c a s t i n g s h a d o w s

Recently we have found ourselves watching talks and lectures online. We have been picking films that don’t necessarily relate directly to our practice with the hope that it will open up avenues that we would have been unaware of otherwise. A talk that stood out in particular was Yann Dall’Aglio’s talk entitled ‘Love – You’re Doing it Wrong’, here Dall’Aglio speaks about the connections between people within a world in which the focus upon the individual is becoming more and more apparent. Essentially, it is a reflection upon love in the modern age; Yann starts his talk by stating, “’Love’ is the desire to be desired” and in the modern age we negotiate this desire on the stock market – or as Yann describes it – “the free market of individual desire”. One negotiates their own value within this market, thus causing a form of anxiety within the cotemporary human, an anxiety possessed by everyone as a consequence of this “desire to be desired”. Naturally (and unconsciously) we respond to this anxiety by collecting symbols of desirability – cars, phones, houses – in an attempt to make ourselves more accomplished, more desirable. We buy these (inanimate) objects to communicate with other minds; we do this to make them love us, to seduce them. Dall’Aglio calls this “Seduction Capital”, he goes on to explain that “consumerism is not materialistic, it is rather what is swallowed up and sacrificed for “love” or rather in the name of Seduction Capital”.

How can one renounce a hysterical need to be valued and therefore loved? Well, Yann believes that one will only be able to leap this barrier by becoming aware of one’s uselessness. In order to be valued one requires another to desire them, thus demonstrating that the individual possess no inherent value of their own. In short, we are all useless. One might think this as a gloomy, pessimistic conclusion to a subject as diverse as ‘love’, but fear not; a statement like this should be celebrated purely for its hints towards the idea of a collective unconscious, a collective experience, and a collective life. It asks us not to be constrained by the fact that one only thinks through their own brain, sees through their own eyes, and teaches us to be compassionate, towards the many or the few regardless of their direct relationship to you as an individual (something that is particularly relevant at the moment with the mass movement of communities over North Africa and Europe).  In the Flaming Lips’ track “Do you realize??” Wayne Coyne makes a statement that rings a similar bell as Dall’Aglio’s – “do you realize that everyone you know, someday, will die”, in saying this he reminds us of our temporary nature. We are but grains of sand on a shore, and soon enough, the grains of sand will be washed away by the tide.

Yann Dall’Aglio’s talk got us thinking about the individual in 2015, has technology in our pockets blocked as many avenues as it has opened? Are we isolating (rather than connecting) ourselves, creating a society of individuals? It’s hard to say; perhaps this is a question that one will only know the answer to in hindsight, and perhaps this will be too late.

As part of the course we have an excellent opportunity to partake in seminar discussions, ‘Technologies of Romance’ is the title of one of these, it is focused on considering our current relationship to technology and narrative while searching for any manifestos of ‘romance’ or Romanticism persisting in contemporary art and culture. We started off by talking about how history does not necessarily refer to the past; one can think historically of the present - to do this is to remember that things always change; what is now wasn’t always the case, and won’t always be the case. As an example of this Paul O’Kane referred to ‘The Disappearance of Darkness’, a project by Robert Burley that investigates photography in a post-photographic age - the current state of photography. Images from this project show the fall of the giant camera factories used to process and make film, the images depict enormous warehouses so large and barren that they are reminiscent of vast concrete deserts. These factories used to be thriving centres of potential imagery, the creators of visual documentation for the masses; they were the powerhouses of technology at the time. The digital managed to topple these titans, and perhaps the ‘new-digital’ will erase the virtual fruits of the new tech-giant’s labor.  Who knows? Our children (Sid and Jim Jr.) may have never heard of Samsung, Sony or Apple. Perhaps a day will come where someone utters the words “iWhat??”. >What is now won’t always be the case< so what will be the role of the individual within the ‘new digital’?

We continued to investigate this question by looking at similar technological injections that have dramatically changed the way some people live.  “In Praise of Shadows” (1939) is an essay on Japanese aesthetics by Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, he writes of the necessity for shadows in life, specifically in traditional Japanese aesthetics; this can be taken literally or metaphorically and expanded out into something larger than a room. Tanizaki marvels at our “comprehension of the secrets of shadows, our sensitive use of shadow and light”, these shadows create atmospheres in which “reigns complete and utter silence […] in the darkness immutable tranquility holds sway”. Towards the end of the essay Tanizaki writes of his dislike towards the slow crawl of western inventions into Japanese culture, specifically the fluorescent light, which eradicates the shadows of life, and consequently the mystery and obscurity of the unknown. In his concluding paragraph Tanizaki admits that as an individual he is helpless to the influence of the west; there is nothing left to do expect “move bravely ahead and leave us old ones behind”, the traditions of Japanese aesthetics have been brought to their knees by the ease and effectiveness of fluorescent lighting. In an almost ‘last-wish’ fashion the essay concludes with Tanizaki asking if “perhaps we may be allowed at least one mansion where we can turn off the electric lights and see what it is like without them.”

There are however examples of the mysteries of shadow still existing, small cubicles within the world where there are things that have been pushed back into darkness, where the utter silence still remains. One of many examples of this is Hikikomori or Otaku; here the individual seeks solace within the confines of their own bedroom, its common to block out light and not have any connection with the outside world – unless maybe, digitally. It’s not entirely sure why this condition started within some people (particularly young men in a transitory period between education and the ‘working world’).  Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has defined Hikikomoiri as a person who does not participate in society (particularly school or work) and has no desire to do so. “Hikikomori: Adolescence without End” (1998) is a book by Saito Tamaki who was working as a therapist and noticed a recurring patterns within the Japanese youth, this book, as well as some high profile cases of Hikikomori suffers having spells of violence brought awareness to the condition. It is thought that many of the cases are caused through an obsessive interest in something; frequently this can be internet forums – as the personal computer crept into our homes, it not only allowed the world to become connected, it also offered the option for the individual to become easily disconnected if they wanted to.

When you consider the condition alongside Tanizaki’s “In Praise of Shadows” there are some interesting contrasts; Tanizaki talks extremely fondly of the mystery of shadows, the silence that lies within them, and the atmospheres and micro environments that they create. Whereas Hikikomori sufferers seek the shadow as a refuge from the outside world, it is as if they enter the silence that the shadow creates. I imagine that this is not at all what Tanizaki wanted when he asked for “at least one mansion where we can turn off all the electric lights”.

In response to this we have began working on a video probing the connections between Tanizaki’s shadow and the shadowy interior of a Hikikomori bedroom. More broadly, the video is focused upon investigating a sense of loneliness, isolation and anxiety within ‘the social network’. It currently has quite a simple format (although this may change as the work develops); the viewer is faced with a Google SketchUp model (seen below). A small room with hollow limbs stretching off into the distance, the room (or cubicle) contains a traditional Japanese tatami and four alcoves (the inside of the limbs). The video is a live recording of SketchUp with the user interacting with the 3D model with a short story narrating the film. Written in the first person, the story details someone’s experiences within the shadows that the SketchUp model facilitates – the model acting as a visual metaphor for the increased isolation that the over-connected world forces upon the individual.

i m a g i n e a s t o r y

Jonathan Allen was the guest lecturer this week and his focus was that of secular magic and the notion of deception. We see secular magic as a more noteworthy form of magic because it makes no claim to be ‘other worldly’ or mystical in any way; it is pure deception. However, this deception comes in many forms. There is a difference between illusion and delusion – illusion being temporary (a film or story), and delusion being constant and fraudulent. This idea of a film being a lie is an exciting proposal; to create is to lie. When one fabricates something, which didn’t exist ‘naturally’, they are lying. But this occurrence need not be negative; it is us who have attached the negative connotations with respect to the action of lying – pretending to a teacher that you’re unwell is almost criminal yet to write a novel is often prize worthy. These are obviously the extremes, but one is stifled while the other is encouraged. The line between them is no thicker than a proverbial hair and so differentiating between the two can be confusing. Issues of this kind tend to bring up question about reality and fantasy and where (if at all?) the two meet. If you’re being told a story, which you believe to be true, and then it is revealed that it is in fact a work fiction then, was it ‘real’ until that point in time? Or was it never ‘real’? Sophie Calle is an artist who invested a lot of her time into questions of reality (in particular her own). In ‘Detective’ Calle is followed around for a day by a private detective, hired (at Calle’s request) by her mother. In doing this, she is attempting to prove her own existence through the eyes of another, whilst also questioning the concept of proof and evidencing. In the realm of philosophy, Aristotle had questions of reality and suggested that existence is conceptually prior to predication; merely by having features that can be described it must exist. Truth and truths are also very relevant here and a performance titled ‘White Balance: A History Of Video’ by Robin Deacon that beautifully captured these ideas about constructed narrative and story telling. The title White Balance refers to the process by which a camera is adjusted to account for differences in light, changing the relative strengths of colors to reach a truer sense of what is being seen. The performance uses a series of outmoded vintage video cameras to explore how our ways of seeing and ways of remembering may be informed by the medium used to capture the event – the artists document, the family gathering or the news broadcast. It creates fictional narratives and explores their potential relationship with real life and autobiographical experience. The history and use of the video camera in the setting of the gallery or the studio has now widened to encompass an exploration of its employment in domestic settings to give a broadened visual palette to work from in terms of imagery and content. In his explorations of numerous video formats, the focus of these explorations is what the tone of the given image might suggest. For example, the association of a particular kind of warmth, sharpness or softness associated with a particular video format popular at a specific point in time. The performance speculated on the possibility of using video to ‘tell the time’ so to speak. The thesis is that our memories look like the things they were recorded with. That the sense of another time or place is not dictated by the content of footage - temporal pointers such as a location that has not been visited in recent memory, or a clear visual evidence of ones own ageing. Beyond the understanding of a particular space and a particular time is a third dimension: a particular format. The vessel that carries the signal now seems the primary point of reference.

The reading for this week’s seminar was Roland Barthes’ book, ‘Camera Lucida’. In which he brings up is that one never actually looks at a photograph, but at the image it represents. Barthes connects this eternal present tense of the photograph to the impossibility of separating a photograph from its referent. The apparent difficulty this causes Barthes, ultimately serves him in his purpose; he says, "I didn't yet know that this stubbornness of the referent in always being there would produce the essence I was looking for." In examining the public photographs that "exist" for him, Barthes provides a new vocabulary to speak about Photography, and provides a means to distinguish them. The photographer becomes the Operator, the subject of the photograph is the Spectrum, and the viewer of a photograph is the Spectator. Barthes does not speak to the role of Operator, because he is not a photographer. He speaks most extensively on the role of the Spectator, but in his brief discussion of the Spectrum Barthes touches on one of his main arguments; speaking about a photograph of himself, he says, "Death is the eidos of that photograph." He further develops this theme in the second half of the book. Speaking about photographs from the role of the Spectator, Barthes distinguishes between the important elements of a photograph. He notes what he calls a "co-presence" of elements in a photograph that strikes him. These co-presences become the studium and the punctum. The studium "is an extant, it has the extension of a field, which I perceive quite familiarly as a consequence of my knowledge, my culture." However, the punctum is what truly makes the Photograph exist in Barthes eyes; it disturbs the studium. He frequently describes the punctum as a wound and this bodily-ness connects to Barthes later discussion of Death and Photography. The film was Hollis Frampton’s ‘Nostalgia’, a 38 minute 1971 film that’s composed of still black-and-white photographs taken by Frampton during his early artistic explorations which are slowly burned on the element of a hot plate, while the soundtrack offers personal comments on the content of the images, read by fellow artist Michael Snow. Each comment/story is heard in succession before the related photograph appears onscreen, thus causing the viewer to actively engage with the 'past' and 'present' moments as presented within the film. The idea of burning the photos comes from a belief that in doing so he would release something animate <soul(?)> trapped within the inanimate <photograph>. Something else that could be said to happen when something is deconstructed is that you would get to the origin. This relates to another book by Barthes, ‘Death of the Author’, where he writes about how one can no longer trace the meaning of what you’re reading back to the author, and that instead one must delve into the history of language. It’s referring to the same loss of origin that Frampton is exploring; at the point of deconstruction the origin defers and defers and defers indefinitely (nothing is original). This is out very eloquently by the 12th century French philosopher Bernard of Chartes when he said ‘we are like dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants, and thus we are able to see more and farther than the latter.’ And Five hundred years later, English scientist Sir Isaac Newton paraphrased that thought in a letter, “If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.” We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. Erasure is a very important aspect of ‘Nostalgia’; why does he want to get rid of the photos? Because by doing so he is attempting to erase part of his history. A parallel can be drawn between this and Robert Rauschenberg’s ‘Erased de Kooning Drawing’, a work where Rauschenberg erased a drawing he obtained from American artist Willem de Kooning. In this piece the process of deconstruction becomes the construction. It is then referenced by Tom Friedman and in particular his work ‘11 X 22 X .005’. This piece comes in the form of a white piece of paper in the dimensions that make up the title. It is in fact a Playboy centre fold and has been erased by Friedman. Within Frampton’s film there are references to other artists and works including one to Man Ray’s ‘Indestructible Object’. This work is a metronome with a photograph of an eye affixed with a paperclip to the swinging arm and was first created in 1922-3 and titled Object to be Destroyed (Objet à détruire). It was eventually cited as the ‘Indestructible Object’ due to it being destroyed multiple times and consequently being reproduced. He was displaying the effects of reproduction and how it creates indestructability; there is no original, only reproductions. It is not deconstruction but transformation; it’s the opposite of destruction, it’s dispersion. Through the transfer, ‘something’ is being produced. Thinking about this in relation to our own practice is fascinating, and instigates thoughts of moving further into a narrative based, story telling model or working.

At Spill festival this week we managed to watch Cassils’ performance, ‘Inextinguishable Fire’. A piece that involves dressing the artist, head to toe in protective clothing, and setting them on fire for 14 seconds. Cassils’ performance takes its name from Harun Farocki’s 1969 film of the same name, which suggested that when we shut our eyes to images of violence, we also close our eyes to the facts. By making us bear witness to the live event on stage, Cassils makes us look at the film through new eyes. We understand that what we are watching really is a human being on fire, as the 14 seconds of live action and 14 minutes of film merge together. Of course, what we are also seeing is violence constructed and deconstructed. There was a particular reverberation in having ‘Inextinguishable Fire’ take place on one of the National Theatre’s main stages because this is a stage where every night audiences watch actors pretending to be shot, murdered and mutilated; they fall and die night after night and rise again for the curtain call and are shot and die again tomorrow night. They simply play at being dead. Cassils’ piece plays on the idea of performance and performing violence. It is itself a construct, but one in which there is real and significant peril. You feel the tension; you can see it in Cassils’ body. But nonetheless, this is a performance, and it never tries to hide that: we watch Cassils being prepared for the moment when the first flame will flare, being robed in layer after layer of protective clothing, just as an actor gets into their costume. Also during Spill we attended a think tank titled ‘Demise of the Urban Free’, the main theme of which was, ‘what does liberty look like now?’ It began as being described as a sort of utopia; out of grasp but still worthwhile to peruse. Self interest and communal interest has to interact in order for people to feel as if they have autonomy within their space because there is a difference between being free and being outside of <something>. This brought up the idea of the art institution and what is the institution that can sustain radical art practice? How can an institution disrupt the dominant narrative in public place? The language of ‘radicalized’ and how this has become a negative is something to consider here; being political is now not a good thing. It is associated with terrorism and destruction as opposed to freethinking and progression. Social structures seek to dehumanize us and this is an aspect of culture that needs resistance if we are going to disrupt the imperative of a public space. But the question is what are the barriers to it not being effective? Because it is our generation who feels powerless and they don’t vote or protest or think that their contributions will be of any significance. This applies to political and non-political actions but either way victory comes in many forms and the fact that failure is OK is something we need to learn.

Our documentation workshop began with Walter Benjamin’s suggestion that documents are inferior to art as they only instruct; a document has use, art does not. We were asked what the point in documentation was and one of the thoughts was that it’s for sharing and publicizing ones practice. The issue with this, of course, is that what happens to other elements other than the image of the work. For example, the temporality if it is a time based work or the social impact if it is a project with individuals from the community. Therefore one would need to present work without imagery, but visualizing is about being present and therefore the absence of imagery means a total absence meaning that work (and us) cease to exist. Documentation can be a process of finding out, so providing evidence or proof; recreating an experience of viewing but not necessarily by employing stimuli that reflect the primary occurrence. The book ‘Evidence’, by Larry Sultan/Mike Mandel, is a collection of found and re-contextualized images taken from public and private American institutions, corporations, and agencies. At the time these objects or happenings were not seen as art but taken into a new context perhaps they are. Another point is that the book is called evidence but what is it evidence of? Without any information the images become a catalyst for imagination. When documenting a film one must consider the most important instant; outlined brilliantly in Bas Jan Ader’s famous film ‘Fall’ which by some people only ever seen as an image of the key moment when he is inches from the water. Stanley Brouwn is someone who takes documentation very seriously in the fact that he does not allow any reproduction of his work when it is on show. In the absence of imagery, what remains? Imagination and fabrication allow his work incredibly versatility. At this point we are given a blank piece of paper and told that this is a copy of a Stanley Brouwn and asked to consider whether is it a good or a bad copy. This initiates inquiries into the nature of blankness; is it empty? Everything? Nothing? It has left everything open and admitted everything but is also, at the same time, a refusal. Another artist, Ian Wilson’s work only exists as forms of dialogue and documents of these dialogues; a piece of paper that merely states ‘a conversation happened’. The spoken word has a fragile beauty and is the foundation of myth and, as artists, our work will inevitably travel through myth and he is embracing this idea.

Emily Jacir has an exhibition on at the Whitechapel titled ‘Europa’. A favourite piece from this show was ‘Linz Diary’, Jacir records herself in the Austrian town every evening, on one of the CCTV cameras watching the square. We see her distantly, down by the fountain. Some evenings she’s under a white umbrella. Or curled up like a ball. A little printed remark accompanies a succession of grainy stills. One evening, there’s a little gathering in memory of Edward Said, who had died the week before. On 14 October 2008, she’s “standing perfectly still. Disenchanted. On the left. A boring day in Linz. 1800 hours.” And so it goes. Made before we filled the world with selfies she marks her place in the world with a daily routine as night falls. A frustrating aspect is that she made a work that we have been thinking about for over a year (even thought she did it in 1998). She changes $100 at a bureau de change into francs. At the next change shop, she changes it back. From exchange to exchange, from “no commission” bureau to bureau she repeats the procedure. The money dwindles to a handful of coins. Annoying but still amusing to see it manifested. The exhibition’s studious feel is really a kind of deadpan. Stories and lives, including Jacir’s own, erupt within it.

d e a d o r < a > l i v e a r t ?

Aaron Williamson was giving a lecture at Queen Mary University. Williamson is a live artist whose deafness appears to be the subject of his practice. This isn’t necessarily apparent but once you’re aware of his disability you realise that his work is all constructed around the idea of isolation and alienation through public interaction. One of his performances that he discussed was a series of formal lectures that were integrated into institutional scenarios and unannounced as performances. The premise of the ‘Collapsing Lecture’ was that the delivery of formal lecturing and conferencing is infrequently fraught with mishap: equipment malfunctions and the lecturer her/himself is subject to unforeseen catastrophes. It is in fact a performance. The Collapsing Lecture illustrates this phenomenon. At first it appears entertaining and funny but once one considers it further and thinks about it within the context of deafness, the piece becomes darker and the humour recedes. Another one of these lecture-come-performances was titled ‘Flannel’. The word ‘Flannel’ has two meanings in English. Firstly it is a small cloth used for washing the hands and face with; but a lesser usage of the word means ‘indirect or evasive talk. ’It’s impossible to estimate the average percentage of lecturing time that is filled with this kind of ‘flannel’. For ‘Flannel’ at Swedenborg House he attempted to give a lecture with a washcloth in his mouth. He was trying to read aloud from a paper about Swedenborg’s dreams but nothing was audible. Instead the aspect, which appeared most prevalent, was the ‘authoritative’ body language of the lectern in the absence of any legible speech. This is another example of a work which on the surface is jokey and light but after deliberating over the fact that he is, in a way, mirroring his life of audible exclusion it becomes almost tragic.

The CSM maths centre is putting on a series of sessions about perspective and geometry. Directly, there’s not a huge amount of correlation to our practice, but learning about it can’t hurt. It’s an interesting way of thinking about art; it’s very focused on the position from which the work will be viewed. A way of messing with this would of course just be to display works at an incorrect height or angle. This is shown in ‘The Ambassadors’, a painting by Hans Holbien, which depicts two men and several meticulously rendered objects (including a lute, the importance of which will be elaborated on later). It also incorporates an example of anamorphosis in the form of a skewed skull. The skull can only be seen as such when the painting is approached in a particular way. The lute is symbolic of how advanced one is at perspective-based drawings since to incorporate it is immensely challenging due to its unique shape. We were able to try out this graphical projection using laser pens and transparent plastic. The second session was more about the idea of the vanishing point, which was described to us as ‘where the eye stops seeing’ and when ‘“things” become parallel’. Both very poetic ways of defining how our vision works in this respect.

We had the first of our ‘XD Toolkits’ that was titled ‘staging an event’ and were taken through the various considerations and scenarios one must consider when doing so. Anthony Gormley’s contribution to the 4th plinth, ‘One & Other’, was the subject of this discussion. The task was to think about certain situations one might find ones self in when generating an event of this kind; what if someone committed suicide. It was basic but laid out a good foundation when structuring a time-based activity, involving a number of people. The most entertaining aspect was when we found out Gormley’s answer to the previous ‘what if’. If someone had killed himself or herself on the plinth then he would have left them there for their full hour (the allotted time period for each individual). This is both amusing and terrifying. The next toolkit was on the subject of craft and even though we disagreed with her on several of her points, there were still some thought provoking questions and statements. For example, ‘craft is applied, art in implied’. This is troubling since it seems to suggest that art has no function because the only function that can ever seem to be measured is direct – a mug exists to hold tea etc. The ‘three types of making’ are then explained, adding subtracting and transforming. Adding, being connecting things together, can be thought of in reference to Tracey Emin’s quilt pieces such as ‘Hate and Power Can be a Terrible Thing’. Damien Hirst is another artist who falls into this category when it comes to ‘Gone But Not Forgotten’ and his other gilded works. An example of an artist who has created art by form of subtraction would be Tom Friedman and in particular his work ‘11 X 22 X .005’. This piece comes in the form of a white piece of paper in the dimensions that make up the title. It is in fact a Playboy centre fold and has been erased by Friedman. This is referencing the work by Rauschenberg where he erased a drawing produced by de Kooning and titled it ‘Erased de Kooning Drawing’. Kara Walker is someone who was also mentioned as her practice involves silhouettes cut out of black paper. When it came to transformation, Simon Starling was mentioned, specifically his turner prize winning ‘Shedboatshed’. He produced this work by employing the original materials themselves to create something new as opposed to the previous artists who either added or took away from it. The next aspect of the talk was the most frustrating; she described craft as ‘anything made well’. This belief is fairly sweeping on its own but when she added the things that were, as she put it, the opposite of craft it was quite disturbing. These were conceptual art, found art and minimalism. Unsure as to whether it was a poor choice of language or ignorance; that someone couldn’t see that ideas are a material just as much as wood or bronze. She went on to talk about how the dematerialisation of art (from autonomous object to contextual materiality) meant there wasn’t any ‘stuff’. In a sense she is correct, with regards to tangibility there can sometimes be less, Random International’s ‘Rain Room’ at the Barbican or Tino Segal’s ‘The Unilever Series’ performance in the turbine hall at Tate Modern, but the language she was using was devaluing these works over others which perhaps hadn’t been ‘touched by the artist’. Another bizarre statement made was that ‘craft is made to last’. Now this is strange because a beautifully hand made chair will fall apart and eventually decompose but ideas, in the words of V (for Vendetta) ‘ are bullet proof’.

The 3rd years gave their presentations on what their dissertation research and general practice is based around. It was satisfying to see that everyone, even people who made work that we didn’t particularly enjoy, was eager to engage in discussion about what they were doing. One girl was investigating the maths behind the Islamic prayer times and described a prayer as a ‘formal meeting with God’ which was an interesting way of putting it. The Monday guest lecture was by the two guys from the maths centre, and they spoke about John Milner’s differential topology. This involves huge amounts of qualitative data since its focus is composing space and how said spaces are connected together. This maths is hugely advanced but doesn’t actually flow on from any of the maths that is taught in schools. These points lead to the differences in language and the maths education system (difficult vs. advanced). Many of us are discouraged from participating in maths in school due to its quantitative nature and lack of application in the ‘real world’. It was touched on that this could be different if a maths ladder was climbed in the same way as any other. Any rung should be reachable; it shouldn’t be limited to progressing only when the current level is mastered. We also had a session on writing an artist statement; it involved being given a photograph of an unknown artist’s work and writing an artist statement for them. This was an excellent exercise and encouraged thought about our own artist statement. It forced us to analyse someone’s whole practice based on one photo and the results were fairly accurate. Meaning we should be able to generate our own ones without too much hassle.

We began our seminars this week too. It began with an introduction into Dadaism and the dematerialisation of the art object and then Neo-Dadaism, which is slightly more material based. This comes from new mediums such as film and video that are employed to document certain actions, which attempted to replace more tangible pieces. Films were therefore no longer seen as subjects but objects, inherently anxious objects. This was due to its perishability and obsolescence; every time a film is played it is damaged and it is superseded by the digital. Another reason for its intrinsic instability is that its inception correlates to that of the First World War; film is a machine to aid violence. Viennese Actionism was brought up since Otto Muehl and Kurt Kren collaborated to produce films of certain ‘happenings’. Muehl initially dismissed this documentation since he believed that any attempt to record them would devalue and damage the integrity of the work. Kren managed to convince him by making the argument that is being outlined now – film, as a medium, is just as volatile as the actions and bodies that performing them. We progressed to Walter Benjamin and how he said that ‘the image gains sway over the object’. This relates to artists such as Brâncuși who invested huge amounts of time into the photographing of his work, insuring that the materiality of the object was celebrated as much as possible. Bruce Nauman is also someone who falls into this category; when he’s in his studio, he’s not alone because he’s performing for the camera. The film of ‘Walking in an Exaggerated Manner Around the Perimeter of a Square’ becomes the final product, and not the ‘actual’ happening. The reading for our second session was Paul Virilio’s book ‘War and Cinema’, a hugely, exciting book about the foundations of film and surveillance being deeply rooted in conflict. We were also required to watch Chirs Burden’s ‘Shoot’, a film where Burden is shot by one of his friends. The session began with Dada (again) and how the audience is frequently the target in their work. But in Neo-Dadaism the art object becomes the target. Niki de Saint-Phalle’s shoot paintings reflect this idea; attached to the canvas would be balloons filled with paint and audience members would be invited to shoot a gun at the work. She, therefore, doesn’t know how the final piece will look until the opening night of the show. Yves Klein went through a similar process when producing his fire paintings. In the 1970s, the artist finally becomes the target and Burden performs ‘Shoot’. It becomes this kind of ‘lost object’ and moves from object-hood to event-hood because of its temporality. The historical context of this work would be that the war in Vietnam was expanding and people were demonstrating and consequently being shot. Burden wasn’t able to experience this directly but only through the media. He therefore wasn’t sure what the role of the camera was in the shootings – is it just recording or taking part in some way? There’s a strange nearness in this distance; due to the mass dispersion of imagery we have become desensitised to the feelings of others. This relates to Manet’s 'The Execution of Maximilian’ since he wanted to paint to moment but his only access came through media reports rather than direct experience of the event. Gerhard Ritcher also produced a similar painting, ‘Man Shot Down 1’, which is a blurry depiction of Andreas Baader, who was arrested as a co-founder of the RAF. It was only painted 10 years after the event and so the blurriness reflects this lack of translation due to time and the screen between camera and gun. We then spoke about how film has influenced the way in which we remember and the way in which we think about memory. Memory is now seen as this huge storage unit that we assess at the click of a button (depicted beautifully in the film Inside Out). Burden’s performances are now remembered through their documentation. At the beginning of a compilation of some of his performances he states very clearly that ‘what you see isn’t real’ which is a bizarre contradiction. He is attempting to encourage us to see there is a difference between reality and what we believe to be reality.

There are quite a few new works that are either completed or near completion. We’ve printed out the Microsoft Word synonym screenshot piece and photographed  it as a wall piece (shown below) but we did want to have the final piece draped over a plinth (plinths being the ‘go to’ for art objects), which goes with the anti-art element of this. Finally printed out the Sims paintings too but are yet to display them in a fashion that would render them complete. But they look great and we’ve settled on employing the name as a method of disclosing the method since this is not only referential but also subtler. ‘Imagine a Plinth’ is a new performance that we were able to try out during a student led crit. It’s a work which involves producing 2 or 3 objects from ones bag and unwrapping them from their bubble wrap (these are easily breakable) and passing them round the audience. Whilst the objects are going round, a story is appropriated to them about them being of incredible sentimental value. Once they come back round the story of value continues and it suggested that if one thing is valuable does situating another valuable thing constitute a combined value or is there something ‘other’ created to produce an even higher one. Once the objects are then stacked up, the audience is told that if we had been more prepared we would have a plinth on which to present the stack but they are asked to imagine one instead. We place the objects above the imaginary plinth and then drop them as if to situate them on top but of course the objects fall to the ground causing them to smash. It is a question of value (attributed or inherent) within both the world of art and in general. Who decides why one artist is more important than another and then why that signifies a monetary increase in his product? We were advised to instead of introducing them as having sentimental value but ‘actual’/monetary value. Starting by saying that we had an exhibition and we presented these as art objects and someone wants to buy them for a substantial amount of money. This therefore takes us out of the equation and therefore the audience are touching things that, they believe, have value that transcends the current owners. We’ve also completed a film titled ‘Anything I Can Do Is Not Art Because I'm Not An Artist’ and is a film made using extracts from various vloggers on the subject of what they describe as 'modern art'. At first the film was intended to be one of satire, how dare they be so ignorant and hateful towards something we’re passionate about. But whilst making the film something changed and it became sort of sad and almost depressing. Is it us that’s created this anger amongst these individuals? And if not who? Why don’t they accept that it’s just something they don’t understand like quantum physics or open-heart surgery? These are all questions that were brought up in the personal tutorial. We landed on the notion of purpose and jealousy; people find it hard to see the purpose of art and can potentially be jealous of others that can find a place for it in their lives. There is also an element of visible labour that people appear to be sensitive about; people want to be able to see that something has taken a long time to prepare. So in order for people to feel involved with the art work they need to be informed with respect to the process. Another question which was posed was what is this for us, something that doesn’t necessarily have one or a constant answer. However, at this moment in time it feels like a body of work born out of our own frustration with the art market and therefore a small portion of the art world. Because we believe in art being, at some level, accessible to all and not excluding anyone but simultaneously leaving something unanswered which relies on an element of uncertainty that in tern can create frustration. So we’re attempting to think through the delivery and receival of art and how that dictates its value. We also discussed the Sims works and realised that the Sims are not able to return to a lower level of skill since in the game the act of learning must be linear. Therefore the paintings produced at the beginning are almost more valuable due to their rarity. ‘Bad Art Good Walls’ was something recommended on watching the ‘modern art’ film, it carries the same level of humour with reference to ‘café art’.

Jimmie Durham had an exhibition at the serpentine. We'd forgotten how much humour (specifically irony) he utilizes in his work. His piece ‘Balancing Rock Goes On Tour’ was hilarious! It was a series of images (beginning with that of a balancing rock which appeared to be atop a mountain). The next images were a selection of tourist locations (big ben, Eiffel tower etc.) that the rock had been, scantly, photo-shopped into. This piece is a good example of his word play and how he comments on the forces of colonialism that constructs our contemporary discourses and challenges our understanding of authenticity in art. Rachel Rose also had a show at the other Serpentine Gallery titled ‘Palisades’. The show is essentially one work with two sub-works within it; 2 films and a sound piece that links the films together. The first film one encounters, ‘A Minute Ago’, embodies this relationship between catastrophe and collage through how ones perception changes due to certain architectural tools such as glass. ‘Palisades and Palisades’ is the next work and it too addresses ideas of outside and inside and perhaps a merging of the two. Some of my favourite shots in the film are when the camera goes from being very far away to very close up. This is an indication of the film’s connection to time – when things are far away they only appear to be images of themselves where as the same thing closer, or in the present, becomes very pure and material. She also used a montaging technique of matching shots to others, which weren’t necessarily connected, to create this fictional narrative from factual clips. The architecture of the gallery itself appears to be prominent also; Rose has kept all the windows open to draw natural light in as the projected light goes out. An unmistakable continuation of the ‘outside-inside’ theme.

There was a live art event at Toynbee Studios titled ‘The Youth Board Presents...’ An evening of performance, spoken word, film and illustration. All the work was excellent but we were particularly struck by an incredible spoken word piece about racism and being brought up wanting to be white. There was another interesting work, which involved a woman searching for chicken nuggets in plant pots full of dirt and subsequently consuming them. While this was going on there were various soundtracks from fast food adverts playing on speakers. The next part of the performance was her hunting giant jelly babies with an iPhone wire, the piece was collectively titled ‘What’s for dinner, Mum? Dad, Can we have takeaway tonight?‘. Spill festival was also this week and therefore there was a huge variety of performances on show. ‘Moving Stories: Moving Mountains’ was a film by Robert Pacitti in collaboration with Angela Dawn Wright, Giovanna Maria Casetta, Rowan James, and Tonny. It’s a work investigating issues of disability and the following affect this has on power. It manifests itself as a series of performances to a camera. The disabilities it covers aren’t just physical but mental too, but the main focus of the work is to ‘piss on pity’ with reference to disability. The next work we encountered was ‘Stone Tape Theory’ by Sarah-Jane Norman. Its name is derived from an obscure paranormal hypothesis in which ghostly presences are explained not as discarnate souls, but as electro-magnetic “imprints” in space. When experiencing the work, the viewer walks through a door into a pitch-black room (unable to see a hand in front of your face) with a concoction of noises and the occasional flashing light. The sounds are tape recordings that are being recorded over and over each other and will eventually degrade due to their delicate nature. The work is about memory and its volatile nature and asks what is a haunting, if not a memory in space? And what is a memory, if not a haunting of the body? FK Alexander’s piece was called ‘No Where // Now Here’ and was about the destruction as a process of construction and it’s futility. ‘Site’ was a piece by Poppy Jackson involved her straddling the roof of Toynbee Studios for 4 hours, completely naked. Although this sounds fairly striking it’s almost as if she’s become as one with the building, part of its very architecture, as if her body is an extension of the brickwork. Zierle & Carter was the final performance we saw. The viewer was asked to remove their shoes and then to keep six pomegranate seed in their mouth before entering the genuine, masonic temple. The description will not do it justice and therefore cannot be told as to do so would reflect badly upon the work. 

p r e t e n d i n g t o p r e t e n d

Last week we went to a symposium at the ICA titled ‘Utopian Realism Today: The Aesthetics and Politics of Hope’. It began with Sarah Turner (artist and film director) and David Bell (researcher and writer) who discussed the more abstract concepts of utopianism. Very often radicalism and extremism are lumped together giving people the impression that they are one and the same. This is the same with regards to idealism and utopianism. However, there can be realistic utopianism and idealistic utopianism and this is where the confusion begins and where negative connotations come into play. This is due to idealistic utopianism being associated with organizations such as ISIS who attempt to govern their ideals through violence. David Bell used an interesting phrase during this discussion, allegorical mirroring, which I took to mean a familiar thing imagined slightly different. He also responded in a relatable way when asked about Labour’s current political position. He said that he was hopeful, but that being hope is disappoint-able, hope is not to be confused with optimism. Sarah Turner showed an extract from her new film ‘Public House’, which explores the centrality of pubs and social spaces to communal narrative and memory. She spoke about how community is a form of creative expression and it made me consider Theaster Gates’ organisation, ‘Rebuild Foundation’ which restructures the cultural foundations and incites movements of community revitalisation within underinvested neighbourhoods. She spoke in depth about the nature of these communal areas and defined ‘space’ as something which is meaningless, empty. Where-as she believed that ‘place’ was a meaningful space, so in the space/place Venn diagram all spaces are places but not all places are spaces. It made us think about Foucault’s ‘Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias’ and how he writes about utopias being ‘placeless places’ and how mirrors fit this description since he is able to see himself someone that he is not. However this is counteracted by the fact that the mirror, as an object, does exist in reality, as we know it. How does this then relate to Facebook; a place where we exist but do not reside, a place that ‘opens up behind the surface’? Finally they discussed experiences how we experience certain things. It was described to us that the way we believe we experience happenings are that two things come together and create something new (an experience) that exists as a separate entity. However, they proposed that in fact two things come together and share an experience, which changes both parties. This reminded me of various methods of combining metal, brazing and welding; one being the bringing together of two materials with the aid of another and one utilising the original material.

We also attended a talk with Tom McCarthy and Jon Rafman at the Zabludowicz Collection. They began with discussing notion of the screen, as a portal between the virtual and the real, and how the various screens which Rafman’s work alludes to but doesn’t necessarily inhabit. This included a romantic screen since a lot of the characters in his work often reflect a collapse of the sublime in a Frankenstein-esque fashion; making ones own world or being based on what you know, in this case the Internet and its culture. A further screen that was discussed was a heroic one. They spoke about how we liberate ourselves through celebration and the mastering of capitalist products, which eventually become obsolete; this is of course referring to video games. This was expanded upon to include thoughts on the idea of a beta-male and how, in tangible reality, he’s a loser but when it comes to the subculture of the Internet he’s a hero! Here the Internet is presented as a tool, for the weak to control the strong since the ‘survival of the fittest’ model appears to be all but out-dated. Cyborgs were brought up in relation to this point since ‘you are what you eat’ and therefore if all you consume are video game are you, by definition, a cyborg. Rafman also made a clever comparison between the digital and physical world. He suggested that in the Greek myth involving the Minotaur, when Daedalus advises that Theseus unwind a spool of string behind him as he searches for the Minotaur he is essentially giving him a ‘cheat code’ for completing the ‘level’. Technology does appear to change the way we remember and therefore how we see others and ourselves. He touched on this when talking about nostalgia, suggesting that nostalgia isn’t really how we remember the past but how we want to future to be.

We’ve visited quite a few galleries recently, one of them being Prem Sahib’s show at the ICA. Initially Sahib’s work appears to relate to American minimalism – it’s precise execution and functional materials bring to mind the work of Donald Judd or Robert Morris. But when one moves closer there are other elements or pieces of detail that aren’t originally noticed such as the cast eggs which feature in the puffer jacket works that imply a human element to the otherwise very structured and architectural pieces. The cast bits of popcorn situated on one of the tiled works are another beautiful piece of detail, being used as an indication towards the idea of the consumption of image (being associated with both, simultaneously). A selection of works that really stood out were the thin pieces of metal which appeared to have drops of condensation running down them, which had been smeared by an unknown party, similar to what one would see on their bedroom window on a frosty winter’s morning. However, this effect is not merely rendered by leaving the panels outside but by painstakingly distributing each and every droplet on by hand using resin. There’s a sense of loss with these works; there’s a suggestion of a being or some sort of life. This aspect is mirrored beautifully with the fact that condensation or sweat is indicative of nature but since the material is resin there is no life to it, it is forced to sit in limbo forever. As obvious as it might be, Hans Haacke’s ‘Condensation Cube’ comes to mind. However, even though they are linked figuratively, conceptually they could not be further apart. Haacke’s piece is about creating life and a life that’s genuine; the ‘Condensation Cube’ is a constantly altering piece of art that is evocative of the Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, who famously said ‘no man ever steps in the same river twice’. Sahib’s piece is one that appears to also propose life and presence but this is quickly stolen away when the truth surfaces that in fact there was never any life there to begin with.

The Jonathon Viner Gallery is another gallery that we’ve attended, which had an exhibition titled ‘Island Theory’. To being with the title, the definition of what constitutes an island can be extrapolated and used to formulate understandings of artistic practice and exhibition. The conceptualization of this, as a manner of survival of ideas, images and their movement between and within the individual can be understood as some ideas ripple onwards while others are stilled. There’s an installation by Grear Patterson, bringing an image of childhood innocence; there is a kite that flies high towards to ceiling of the gallery but instead of being put there by the wind it’s being kept up artificially by an assembly of fans. On the walls were two shapes, which appeared to resemble tanks and have ben constructed from an assortment of stretched materials gathered on the artist’s travels. They also feel referential to works like Jasper Johns’ American fags or Frank Stella’s shaped canvas. The Hales Gallery was close by and so we went to see the Frank Bowling paintings. The pieces appeared to be about celebrating paint as a medium in its own right as opposed to a tool with which to create works. Some of the later works by John Hoyland are things that come to mind. 

Attending the MFA/MA Interim Show private view at the Slade was an enjoyable evening. The highlight piece probably being when we came across a human sized black smudge on the wall and then realising that a naked woman covered in black paint running into it had caused this. This was revealed by a film situation just to the right of it. The reference to the rejection of Yves Klein’s use of women, merely as tools, feels prominent here but there can be no confirmation of this. A point that would have perhaps given a slight element of mystery and then declaration would have been if the mark on the wall and the film had been separate so that the viewer encounters the mark first. This would create a sense of uncertainty but one that would be cured once the film was revealed.

Seeing the Ryan Gander exhibition at Lisson gallery has been something we’ve been looking forward to for quite a while. When one walks into the gallery, the first thing that is visible is a chair and a hole in a wall that allows various items to be viewed on a conveyer belt, one at a time. There’s a nice sense of mystery and expectation about this; waiting and wondering what the next object might be. They included some of our favourites of Gander’s works – the chess set he designed based on car motor parts, the two watches that had been clasped together to create an infinity sign and the muddied trainers, which he produced in collaboration with Adidas. The fiberglass tent continues this analytical yet voyeuristic theme. When one progresses through the gallery, the downstairs of the gallery is found to be full to the brim with stones and pebbles. To add to the humorous nature of this action, the text stating that the ‘exhibition continues downstairs’ is still up. This piece has a strong, autobiographical link to ‘Preparation is Everything (There Will Come a Slowness and We Should Prepare for That Also)’. It consists of a mirror covered in 365 daily attempts to mix the exact colour of the sky over Saxmundham in Suffolk (where Gander lives). In the same room, the marble clothing of imaginary statues covers mirrors and plinths making the viewer indulge their imagination by deliberating over who they might be. These pieces which blur the boundaries between reality and fantasy are ones which we want to mirror in our own work; using fictional stories but exploring them employing indicators from the factual world. The discovery of the black helium hiding in the corner of the ceiling of the entrance and the second room was a reminder of Gander’s occasional playful mocking of the audience. Gander’s phone number is also on display on the outside of the gallery, suggesting and openness but never quite giving the audience of this one-on-one performance the satisfaction and connection they want from the dialogue.  Broomberg & Chanarin were also exhibiting at Lisson at this time. Their new show explores the tension that arises between discipline and chaos; we’re shown films of soldiers in training, marching and chanting. An exciting and intense feature of this exhibition was a live performance with two drummers, one snare drum, one chair, two clocks and a lead carpet, in which the drummers play a drum roll for the 6-week duration of the exhibition, without interruption. However, mixed into this film of formation and routine there’s also intermittent appearances of a character seemingly straight out of medieval, burlesque theatre: a sinister, jester-like figure played by a woman wearing a grotesquely padded, hunchbacked white leotard. Performing buffoonish antics or lewd sex mimes, she acts as an agent of misrule and mischief whose emotional excesses disrupt the atmosphere of buttoned-up authority.

An issue that we wanted to combat this week was how we ensure that the audience was aware of the process behind the Sims paintings. One idea came from revisiting the work of Cornelia Parker who has a variety of works, which rely heavily upon the titles to complete them. For example, ‘Measuring Liberty with a Dollar’ is a work where a silver dollar is drawn to a wire the height of the Statue of Liberty. Without such descriptive information, the poetic intelligence of the work might remain obscured within the understated minimalism of its presentation. However, when taken together as intended, the message is at once poignant, funny, and knowing. Another idea was one that was brought about by a way we thought we could enhance a work at the Slade show we went to see. By positioning a film, disclosing the process, to be seen after the products (of said process) we would be informing people without the aid of an explanation. Here is a plan of how he thought it would work.

An artist we were recommended to take a look at was Becky Shaw. Most of her works manifest themselves as live art in care, education and production contexts and generally amongst others. Works are made through careful response to a situation with no prior known outcome. The relation to our current work appears to how she often focuses on the value we place on art and other forms of making and production. Joshua Sofaer was someone else who was mentioned. His film ‘What is Live Art?’ is an excellent way of introducing humour to something which is usually associated with a more serious attitude, whilst also questioning what art has become. The launch of his biography was along the same lines; a book that is entirely blank aside from the front and back covers. Sofaer employed an actress to play the part of the author and signed copies of the book to audience members who attended the event. It’s the uncertainty of truth and deception in these pieces that we want to mirror in our own work.  

t h e u n i v e r s a l i n d i v i d u a l

We finally started uni again this week and, aside from the odd dull lecture regarding the structure of the course it was very interesting. On Thursday we had our first tutorial as a group and explained the Sims 3 piece and spoke about the Brighton show that got pulled during the summer. Surprisingly we managed to speak for quite a while uninterrupted, the group enjoyed the story about the show in Brighton and seemed to register the idea about the Sims work and the Performance, but we think it may have been hard to react and interpret it without a physical manifestation of the ideas. We had a sketch up version of the Sims plan, but forgot to show it, perhaps that would’ve helped.

It was suggested that we consider our method of realisation, and to be sure that there is a continuous strain of ideas running throughout our practice. This concern may have been voiced because we mentioned that the Sims work is still relatively new, and therefore slightly unresolved as an idea. We should take care not to get held back by the piece, she mentioned this because the arduous nature of creating the videos may take a while, haltering our progress in the process. We aren't not worried about this to be honest and feel that we proved last year that we have the ability to run multiple strands of work alongside each other and see no reason why this would not happen this year.

An example of this style of audience emersion can be seen in ‘Stoner’ by John Williams, it is a novel that offers such a detailed and textured portrait of a man’s life that one is almost tricked into thinking that another’s thought could speak for themselves. The subject of the book, William Stoner, was not remembered when he died, but his life was full of victories and defeat. He leads a relatively bland life; he marries the wrong woman, teaches at a university and has a daughter that, in the latter stages of her childhood, rarely makes contact with him. William’s delves into Stoner revealing the struggles and conflicts of life that go unrecorded through the passing of time, thus highlighting the importance and significance of the individual. William Stoner is all of us, and each of us is William Stoner; his surface life is dull, yet inside his life is kaleidoscopic; an ever shifting tide of mass that can sometimes be passive and other times passionate and forceful. Microscopic shifts of self-awareness and understanding briefly connect him to himself, to others and to the world. 

The novel is about the universal value of human life, a type of inner life that does not need external valuations. A life that is possessed and understood only by the individual, ‘Stoner’ somehow manages to materialise these values and present them unto us in such a manner that the reader experiences a form of self-realisation that resonates with William Stoner’s discovery of his own self-awareness. ‘You Me Bum Bum Train’ and ‘Stoner’ both press complete emersion upon the viewer/reader, the audience experiences a unique displacement from an everyday exterior that has become their normality. They are reminded that an essential part of life is acceptance of their individuality, and a necessary step towards this is self-awareness, understanding and reflection.

e v e r y t h i n g ' s a c o p y o f a c o p y

We have recently begun to re-investigate the use of the ‘Sims 3’ to act as a model for the real world, and how the real world (or someone’s opinion of the real world) represents the arts, in particular ‘the artist’. Sims 3’s perception of an artist is a painter, as the Sim becomes a more accomplished painter he/she produces works that objectively resemble the ‘real’ world, each time ‘improving’ on the previous painting. These improvements are predominately governed by the painting’s accuracy in relation to existing objects. So as the Sim’s painting level increases their paintings become more lifelike and the childish fictions that the Sim used to paint when they first started begin to fade out being replaced by a less superior view of their own world. Someone has programmed the game to do this; a decision has been made by an individual to portray the artist as an entity that can only create fiction-less scene. The Sim, as if stuck on a loop, now only has the capacity to copy repeatedly until they die. In a way this is actually a fairly accurate comment on the world exterior to the game; the habitual actions of a human is based upon common archetypes; everything is a copy.

Objects that exist within the game are only accurate representations of objects exterior to the game, thus rendering the Sim’s painting a copy of that copy. The Sim appears to paint a manipulated reality.   The 3D rendering of such objects within the game mirrors the rendering of a Sim artist and the work they produce; an individual’s opinion has been expanded to represent the real world. This opinion is conveyed as if it is the only true reality of a specific object/idea/profession.

The game gives the user the ability to control their own world and create fictions within this world, however, they are still merely creating these within someone else’s idea of a world; the freedom that the game advertises is only a freedom within the opinion of the creators of the game. An ability to create and manipulate within the game is therefore an illusion. Such an illusion is also mirrored with the life of an artist within the game; the work they produce is pre-programmed and based upon a relatively complex system that takes the Sim’s characteristics and interests into consideration, but however complex this system may be, there will still always be a limited amount of work one Sim is able to produce; sooner or later the work produced will begin to repeat itself, to copy itself.

The creative freedom of an artist within the Sims is therefore the same as a person playing the game; the artist is limited by the player’s world, which in itself is limited by the parameters that the game designers have decided. This is not a new occurrence; parameters define and limit everything that has ever existed; human communication is limited by one’s ability to converse, and one’s ability to converse can be limited by social and cultural influences; these expansions can carry on infinitely and are constantly present. As a consequence of this, the representation of an artist within ‘The Sims’ could be seen as relatively accurate; this is seen less so in the actual work that they produce, but if one considers the notion that everything that exists is operating within certain parameters then they may draw some parallels with the act of making art. Everything that the Sim appears to produce is limited and defined by the world that he/she exists in. Everything that the Sim appears to produce is a copy of a copy.

d r o w n i n g i n a r t

We have been away! But will be settling back into work straight away.

Going to the Venice Biennale was on the agenda and it was mind blowing as ever. So many new influences and ideas; green neon lights and the smell of babies, the idea that a flower which is present in a room is a witness to various sociopolitical events, the head of a Russian fighter pilot blown up to at least 10 times it’s original size, a depressing fair ride that went too slow and gave no view, a whole room full of shredded money, moving trees, razor blade wheelchairs, a genderless person walking on a treadmill with a constantly changing background, Canada’s fake shop full of blurry objects, a room made entirely of staircases dictating your every move, Israel’s pavilion covered in tires and the loss of people and their languages.

These are just a handful of the amazing things present at the biennale this year but our highlights had to be the Venezulan pavilion, in which there was a film made by Argelia bravo. The film began by three women walking onto a stage with babies in their arms. The only strange aspect to this was that all three were wearing balaclavas – suggesting that they might be criminals (in particular terrorists). They sat down on some folding chairs with their babies and after a minute or so began breastfeeding. At first they were doing so very discretely but by the end of the film they had completely removed their tops and bras. For me, this is promoting the idea that someone who might be perceived to be a criminal does not lose the ability to love for those they care for. There was also a sense that it was hinting towards the issue of public breastfeeding, which has been in the media semi-recently.  

A futher highlight was from the Giardini was another film, this time in the German pavilion, by Hito Steyerl. It was called ‘Factory of the Sun’. The film is set within a 'virtual motion capture studio' and is itself shown in a motion capture studio and is in the form of in game in which you are imprisoned as a slave in said motion capture studio. The game appears to be about the immateriality of light as a medium of information and switches between different levels of reality, exploring notions of truth that supports and surrounds our understanding of the world.

The next day we ventured to the Arsenale in which we saw a film, which contained props that became the centre of attention. The title was ‘Games Whose Rules I Ignore’ and was by Boris Achour. Achour had invented six games, all of which are played by two people and involve inventing relationships – emotional, poetic or conceptual – between the two players. The game becomes a sculpture, a vehicle to represent this new relationship, with each film having a specific visual characteristic and relationship to sound. The games are being fictionalised and documented simultaneously, they are not performances but narratives that centre around a game whose rules remain unknown to us.

Steve Mcqueen also showed his film ‘Ashes’ named after its subject matter; a man nicknamed Ashes. It’s an incredibly sad and moving film that was shown on a double-sided projection screen. The initial side that we encountered was one in which Ashes’ remains are moved from an unmarked grave to his final resting place (organised by Mcqueen) with voiceovers by two of the man’s friends briefly describing his life. They talk about how they knew him from childhood, how they fished and dived together, and how his chance discovery of drugs on a beach set off events that culminated in his brutal murder. On the next side there is different film, shot many years before of Ashes sitting on the prow of a fishing boat at sea, initially sitting with his back to you but later standing, smiling, laughing. Everything about the piece is beautiful: the setting, the cinematography and even the graceful main actor.

Theaster Gates presented a film too (Gone Are the Days of Shelter and Martyr) and was accompanied by a bronze church bell, a wall of slate roof tiles and a mostly-complete statue of a saint. These are the items that Gates and his team have salvaged from the now-demolished Roman Catholic Church of St. Laurence in Chicago. The church, which gradually fell into disuse, was on the border of changing ethnic and denominational communities. Gates uses the semi-demolished church interior to screen an affecting, atmospheric video filmed with his collaborators, the Black Monks of Mississippi: two powerful performers raise and drop heavy church pews to an irregular beat while a cello plays softly and, in the background, a blues-gospel chant creates a lyrical, mournful mood.

The final highlight from the Arsenale was ‘Latent Images, Diary of a Photographer’ by Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige. When first coming into contact with the piece one is faced with a 20ft tall wall filled with what appear, at first, to be blank books. Yet, when you feel daring enough to remove them from the shelf and arm yourself with the letter opener on a nearby desk to slice the pages in order to reveal the contents. You will be rewarded with an incredibly detailed description and this is on every page until you arrive to a photo of a film canister. The film is never developed; nevertheless each photograph is documented in a notebook after it has been taken. His pictures can therefore be read, giving free rein to the reader’s imagination. There’s a sort of privacy to this, a sense that only the photographer will ever see the image that he took and even so he will have probably forgotten the exact scene he now believes it to be. Essentially the work is a participative performance, carried out by its audience.

On the final day we visited Palazzo Grassi to see an exhibition curated by artist Danh Vō. The curation of the show was a work of art in itself. The pieces contained in each room were chosen and positioned exquisitely. A clever example of this was that there was a room, which contained a work by David Hammons titled ‘Flies in a Jar’. In order to get into this room one had to go through a work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres. This piece is called "Untitled" (Blood), and is a curtain made up of red beads, otherwise known as a fly net. It’s clever aspects like this, which really brought the show together.

 Just before going to Venice we also got the chance to see a performance by Chris Dobrowolski. It was presented to the audience as a sort of lecture, which began as a sort of introduction to contemporary art and goes on to discuss his, potentially fictitious, residency in Antarctica. The idea that this could all have been faked is hinted at throughout the entire performance whilst he’s making fun of the stereotypical tools a lecturer might use (laser pen and meter long ruler). It felt like a brilliant pairing of Ryan Gander mixed with Richard Dedomenici. One of the funniest aspects of the performance was when we ridiculed the team building exercises of ‘business types’. However, the performance was not merely a joke but contained intelligent references to many major artists from Damien Hirst to Marcel Duchamp.