Cabinet-spo from Electronic Superhighway

I took some photos of a nice cabinet that I liked. It was nice. The kind of thing I'd want if I were to have a cabinet.

Here, I took a photo of the corner to try and figure out how it was made. I'm keen me.

Sarah and Joseph Belknap

I came across the work of Sarah and Joseph Belknap by researching artworks to do with light on google.. i'm not really sure why they came up, other than therie work involving planets. I really liked this particular work on their website: Disco Skin, 14 IN x 22 IN x 10 IN, 2016. silicone and graphite powder.

I really wish it wasn't called 'Disco Skin', it would be a much more poetic artwork if it had another, less literal title, however I really like its form. In my experiments to make spheres I tried using spherical balloons to make a mold. I didn't let the paper mache dry enough so when the balloon caved in on itself when I popped it or tried applying wax... it was a horrible, ugly mess. This work has a similar shape to the collapsed balloon but the graphite surface gives it a delicacy and beauty. I also really like the sections of the mirrored rectangles, which make it more of a structure (and historically, I do love a decayed, deteriorating structure). The disco ball as a symbol means nothing to me, apart from its visual similarity with a planet, floating in space. Regardless, the piece has a melancholic air, of something once present and now dead; the surface is dull compared to the mirrors it once was.

In an essay (found here: http://www.artslant.com/chi/articles/show/41488) I found some insightful quotes baout their practice and way of thinking.

'The ways by which men arrive at knowledge of the celestial things are hardly less wonderful than the nature of these things themselves.' —Johannes Kepler

"concentrating on how those bodies intersect with subjective experience. "

“Each color on the images depicted a different mineral or mineral composition—another way of seeing.” Although the colors they used to paint each surface is based on scientific data, that data is not tied to human sight specifically. Meteors would not, for instance, appear to us in the colors prescribed by the data. Rather, the colors translate data about the mineral content of each stone, rending what is typically invisible to the human eye both visible and identifiable.

The quote below in particular touches on themes within my own practice. In photographing the contact lenses with a macro lens and microscope I am making that which was out of sight, visible. There is also a duality to this idea, as the dirty lenses are now in clear sight, but what was once viewed through them is still left to the imagination. If the lenses were not dirty and old perhaps they would magnify the darkness and make clear what is beyond, but the unknown remains clouded and inaccessible.

“We are extremely interested in filtered seeing,” the artists continued. “It allows us to see things that the human eye cannot see. It is both real and faked/mediated. The enhancement and modification is not done to deceive but rather to show what we cannot see." The Belknaps thus play with the translation of extraterrestrial bodies, bringing them into a human range of perception, whether that means shrinking a meteor so that it is proportionate to my body in a backyard, or blowing up microscopic attributes so that they become visible to my eye.

'The Blind' - Sophie Calle

Someone I was speaking to about my work recommended I look at 'The Blind' by French artist Sophie Calle. These works combine a photo of a blind person, a quote from them describing what they think is beauty or beautiful, and an image of that thing. There are many varied responses but I found this one the most poignant:

The passage reads: "Fish fascinates me, I can't say why. They don't make any noise. they are nothing. I don't really care about them. It's their evolution in the water that pleases me, the idea that they are not attached to anything. I sometimes find myself standing for minutes at one time in front of an aquarium. Standing like an imbecile. It's beautiful, that's all."

As I have been researching people's experiences of blindness, going blind and how to teach blind children, the mention of fish not being attached to anything really resonated with other things I have read about blind people not being free to move. In one video, Tommy Edison described that the best environment for him as a child was the beach because he could just run and run without having to worry about banging into anything. Blind people must always have some physial connection to their surroundings to feel their way around.

....Just as a side note, that made me think of my wax measuring spoons that I have been making and positioning around my studio space. I suddenly just thought of the hand rail in the care home for blind people in which I used to volunteer - it was at a similar kind of height, marking the space around the edge of the room. What a strange similarity. The wax spoons are so tactile as well.....

The idea of beauty for blind people is something that I have been thinking about since watching Tommy Edison's videos before Christmas. To read descriptions of beauty that are based on feelings or emotions is really interesting and involves the kind of beauty that I intend to mean a lot of the time....when something is beautiful emotionally, not necessarily aesthetically. When it means something, instead of looks a certain way.

I suppose there is also a poignancy and futility to this work too, for there is a realisation, after first taking in the images that the person has never and can never see what we are seeing so easily right now. The images and the text have a fascinating relationship in this sense, and lead the viewer through an experience that becomes the significance of the work in itself.

I have now researched more of Calle's work, having taken a rather large book about her from the library. Her use of narrative is compelling in every case and I will certainly be looking back to her when thinking about including more writing in my work. 

Natural History Museum - Display

While in Chelsea visiting mum for a few days I made sure to visit the Natural History Museum specifically to have a look at how they displayed objects, especially really small ones. I have been struggling to decide how best to display my contact lenses in a professional way as my feedback from last term was that I need to be really meticulous with presentation in order to show off and not distract from the work/objects.

What I found at the NHM was surprising... I'm sure that if I presented my work in the same way I would be told that it looked makeshift and shoddy. I suppose the focus is more on presenting a broad range of things instead of presenting the specimens really beautifully and carefully. The building itself and room with all the display cases of rocks is so impressive that it gives it grandeur and sophistication anyway without the display being absolutely pristine. Nevertheless I still managed to pick up a few ideas, including (as in the pictures directly below) to use very small lengths of hollow acrylic rod.

These cabinets (above)were just so beautiful! The shape of them is so gorgeous.

V&A Museum - Display

Beofore the NHM, I also had a look round the V&A for display inspiration and found it equally hard to find methods that would work for displaying my contact lenses. Most things were just a lot bigger. Many of the displays were in quite dark rooms with lighting over the cabinets themselves, which I know would make the contact lenses very difficult to make out because of the reflections. I am starting to think maybe photographing them is not just a nice artwork but a necessity for viewing them anyway. I guess if a museum were to preserve them then really they would be kept in enclosed, temperature regulated storage and so I am unlikely to find any display methods that would really suit my purpose.

I made my way to the jewellery section as these were the smallest artifacts I knew I would find, but I wasn't allowed to take any photos. There was only one pair of gold earrings which were as small as my lenses and they were held up with wire looping through them, as they were in the outline of hearts. I almost want to contact someone in a museum and ask how they would display such a thing. Now that I have been paying so much attention to it, it seems like a really interesting area - there must be a lot of decision making before displaying things. I wonder what the job title of that role is called.

Managed to have a good look at Cornelia Parker's piece in their too...

Video Idea for Bath

I had an idea for the Festival Arts Bath KIngdom of Boredom open call, which is going to be based in laundrettes around Bath. I really love the theme and the idea because its interesting to view work in an ordinary setting and when people perhaps aren't expecting to encounter art. For this reason I came up with a work that would be really puzzling if you were not very accustomed to contemporary art.

I submitted this as an initial proposal for the idea...

The work would be a small cathode ray TV positioned on top of the washing machines (or in a suitable place in the laundrette). The TV would continuously play a video taken of one of the washing machine's circular windows as it completes one washing cycle. The footage will play backwards. 

My intention is for the work to be a subtle intervention in the situation, using familiar aspects of the surroundings but with a very minor change. The use of a TV sets up the work under a guise of being entertainment - provided for the people waiting for their washing - but the video perverts their expectation and the reality of the process that is taking place below. 

Update: the lady was thrilled with my idea, but the work wasn't able to go ahead because the laundrette said no to having any av equipment. I think I will keep the work in mind for the future, I would still be keen to see it realised.

Contact Lens Spheres - Collab with Ed Rowe

Ed has been working with 3D effects on photoshop and our ideas about spheres seemed to combine so he used images of my contact lenses to make 3D shapes from them, making them even more planet-like. I really like the look of these pieces but I can't quite grasp the concept behind it, probably because t warps the images that I find so interesting as they are. Digital art for the sake of it doesn't make sense for me in terms of what the spheres mean. Strangely though they are closer to looking like I want people to see them as - as planetary bodies - it distances and distracts from the ideas I would want to convey. I think we need to come up with something equally interesting-looking but which makes sense as a piece in itself.

They are so beautiful so I think maybe I should learn to embrace something new. I am perhaps feeling a little wary to continue with this work because it is the imagery for my current project, so I have a very particular vision for it. I do like how collaborating with someone allows you to release control over your image and see what else might be done with it, especially when it is so different to what I would make myself.

We experimented with these videos arranged on box monitors, with some really effective results (I'm trying to get hold of the photos of this...).

See a configuration of these here: http://edward-rowe.co.uk/spheres.html (may not work on phones or tablets).

The Treachery of Google Images

I was looking for an image of Magritte's 'The Treachery of Images' to use in my dissertation and came across this wonderful thing...

Which image was the truest image for me to pick? How had there come to be so many variations?