re-evaluate it: the purpose of pavements is for people to travel on them, to make journeys. I guess this sparked my imagination because of how I always wonder where people are going when I see them walking, what is their mission, why are they there... I guess pavement's also have some strange authority as well, that I've never considered before, they dictate where we go, they lead us away from certain encounters and draw us into others, they change the route of our lives effectively.

 

I still want to ask my question: how much, if any, consideration do you give to the public walks being a performance? Does performance art have any links at all with the works? And if not, why are we being asked to wear black clothes.. it will not affect the participants, so it must be an aesthetic decision and anticipating some form of audience. I will probably never know the answer to this. We shall see.

 

Having looked his work up online again, I feel I know both a little more and a little less. I was pleased to find the first photo because it makes sense to me - the use of the photograph as a background and poetic language evoking the atmosphere of the walk perhaps, conveying some elements of being amongst nature. The second work however, is so at odds with this - the text sterile, more scientific than poetic and has nothing aesthetically that would bring to mind the environment that Fulton was experiencing. I just don't know what these works are aiming to do.

 

 

This article, http://digitalnomad.nationalgeographic.com/2011/07/25/hamish-the-hirshhorn/, had some thought provoking points, in particular the observed resemblance between his work and twitter, both being "a short message and image describing a prolonged experience, sent out to the world for reflection and consideration". Fulton seemed very against modern technology so I find this a bemusing comparison.

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This first post follows quite a lot of indecision over how to document my thought process this year. I've created this in an attempt to find a method that is easily accessible and feels natural to do. I was partly inspired to take up blogger by a facebook friend, whose blog (which I read through earlier) is very raw and honest: I can imagine her saying the things I was reading, and I think this is important for the approach I am aiming for, and a useful manner for reflecting on my own work and ideas.

I want to write as I think or as I might speak to someone, to jot down an idea quickly as well as discuss and pick apart ideas at length. I see this new method as a cross between facebook and tumblr, where I share photos of work, ideas and inspiration; twitter, where I am most likely to comment on events that occur as they happen; and personal interactions, where I work through my opinions as I hear myself speak them.

An issue that I have with writing my ideas down in a journal, on paper is that I always consider the audience. I picture them reading over my words and cater it to them, writing in proper sentences, which is not true to my thought process,  and filling a page for the sake of using the paper. This is not a private blog, but I don't intend for it to accommodate for the reader: I will not explain things that I already understand, or locate things I know the context to. In this way, it can be an honest, insightful, helpful, methodic strategy for developing my work.