Testing Labels

The captions and labels in my wok are really important so I decided to print some out in a more formal way and start testing how they change the meaning of the objects they are associated with.

The caption 'It Means the World' was a thought about the value of the lenses to me, but also how they really do allow me to experience the world around me. Taking two different definitions and comparing them was an attempt to suggest that the meaning of the words is loose and changeable, that it might be referring to something you wouldn't immediately expect. I like how one refers to people and humanity, which is known to us, and then to the wider Universe which is unknown. Words can have different meanings like imagery.

Ectopia Lentis is the condition of having a dislocated crystalline lens in the eye, which I avoided by having my lenses surgically removed. I am extremely wary of using captions that are in a different language, especially Latin, because it sounds silly and pretentious, and I can't decide whether it is acceptable as it is the name for a medical condition, because not many people would know that it is. As I studied Latin at A Level the words make sense to me, but to many they would have far less natural associations. I have instead used the title 'Dislocated Lens' which is far more accessible and can be interpreted more.

Krijn de Koning

Krijn De Koning's lecture was a very interesting one because of the passion and depth of knowledge with which he spoke. I felt a sense that he really wanted to teach us something, he referred to artists and historical art movements that inspire him, and explained how they are still relevant. He described how it is important for him to understand his motivations and to ask meaningful questions "to really find out and question what reality is", how things work and what things are. I really enjoy it when people talk with this sincerity and curiosity about the world, and although de Koning's work may not appeal directly to my interests, hi mindset certainly did. The lecture also seemed to have more of a structure and a focus than many others I have seen, and it was as if he were a lecturer at the university trying to impart his own insight instead of just accompany us through slides of his career. This is an entirely positive observation - I like learning, and I liked how generous he was with his knowledge.

De Koning's relationship with architecture was really intriguing; I'd never really considered the difference between art and architecture, and didn't anticipate the main difference (as he said) to be that architects are tightly bound to budgets/contracts/sponsors/design trends where as artists are free to make without the obligation to justify everything they do to third parties. I was really quite in awe of some of the work he showed us because of its scale; particularly impressive were the two enormous installations pictured below, which intersected and transformed the spaces in a Dutch cathedral and a large forum in a French museum. I was surprised that he was able to make these works, which I assume involve an awful lot of risk assessments, money and opposition (I can't imagine British cathedrals allowing works like this). It was reassuring to hear how many commissions he had from places that wanted to work with contemporary artists and that were willing to accept his radical and ambitious proposals. I was talking to people after the lecture about how artists like him are quite intimidating - it feels like an impossible ambition to become successful enough to achieve such large and remarkable works.

Niuwe kerk, 2010

Vides pour un patio, 2011

De Koning moved on to talk about the museum of plaster casts he had curated in Lyon (pictured below). He described how the collection were not considered to have the same value as real sculptures, and he wanted to question the cliché of fake meaning bad (and truth meaning good). I was initially drawn to this piece because of it being a museum display, and because of the plaster casts being discarded and overlooked. De Koning spoke about consciously directing people's focus and manipulating how people view objects or artifacts, which is very relevant to my current work. "Attention creates value" he emphasised; something I think I have been exploring without acknowledging it in such a succinct way. Without the attention created by the gallery protocol and museum displays, my dust and contact lenses etc would remain as they are in the world, without attention or (perceived) value. "What are you trying to highlight?" he asked, "what do you want to show".I intend to return to these questions when I come to display work and make sure I have a focus and motivation in mind to instruct my decisions.

I began to notice throughout his talk that he refers to his works as if they are objects, which struck me as unusual because they appear to me more as installations or spaces. This had me questioning what the definition of an object is, and at what point does it become something other or something more abstract. One definition is "anything that is visible or tangible and is relatively stable in form", and another, "anything that may be apprehended intellectually" (both from dictionary.com). Perhaps a large, architectural work of sculpture changes from being an object to being a space depending on the viewer's relationship to it. De Koning mentioned that the way his work is perceived is fast and changeable because of its size and how one has to move around the space in order to experience it. In aerial and far-away shots of large sculptural works such as those of Anish Kapoor, it makes sense to describe the works as objects, but in reality I think they function in a very different way, enveloping a person and acting very much like architecture.

Musée des Moulages, Lyon, FR 2003

Teaspoons of Darkness

Watching the 'Intangible Concepts to a Blind Person' video, and others on Tommy Edison's incredibly thought-provoking YouTube channel www.youtube.com/user/TommyEdisonXP/featured had me thinking about how light and darkness are perceived. A blind person not understanding what light is seems a more logical thing than not understanding, or being able to fathom darkness, but it has occurred to me that the two are understood together. When I question how darkness is perceived I mean in a societal sense, how it is portrayed and collectively understood, how it is thought of and depicted in narrative and metaphor.There is a very strong and established assumption/perception, in my mind that darkness means blindness and that light means vision and clarity. In 'Metaphors We Live By', which I have been reading recently, the authors describe how structures of metaphors are built up in society and in language, and how they dramatically affect the way we think about things. Although it is a rational and understandable connection, as darkness restricts vision and light enables it, I have read a few accounts recently of blind people who experience light in their lack of sight, and never darkness. One such is by Damon Rose and can be found here www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-ouch-31487662 .

A collaboration with Ed came about with these thoughts in mind. He has being "exploring the application of synthetic processes and digital mediation applied to a commodified colour theory" (quote from him). One of his experiments has been averaging the colour of sections of the floor in his studio, finding the closest match in Dulux emulsion paint, and pouring the paint onto clear perspex.....

On visits with him to B&Q to get  paint I started to think about how darkness is conveyed in the form of emulsion paint. I have had a fascination with the perception of colour depending on light and context for a while now - my Blue Marlble project documenting the blue of my student home every morning was an investigation into how one colour is actually very many different ones (something to do with phenomenology would be written here if I had a better understanding of it - I'm working on it). The book I read over the Summer by Simon Ings on vision also described how colour is percieved differently by societies - how a colour can be established and acknowledged in some cultures and not recognised at all in others. Well... it was very interesting to see how different paint companies acknowledged their darkest shade. The range and peculiarity of the names given to the paints was very intriguing and ties in rather well with my dissertation investigations into titling. 

Ed and I decided to collect tester pots from different companies and present them together with their names,,, the idea being that really, they would all look very alike, highlighting how the text attempts to alter or suggest something about the colour. The commodification of darkness is also a curious concept.

I feel I must acknowledge my interchangeable use of darkness and black - there is certainly something about the word darkness that evokes a more poetic image than the word black; perhaps in its vagueness and the richness of its connotative potential. It seems very important that the work be titled as samples of darkness, and not as black because black is arguably less subjective. Black is perhaps the least subjective colour even (most colors can be argued over, is it turquoise, is it blue, is it navy? The number of different whites supplied by paint companies is astonishing, but black...is black.) Darkness is also mysterious...the words are even given as synonyms. The images that come to mind are of shadows, of dusk, of space, of uncertainty, always just out of reach of our understanding. In a similar way to how the paint companies attempt to harness colours into commodities with titles, naming darkness seems absurd because it is an attempt to make familiar the unknown and tie down the elusive. The paints we found were named as follows:

Supernova
Pitch Black
Soot Print
Highland Darkest Tarn
Charcoal
Jack Black
Sinner
Rich Black
Black Dress

Black Magic
Foret Noire

Railings
Bond Street
Black Fossil

To keep the amount of paint consistent we used a teaspoon to place the paint on the perspex (and rather like the title Teaspoons of Darkness, mixing something difficult to define with an everyday object). A teaspoon of darkness in the corner...

As the tester pots for some companies cost up to £5 + postage, we made a decision that for our initial workings we would only purchase and use three paints and name them as if they were the real thing. Surprisingly, in my crit and tutorial no one questioned whether they were the paints that they claimed to be. This in itself raises lots of interesting questions -  Does this reduce the impact of the work? Honestly, I don't think so, they all look very similar anyway. Does it reduce the integrity of the work? In my mind yes - if we were to exhibit it anywhere other than the studio I wouldn't feel comfortable with the deceit (even though I have fibbed with other works such as the library slip I presented at the Schism show). Perhaps because this involves brands and companies and copyrights, or perhaps because I think if it were displayed in a more formal setting people might notice that there is only a variation of three colours. Also, the work would of course be a lie - what it intends to say or imply or convey would be wrong, would be absent ...or would the lie actually say more about not knowing and how darkness links with blindness, and how seeing links with knowing?

At the moment the work looks like this...

I have been trying to think of more formal ways that it could be presented. I kind of wish we were given more information on this sort of thing at uni - how to display a drawing, how to hang a painting, how to attach a TV to a wall etc. - I'd find that really useful. Ed suggested looking at this work by Philomene Pirecki as it is presented at Frieze in New York, glass on a metal frame, which would be quite simple to make...

Another issue I am questioning is whether we should make the work for formal display - at the moment the piece looks pretty makeshift, with scratched perspex and glued on acetate labels. Is it worth us spending time and money recreating it with glass and maybe proper metal stands... I really like the idea, and it interests me a lot but is it worth making if it will take time away from individual works. I need to ask around and see what people think. 

Remnants of a Supernova

One of the tester pots we found for 'Teaspoons of Darkness' was called 'Supernova' - I think Wilko's own range of emulsion - which is extremely curious. Why would the darkest paint in their range be called Supernova which, as Wiki describes it, is "a stellar explosion that briefly outshines an entire galaxy". Where does the darkness fit in?

Anyway...so it turns out this is the second collaborative work Ed and I have made that calls upon this very bright happening...

 Remnants of a Supernova Fitting Comfortably in the Palm

Idea - Collecting Lenses

After putting out a call last term for old lenses and getting a big response, but mostly of people giving me out of date but unused daily contacts, I have a big supply of them that I can make something from. I would have preferred used ones because it means that someone has seen through them, which is more poetic... but the new ones give me an opportunity to play around with them and find out how they work. My lenses are different to these ones as I use them for much longer periods of time. 

I spent an evening in the studio just experimenting with the daily lenses...watching them shrink and warp as they dried out. Happily, they look really cool when they are dried as the edges crimp and go all wavy - this is good for if I want to display them or photograph them. I've had an idea that I'd like to make a collection of these and display them as a mass - a pair for every day of a whole year maybe. As it would be very tricky to get hold of someone who would give me their old lenses, and I don't have time left on my course to collect them (!!) I would have to make it up. I'm never sure how I feel about this kind of thing because my work is usually trying to point out the truth, but perhaps if no one knows then it is acceptable.

Another idea to follow this up is to photograph this sort of collection in order to make slides. I am pleased with the slides of my lenses that I have made but I only have about 10 pairs, therefore 20 photos, which doesn't fill the carousel slide projector at all. It would be far easier to find 80 of these lenses by using the ones I've been given. 

Statement for Drawing Exhibition - Trace Your Shadow With My Shoe

Imagine if you had a map of all the places you have ever been, a continuous line drawing tracing every step and every journey you have ever taken in your life. Imagine its twists and its curves as it draws patterns across the Earth. Now imagine layering this line with that of someone else, observe how your life lines converge and intersect, at times merging and at times pulling apart across countires and continents. Perhaps your lines met even before you noticed. How many people have you passed in the street who you will at some point come to know?

This exhibition is a meeting place. A gathering of artistic practices concerned with the poetry of mapping and tracing the world and our experience of it; charting thoughts, drawing ideas, capturing the essence of moments in time.