Underwater at the bluecoat.

Today I decided to visit the exhibition being held by the bluecoat entitled 'underwater'. I scuttled down after my much delayed food shop, I say 'food' but what I really mean is chocolate and cake. I was already feeling pretty melancholy, it was a monday morning, it was grey and cold and I'd just come out of a rather taxing lecture, so my mood wasn't too elevated to start with.

I enter the exhibition and I am greeted with an atmosphere of aquatics, nautical sounds emitting from somewhere, leaking into all the rooms. This initially reset my mood to neutral with the train of thought 'the sound of water is quite relaxing'. I associate water with relaxtion, calm and tranquility but also with emotion. I always find that my water themed dreams are due to an excess of emotion. But less of that. The first piece I engaged with was a video work, it was a video of a naked woman in water, surrounded by jellyfish. As I sat there, I was waiting for some form of emotion to manifest itself. I believe I was intended to feel moved by the beauty and elegance of the jellyfish? The way they floated around softly and the way they delicately brushed over the woman's skin. Although I didn't recieve this from it, the likelehood is that my original sombre mood probably interfered with my interaction with the piece. I felt indifferent to it, it didn't provoke any form of thought or judgement. I can't really establish an opinion on it when it didn't pull me in any directed thought.

On the other hand, in the following room there were two photographs by 'Daniel Gustav Cramer'. These two photographs were taken deep underwater, the detail very underexposed and subtle. They were generally two photographs of different depths of the colour blue and black. In one photograph we can make out a coral formation, in the other (my preferred image) we can hardly see anything at all, it is just a mass of deep blues and blacks, so dark infact that I could see opposite reflections of people shuffling back and fourth in it. It's beautifully misty and mysterious, I enjoy its ambigous nature, I like it's non-obvious feel, it's dark and eerie. It had an ayr of silence and still. I'm always drawn to the subtle and the discreet, my own personality and art work is all about dealing with the secreted and things that are hidden away just below the surface. So I was very much attracted to the allure of these images.

Daniel Gustav Cramer.

There was another video piece just next to these photographs by Bill Viola, this video was an extremely high quality film of a male and female in slow motion tredding water. I felt that the shallow and aesthetic nature of the piece lured people away from these photographs which had a much more understated attitude to the underwater theme. Watching the other people being drawn to this swanky piece made me feel sad for these photographs, much undermined in place of the glitzy LCD screen.

Overall this exhibition didn't alter my mood, I entered sad, and left sad. But inbetween, I got a warm, satisfying feeling from Daniel's photographs. Thanks dan.

Automatic writing.

Recently I've been researching into the concept of 'automatic writing' (a process in which a person writes something, usually by hand, supposedly without conscious thought of what they are writing) - Thank you wikipedia. It got me thinking about my rambles and their production and whether or not it dwells under the umbrella of automatism. When I write I am not anticipating the next words or sentences, I tend to start off with a specific situation or feeling I want to extract from my being, and from that I steer off into a host of other emotional avenues. These are only accessed when I am writing, in everyday normal life I don't venture down those alleys of thinking, but when the paper is out and my pen is scratching furiously whats occurring in my brain I never know what's going to come out.

After fleeting around the Internet trying to find out more about automatism I came across a sub genre of surrealism entitled 'surrealist automatism'. It is much different to the medium inspired definition of automatism which says that 'spirits' or even 'ghosts' are influencing the automatic drawings/thoughts. The idea behind the automatic drawing is playing with chance, losing rational control of what is produced. It tosses up a whole whirlwind of questions about chance and pre-decided thought, whether drawings are ever automatic such as Jackson Pollocks work, how can his works be created totally at random and chance? Each hurling of paint must have some form of pre-decided judgement. 

Andre Masson - Automatic drawing

Jackson Pollock 'One'

 

 

 

 

 

This little expenditure into automatic writing has made me want to reflect more deeply into the production of my writing 'drawings'. I need to be more aware of their relevance. I'm going to carry on dabbling in this, it's interested me enough to want to no more, I'll dabble in a bit more research and get back to this later.

The wool baby.

I felt that I should write a little about the ball of wool as I haven't mentioned her in a while, truth be told I've been neglecting her but I thought I should write about her as it's having a weird effect on me at this moment in time. It feels like a dead weight, I progress with my other avenues of work at a happy and consistent pace but I've left the ball behind. It was the whole reason I started this idea, yet now, it feels like a massive weight of excess babble. I carry it around now and again like a little puppy, Ill come into studio, drop my stuff in my space, pick up the ball, have a little play with it and quickly get bored and return it to the floor where it stays day and night. 

Every time I see it I feel a bit sad, it's my responsibility, I decided to embark on it and now that it's all old and heavy I've grown weary of it. Much like a dog a Christmas, it's fun and amazing when they're little bouncy cuties but when they get old and start to stink of shit the novelty wears thin. I feel like I should draw a conclusion to it, do something with it, end it? I'm not sure, but I don't plan to leave it in its current form. I just need to think about what to do with it, euthanize it? The lettuce is still in its centre, I'm really curious as to what form its taken, whether its rotted or maybe it's in tact due to lack of methane or oxygen which contributes to the decaying process of vegetation. Who know's. I might just chop it in half. Just to satisfy my own curiosity.

Wolstenholme.

To kick start this new semester and to begin working towards the exhibiting portion of this project I am part of a group of six others who will be deploying work in the Wolstenholme space near parr street. All of our work is under the umbrella theme of 'self awareness', recognising our own emotions and reasoning behind our processes and choosing appropriate mediums to deliever this message . To start off we are writing up a proposal which includes a little bit about our own work, who we are and what as a group we plan to bring to this venture. I'm feeling somewhat nervous about the lack of time we have to set up this event, I'm pretty sure about what I wish to deploy from my work as the 'final' outcome, but of course I need to see the space and adapt my work around the surroundings and maybe even around others work.

My idea for my exhibition as of now is to put forward the idea of my words destroying themselves in a subtle manner. So I thought about writing the words on the wall in a material that's quite ephemeral, such as chalk, chalk will be smudged and wiped off by peoples clothing and hands. If this were the case I'd have to actively make people aware that the piece is interactive, they will be able to touch the work and 'play' with it as it were. But this is just the initial idea, I'm sure my thoughts will change when I visit the space and see what's available to me but as of now this is how I plan to exhibit. It's a similar deployment to an artist who was part of the new contemporaries exhibition at the Liverpool biennial 2010, I can't remember their name but the work was a graphite pencil drawing on a white wall which stated something along the lines of 'Do not touch, fragile artwork'. Although this work wasn't obviously interactive it certainly had a subliminal message of temporality. 

P.s. I've been thinking about having a practice run in my studio space, *writing on the walls* and seeing how people react to this way of displaying work.

Quick update.

I was sitting on the bus today, my Ipod had run out of battery therefore I was forced to listen to my own thoughts and everybody elses. I got to thinking about the concept behind my 'drawings'. I always thought to myself that if the thoughts were on the paper, they had left my brain and consciousness. Which maybe they did for a brief period of time, But the fact is that these thoughts do exist, they exist on the pieces of paper which I look at everyday, whether I wish to believe they are gone or not, they are very much present in my life on the paper and in the frames. So I thought, maybe I could continue writing but in a way that it would have a lifespan. In other words, how could the drawings somehow destroy themselves so that they are actually gone and I don't have to deal with them, changing the process into a temporary relief.

My initial thought was to write on things that are ephemral, i.e. foods. By doing this I would be continuing engaging with my process but also the 'drawing' would eventually dicintergrate and leave the world as I wish they would. So to start the rolling of experimenting with this idea I have began writing on bread, this is extremely hard, the bread is so soft and it absorbs alot of the ink, also whilst writing bits of bread fly everywhere. I've also dabbled in writing on pitta bread which is alot easier.

Other then foods I was thinking about writing on soap, an object that will eventually be used and gone. Well this idea is in its prelimary stages so I'm going to carry on pootling around with it. As for the glove, I still use it, but as I've said in a previous post, it's hard to progress with. 

Freelance/Business Day

So the freelancing day sounded interesting, I was ready to be engaged with the business world, glasses and note pad at the ready. As the day progressed, people came and gave speeches. The words 'public relations', 'resourcing', and 'enterprise' flying out of peoples mouths all over the place. I felt that as engaging as the business world is, it's not particularly useful for myself. I am not driven by money making. It appeared that this is what the day was about, this is what you need to to do use your skills for making money. It would be silly of me to say that art isn't about money, when it is, it's a huge business that makes millions. An indulgent business that can thrive on the simplest human trait of 'liking something that is nice on the eyes'. But personally I don't have a great desire to make lots of money, I'm driven by happiness. Which is the cheesiest thing i have ever said, and I'm cringing that I'm actually going to publish this post. I enjoyed listening to ways in which business can work for the creative minded and how projects can produce a comfortable income.

Art is a portion of my life that nestles in with other ambitions of mine for the future, it's an indulgence, it's an escapism, although sections of this particular fine art course are highly articulated and dense with concept and rife with meaning, when I go to a gallery and engage with some works, it's a welcome moment of still. A moment where I can just enjoy being in the presence of something that makes my eyes happy. If for no other reason then I enjoy the colours or that it reminds me of a joyous memory. 

So to churn this relationship I have with art into a structured business box is not what I want. I can appreciate the relevance of this day to others, but for me, it has reaffirmed my original belief of why I pursue art. To escape.

Post Christmas joy.

To pick up where I left off before Christmas, I've been continuing with the idea of distraction and using different processes and mediums to enable a form of mental escapism. I've slightly steered off course away from the pseudo automatic writing and dabbled lightly in the idea of using walking/running as a way of burning mental energy. I had a brief discussion with my tutor before the Christmas break on how I can bring this idea to fruition. We came to the conclusion that the work produced via this idea doesn't have to be literally represented by the action or during the real time of the activity. Hamish Fulton is an artist who has been described as a 'walking artist' although his hikes are more adventurous, walking across beautiful landscapes and mountains, more aesthetically stimulating then my shuffles to Tesco express.


I thought for a long time how I could manifest my manic scuttling into physical art and in the end I decided to cut pieces of paper and attach them to the soles of my shoes, in an attempt to record the walk. This idea wasn't great, I ended up with flapping pieces of lined paper dragging behind me clinging onto my heels for dear life. Also I discovered that although it did burn a small amount of stale and redundant thoughts, I am far too lazy to sustain the amount of walking required to absolve myself of erratic pondering.


My fresh approach to this concept was brought about by watching Edward scissorhands over the Christmas period. Edward, a man with scissors in place of hands. His scissor hands act as tools, he cuts hedges, peoples hair, creates ice sculptures. And then cuts some kids face. He expresses himself through the only way he can, he is reacting to something in which he has no control, his hands. So it snowballed a thought in my mind, I am able to pursue this idea I have because I do have limbs and the required tools needed to portray what I am trying to articulate. So I decided to create an Edward-esque type glove. Which as of now is a fuchsia pink glove with Biro pens taped to the fingers. As crude as it sounds this is partially about trying to challenge myself by obstructing myself. How do I continue with my thought process now that I have lost what allowed me to indulge in my own pity? Additionally it's another way for me to exude energy. I'm currently using it as a form of pen against paper, using a scratching motion to produce a series of marks. The paper is taking on the form of a cat scratching post in a way. 


It's a violent action, the scratching. Fighting with the paper, it's not far removed from my previous works with the holes in the books (which I still engage with). Although this idea is in it's infancy it's already providing problems...it's not as free as the other processes. I cannot take the glove with me everywhere nor can I take the abused paper. It needs much work!


As for the writing section of this idea, I'm still continuing with it but now it's isolated to one very small pad. In the past I have scattered these 'drawings' on all sorts of different papers and surfaces, mainly a4 size. I thought that if I scale down and restrict my irrational ramblings to a small square of paper that somehow it would cut down my over thinking to a normal and sustainable rate. I am yet to experience it's affect...

And finally my camera is currently out of order, I will toss up photographs of my progress as soon as its sorted. 

P.s. camera is in good working order so here are the images of the other abused notepads