Perception Exhibition

I decided to enter a work into the Christian Union's mini exhibition with the theme of 'Perception' out of curiosity to see what I could come up with. I also thought it would be interesting to get some different feedback on my work and speak to some new people on different courses about their practice. My immediate thoughts were to present a latex 'print' of the vestibule floor, similar to the one that Ed and I made, where it picked up all the dirt. I have struggled with the collaborative piece a little as I haven't found a way to display it effectively - it is a very awkward shape and difficult to hang up as it is so flimsy. To me it doesn't seem like a finished work (although it is slightly different as the emphasis of the collaborative piece was on the process, with the latex being a documentation of the time it took).

As I wanted to create a formalised, finished (respectable) piece for the exhibition, I bought some picture frames with which to begin experimenting. It seemed like an easy answer. I (very roughly) tried the latex in the frames to see if it would look at all effective, and was pleased with the result. I also poured a rectangle of latex over the floorboards, let it set and tried this in the frame, but thought it looked a little too grotty and didn't work quite so well. Without the geometry of the tiled floor the latex looked too 'natural', muddy and earthy instead of an aged manmade relic. I was also keen to keep the visual connection to stained glass windows considering the nature of the exhibition.

Although I would never usually use picture frames, as I think it makes everything a bit tame and twee and employs a load of connotations about 'living room' art, I think the frames are really curious juxtaposed with the latex. They literally frame the work as being something it is not - they set up the image inside to be something pleasant and tasteful, worthy of being on a wall, when this is not the case. It adds confusion and questions. What is it that I'm looking at? Should I like it? Should it be beautiful because its in a frame? Perhaps the dirt is more appealing in this context, or perhaps it is even more repulsive when you look closer and realise what it is and that the frames are deceptive. I thought this was very fitting with the theme of 'perception'.

Untitled (Entrance Hall)

 

(latex, dust, dirt, household debris)

 

 

It took a few attempts to get the latex prints right for the frames as I poured the latex too thin to begin with so they came out very pale and insipid. Although I am usually drawn to groups of three, I thought two frames was enough due to their size; having only two somehow makes them more bodily, more tangible. Three would certainly have been too overpowering. It has been good to see my work in a different context, with a new selection of other works to create connections with. I am really looking forward to our plans (in our studio space) to put on pop up exhibitions - it will help to keep up the pace of my work and bring some new ideas.

 

I received some very positive feedback. A surprising amount of people thought them very beautiful, and saw the dirt as fascinating more than repulsive. In my tutorial yesterday, we also spoke about how intriguing this method of display is and how I might want to explore more formal methods of display, such as plinths, cabinets or ropes used in museums. Using these methods with really abject or confusing pieces could be very interesting, and I am very positive about extending the archaeological connotations that often arise in my work. 

 

A quick note for a future work: I observed (when my housemate accidentally shook her umbrella over the drying latex in the entrance hall) that the latex turns milky when it is rehydrated... although this does not last and dries out again, it might be interesting to see what happens when a sheet of latex is left out in the rain, mapping the raindrops.  

Cartography of the Floorboards

 I've been interested recently in 'converging' space by collecting environments into images or objects that can be taken in in one look (as opposed to spaces, which require moving around and adjusting the body). The latex strips did this to some extent with the studio floor, but I wanted to conduct a more thorough investigation and pick up more of the debris between the boards. I used a hoover to collect dust from each crack, emptying out the dust after each line and collecting it in bags. I was mapping the space with its own remains, observing how there was considerably more dust in the floorboards towards the centre of the room and there was more chipped white paint and plaster in the cracks closest to the wall. One idea I had was to really analyse the collection: weighing it, working out its density, deconstructing the colours present into charts, viewing them under the microscope... I have had several comments about the floorboard strand of my work being reminiscent of archaeology, which I really enjoy and would consider extending further.

 

I like the futility and almost ridiculous nature of hoovering a room floorboard by floorboard, where there always seems to be a sense of that question 'what's the point?'. But this question, instead of a criticism, always speaks to me quite profoundly of art and life and all human endeavour. I am content with, and even look to provoke this question with my work. People rarely apply it to very detailed paintings and drawings that require a lot of time and refined skill (although, for me, why not use a camera = what's the point) so I think this question arises because I observe the mundane, the things that people think have nothing more to give, and are too familiar or disregarded to be worth making art about. Dust seems particularly inviting of the 'what's the point?' response, as it is always disposed of and is also hard to preserve. Interestingly, two artworks that speak to me strongly of futility, Francis Alys' project 'When Faith Moves Mountains' and Katie Paterson's 'Inside this desert lies the tiniest grain of sand' both involve sand or dust. The futility of ephemeral artworks and installations might be an interesting topic for an essay or the dissertation.

 

 

I decided to further scientific connotations and present the dust in petri dishes, inspired by the artist Sonja Baumel (whose work I have previously spoken about). On googling their origin and purpose, a petri dish is said to be "a shallow cylindrical glass or plastic lidded dish that biologists use to culture cells" - there is a curious relationship between growth and decay in a petri dish; bacteria can be associated with both, and so can dust. The petri dish was invented to prevent contamination of air borne germs when growing cultures, and to be easily observed under the microscope... which is also what makes them a good display method for the floorboard dust.

 

On a side note, I was interested to see that the 'Petri Dish' wiki has a section on petri dishes in art, listing the works of Michal Rovner (which I really like) and Antoine Bridier-Nahmias. The connection between art and science is becoming increasingly apparent. 

Somebody told me about an ex-student of the Fine Art course, whose practice became making very slight and subtle interventions in the exhibition space, such as cleaning the floor. I am also cleaning the floor (or under the floor) but the act itself is not the work, the material remains of it are presented as the work instead. Framing the work in this way not only allows it to speak of the time and space throughout which the dust has accumulated, but of the process by which it was collected and curated into an artwork. When relics are viewed in museums, you would think about the original time and culture to which they first belonged, as well as the people who excavated or found them and how they came to be in front of you.

Brief Notes on Finding the Profound in the Everyday

Brief Notes on Finding the Profound in the Everyday

Finding meaning and sincerity in things has become an artistic objective of mine. Profundity is more often felt and found in the monumental, the dramatic and the opulent, such as in grand Cathedrals or beneath exquisite sunsets. Whilst never losing their splendour, these things can become exhausted and cliché; in my work I draw attention to commonplace materials, familiar objects and everyday environments, finding in the clichéd matter of day-to-day life a rich and stunning poignancy.

1.       Words

Words are not certain. They must be explored thoroughly. Words can have meanings that you are not aware of, which have significant and profound connotations. Accept that although you are able to read these words, you will never truly understand what I mean by them. Or perhaps, what these words mean to me as I think of them. Every word that I am writing is singular to me, and my understanding of it. Every word you are reading is singular to you, and your own past encounters with it. Every word that you read has connotations that your mind is automatically processing without you realising, summoning memories of sight and sound, of a person, of a place, of a time. My definition of a word is not the same as yours.

This page contains 457 different words. Recount your relationship to each one. When did you first hear it? When did you first speak it? When did you first read, write, question, type, sigh, shout, know, forget it? Unlearn your familiarity with this language. Acknowledge that every word you are reading has a history that you do not know. A word’s etymology is a map of societies, politics, languages and religions past. What of history are you referencing when you use without hesitation that word you thought you knew? Investigating the evolution of a word can reveal obscure and unlikely connotations, and will reconfigure a disorientation in the mundane.

Note: Synonyms and antonyms are also very insightful. They reveal surprising connections and contradictions in the association of words. The opposite of a word can often be found to relate very closely to its synonyms

                                 i.            The opposite of charged is empty

                               ii.            Empty spaces are able to be charged

2.   Space

It is customary to notice more in unfamiliar spaces. Learn to routinely re-evaluate everyday environments using all your senses. Recognise points in a room where your eye is naturally drawn, to posters, paintings, mirrors and large furniture, and then consider the spaces where they are not. Indulge in the imperfections of a wall, and wonder what has caused them. Consider all the in-between spaces, the gaps between the fridge and the freezer, the clock and the wall, the books on their shelves. Note that:

                     i.            Spider webs are symbols of unnoticed spaces. If they are seen, they are swept away. Consider the Greek Myth about Arachne the weaver, who was bound to spin intricate webs for eternity, and observe their ephemeral beauty before you remove them.

                   ii.            Skirting boards are designed to improve the look of the join between the wall and the ceiling. They are installed and then forgotten.

                 iii.            The recesses between computer keys are glutted by the oils of greasy fleeting fingers. Whilst you order letters into words about your life, recognise that the particles beneath can reveal just as much.

                 iv.            Moths lie in domestic lamps, those that flew too close to the light. Forgotten spaces are defined by small lives and small deaths.

3.   Objects and Materials

 Consider the objects currently within your arm span. Some of them will have value to you alone, the relic of a relationship or a reminder of a time gone by. Extend your perception of value to the objects of little importance around you, which are purely functional or ugly in your eyes. The waxy residue of a nearly burnt out candle - how many hours of your life had that flame been burning? A brass key to your front door - how many other doors across the world can this design unlock? What’s behind the door? A wooden table blemished with chips and years of hot mugged ring marks - where are the people now, to whom those drinks belonged?

 As with words, understanding the history of objects and materials can transform their familiarity. Note that:

                     i.            All found objects are poetically charged objects

                   ii.            All matter is historic matter

                 iii.            All matter has an inexhaustible past

                 iv.            Everything on Earth was once among the stars

 Objects are moments in time. The precise culmination of atoms of which they are comprised is a ludicrous improbability. Think again about the brass key, made of copper and zinc, and wonder at how you unlock your front door with the remnants of dead stars. Be curious and question how the world was made, how the world you know was made: extracted from the ground, melted, moulded, shaped by machines. Who made the machines?

 Note: Where words can evoke auditory associations, objects and materials call on all senses. Find in an angle a measurement of the world, or in darkness the hues of outer space or in a texture a vivid memory through your fingertips.

 Recently my attention has turned to dust, the ultimate, ubiquitous matter of the everyday. Synonymous with ‘dirt’ and ‘grime’, the namesake and reason behind dusters and dustpans, it is a disregarded and ill thought of material. Surely dust could never be beautiful. Consider however how it came to be and what it represents. Dust is the debris of time. It is the material remains of all the people and activities that have occurred in a space over months or years, a catalogue. Dust is both life and death, telling of the body’s growth and decay simultaneously. Skin cells shed and fall like grains of sand in an hourglass. Snug in the right angles of your houses, mapping small ledges and the high planes of your dressers, lie days of you. Between the floorboards, dormant ranks with wooden flanks, the dust is shaped by your weight, kneaded downwards by your absent-minded journeys along the hall.

 

 

Word List

 

BAMS - Finished Medal



"The first step in making the ‘Remnants of a Supernova’ medal was the decision to collaborate, which came about through our shared interests in the poetics of materials and the desire to follow a conceptual approach. As we work mostly in three-dimensional mediums in our separate practices, embarking on a project with a new material prompted a curiosity in the bronze itself; we were particularly drawn to its weight and solidity in the palm. It was very important to us that the design would be intrinsic to the medium and direct all focus to the physical properties and poetic nuances of bronze.

 

All matter on Earth was once among the stars and therefore no object is without history. Copper and tin, the primary elements of the medal’s bronze alloy, are produced in supernovae - the celestial explosion that occurs when a star has exhausted its fuel. Thus, around the edge read the words REMNANTS OF A SUPERNOVA FITTING COMFORTABLY IN THE PALM. On one side there is inscribed the chemical formula of the bronze used, CuSn4, and on the other an impression of a hand so that it fits naturally into the palm when held.

 

Stars are inherently poetic, they are profoundly beautiful and mysterious, and exist as a constant in the course of humanity and man’s understanding of the world. Entwined in centuries of myth, religion and science, stars both represent and invoke questions of who we are and how we came to be. Revealing the material’s history, its identity, elevates the significance of the medal in the mind. Although purposefully simple in design, the metal traverses time and space, existing as remnant, as residue of distant places and historic happenings. It rests in the hand as tangible evidence of an astronomical phenomenon of a scale beyond human comprehension.

 

The medal was made initially from wax, we poured hot wax into the palm, holding it until cool in order to pick up the details of the skin. The impression of the palm is a suggestion of our place in the Universe. Not only drawing the arm downwards and evoking an awareness of the body, the handprint is a record of something acutely personal to one human at one particular moment, made from elements that have been recycled throughout time and space."

 

 

 

I was pretty happy with our final medal. Ed and I both agreed that it was an accurate outcome to represent both of us together - the medal would have been entirely different if it were made by either of us alone. It was most certainly a collaboration. I am really glad that I worked with someone else; it was good to be able to discuss ideas and decisions together, when both of us really cared about the outcome. It is also really satisfying to achieve something together as a team.

 

We received some really good feedback from people - about the surface of the medal, how it looks like stars, and what a thoughtful concept it is. Apparently the writing is also particularly clear and well executed. Bronze is something I would be more open to working with in the future as I have enjoyed the process and think it is such a beautiful weighty material.



Snug in the right angles

 

Bad Marks and Good Advice

The time from the assessment to now has been a tricky one, full of feeling a little lost and worried about the work I've been making. When submitting my work I was struck by how little, really, I had done - the latex that I presented as if a final piece was work that I had made in October. I can accept that I liked the work, and so didn't change it very much, but I feel I could have been more productive and found other successful pieces in that space of time up to January. I also began doubting whether I like my work anymore, whether I've grown a little tired of it and whether I really understand what it is I am trying to say through it. I felt I followed the latex floor pieces because that is what everyone else said was the most interesting, when perhaps I had already begun losing interest in and momentum with that work

I didn't have particularly high hopes for the assessment (just as well). I still need to clarify why I received my mark and how I can improve as I consciously addressed the need for development that my feedback stated last year. On the other hand, I remember my assessment tutorial last year, where it was said that marks don't matter, that I should continue doing what I enjoy and that low marks do not necessarily mean uninteresting work. Its a tricky one to get my head around - do I want to get a first (yes), or do I want to make the most of my time and make work in a way that suits me?

The studio essay has so far proved to be a baffling task. I've never found something so difficult to write. Trying to write it has left my view of my entire practice confused and stifled as it has raised so many questions... what is my work about? Does it make sense for me to write about my work in a personal way if my studio work is impersonal? I feel I need years of practice writing, establishing a voice before I am confident enough to do the task. More optimistically (and I think I still remain optimistic that I can write something for it that I can be pleased with), I am newly determined to write more and to explore my thoughts and ideas more thoroughly through writing.

I participated in a workshop run by Marc Messenger on 'Observing the Everyday. We discussed Georges Perec's writings about how to re-view everyday environments and change them into something alien and unfamiliar. This gave me some very helpful idea for my Studio Related Essay, for which I have now written 'Brief Notes on Finding the Profound in the Everyday', inspired by Perec's 'Brief Notes on the Art and Manner of Arranging Ones Books'. Marc also suggested we find systems and sequences in ordinary places (colours, numbers..) that start to become interesting and might provoke some ideas. I chose to focus on the library as I find it a really interesting place anyway, but one full of the mundane. It struck me that when people go tot he library they only ever really concentrate on the books so I decided to consciously avoid these; instead I photographed the empty spaces at the end of the shelves, observing how they became quite confusing when removed from their context and it would be difficult to identify what they were from the photos.

I also began to look at the slips of paper inside the book covers, where the books were stamped as part of the old library system. I have been considering these 'logs' for a while now, as the logged dates are a really poetic thing to me. They invite so much thought and imagination - all we know of the person is a date that they definitely existed and the choice of book that they found interesting enough to take out and presumably study. I think I might make a work using a particularly poetic book, perhaps about time, and present the dates slip as a remnant of all these people and their shared interest. I found the workshop particularly relevant to my practice, and really useful in giving me some new ideas to work with.

The Simon Fujiwara seminar was also very thought provoking, reassuring and a very good experience (very glad I sign up to these things!) One of the main things that I took from the meeting was a better understanding of how work comes about. Fujiwara said how artists must trust 'biology' and their natural instinct to do something, or make a work; one reads and researches, and then carries new sensitivities into everyday life. This was a bit of a revelation to me, as sometimes it is tricky to show an explicit link between research and work, for fear of being too literal. This idea has really resonated with me, and I feel more content to trust my instincts and let chance and opportunities influence my work - although it is perhaps less chance and more the brain being more open to relevant things.

Time is going too fast.

Time is going too fast.

I can’t describe it. The images. Click. Click. Click. The images on that goddman circle, spiral. That continuum, clicking into place on that old, borrowed relic in my head. Forehead grown warm, and faint, feint anxiety wavers in the hollows of my cheeks, in the tippytip touch of my tongue on my front teeth. And I think of life as film, and not as life. My mind numbs at the bleak blanche grottiness of all that time ahead and all that time behind.