The guest lecturer this week was, turner prizewinning artists, Mark Leckey. He began by discussing his infamous film ‘Fiorucci made me Hardcore’ which depicts the history of underground dance music – starting in the early 70s with northern soul then, jazz funk, casuals, then into rave and hardcore. This particular slogan was written on the side of studio 54 and is talking about an Italian fashion label. The statement appeared profound to Leckey; a clothing label (consumerist, superficial) somehow makes something hardcore. This Paradox is exciting and depicts a way of being in the world, taking it and making it yours. Pop culture took marketing to a teenager and that same teenager took it to something else. The way the film came into being frustrated but the very dense critical art theory he was taught at university, he was confused and no longer wanted to make art. However he was in fact interested in making music videos. This was due to the fact that he could make something not driven by art history but personal history (his musical interest). Personal history is a material and can be used it to make art, a sort of mining of the self. All of the footage is secondary and therefore it’s almost a collage of videotapes and it’s pre YouTube so the process was different; he had to write letters to people to get tapes. It clearly comes out of a place of nostalgia – contains huge numbers of young people having fun. This sense of nostalgia is increased by the videos having a particular ‘look’. This brings into play the idea that it’s not just what was recorded but the way it was recorded. His frustration with the art world is embodied again in the piece ‘Big Box Statue Action’ which was installed at Tate Britain. It consists of a statue by Jacob Epstein called ‘Jacob and the Angel’ and he spoke about how he always found it very alienating and that he couldn’t connect with it but wanted to address it. So in order to do that he made a sound system. This appears to be because they’re objects that made sound, and made a sound that in itself is sculptural. He was using the sound system as a huge ventriloquist doll; talking through it since the sculpture won’t take people seriously but, on account of its size, will take sound system seriously. The phrase ‘willful self deceit’ was something that he mentioned on several occasions when describing his works. Taking pleasure from deceiving oneself in the same way that when one watches a magic trick they want to do fooled, they don’t want to see the loop holes. ‘GreenScreenRefrigeratorAction’ is another piece of his where a fridge compares its self to other ‘gadgets’ and eventually gains confidence. But it is important to realize that this is not a domestic fridge but a ‘mans’ fridge; it’s shiny and black to mirror the notion of ‘black box thinking’ – the uncertainty of how technology works and therefore seems it appearing to be like magic. He’s playing with the idea of animism and is attempting to provide everything with some kind of aliveness, everything stalking and communicating. He expressed an obsession with images and the drive is now to actually be in them as opposed to just own them. An example of this would be ‘Pearl Vision’, a film where Leckey is part playing a drum made out of a chrome material. Due to its reflective quality he becomes the drum; man drum hybrid, the viewer is not aware of where drum ends and he begins. The aim appears to be to become displaced, to be out side of self and opened up to productive thinking. ‘Made in ‘Evan’ has similar qualities to it; it is a digital rendering of Leckey’s flat and of Jeff Koons’ rabbit. Both this and the drum are both shiny and silver but this was a realized fantasy. It was capturing a kind of perfection, this flawless object with no human intervention, the ultimate consumerist object. And he can only posses it virtually, which is the way we have a lot of things now. The notion of the physical doesn’t necessarily denote an entity more ‘real’ than the digital. There was a real sense of time within the things he was saying, one that kick started the thought that the now will become the past very quickly. This relates hugely to our own practice in the way that we attempt to create works that are relatable by reflecting the time in which they were made.
The most recent XD toolkits have been very enjoyable. Emily Druiff, the director of Peckham Platform, ran the first one. It was around the concept of the social arts practice and what this actually means. This began with a question regarding collaboration and how far can creative decision-making be shared? One methodology would be that of Sonia Boyce’s piece ‘Network’. This was a partnership with young women’s group who had proposed a project about identity. Here the artist is becoming an assistant to the community; this was a position where she would support but not control. The proposal for how the work would manifest itself was a four-screen installation exploring the groups own personal forms of social communication (Social networks, mobile phones etc.) Visitors were invited to draw their own social network on plywood surrounding film. Another partnership with the same social group was a work all about contemporary feminism, titled ‘Tribe’ by Sarah Cole. Her approach was slightly different in that she was fully collaborative with the group. The proposal had no ‘piece’ as such in mind but just that a relationship would be built and conversations would be had and the work would be a bi-product of these connections. Both these way of working sound great and it’s interesting to consider what kind of organizations do we need to work more permeably with our locale. And these places answer the question of what can the artist bring to a place/group of people. Our practice, at present, isn’t particularly socially engaged but perhaps that’s to do with it being internalized within an institution. Community contains value, which is unquantifiable and being a part of the growth of such this would be beneficial to our practice and us as people. The next XD tool kit was lead by Owen Parry, who previously gave us a lecture on fandom. However on this day he was discussing performance and live art. The lined up 4 approaches to performance art; histories of performance art, live art as a strategy, performativity (gender and language) and live art as fictional history. Performance art has its origins in futurism and dada with the dematerialization of art and the anti-object; ‘events’ were how they transported ideas. There was also abstract expressionism which came in the form of Jackson Pollock, for whom, the act of painting was a performance. Allan Kaprow’s ‘happenings’ also fall under this umbrella of historical performance improvised, spontaneous pieces of theatrical or other artistic performance typically involving audience participation. John Cage was mentioned although he was said to be making recordings of ‘nothing’ and to our understanding the recordings were in fact of silence, but this could always be a romanticized version of events. Fluxus followed on smoothly from this and along with it Yoko Ono’s infamous instruction pieces. The notion that you can do it yourself is very influential in the work that we produce. Art that isn’t about a hierarchy or making people feel alienated but including people in a process that might not have been something they previously considered as art. Ono’s cut piece is one of our favorites because it appears to involve trust, responsibility, and vulnerability but she is in complete control and is almost empowered by the actions that are inflicted upon her. We eventually came to the more stereotypical body based performance art. Ana Mendieta, Marina Abramovic, Carolee Schneeman, Orlan and Ron Athey are all quite extreme and very live artists. They produce work that is risky at best and highly dangerous at worst. Tehchin Hsieh is someone that gets overlooked in the world of performance art so it was satisfying to see him included in this presentation. His yearlong performance’s where he would live tied to people or would be photographing himself every hour for the duration. For us, these works say more about endurance than the more flashy/brutal works of performance. ‘Leap into the Void’ by Yves Klein felt hugely important to the work we’re producing at the moment; the idea of documentation (photographic in this case but could be other) can create a myth or falsely represent it what is ‘actually’ happening. This falls neatly into place when considering the our new works built around false narratives and loose story construction.
We first noticed Jon Rafman when his project ‘The Nine Eyes of Google Street View' presented us with the beautiful, bizarre and often violent images captured by Google's team of marauding vehicles mapping out cities. Having seen almost all the films previous to stepping into the exhibition the experience was somewhat altered by a lack of a need to remain situated in the uncomfortable scenarios Rafman had constructed. However, this did not alter our opinion of his ideas and aspirations for the exhibition because he’s essentially showing 7 or 8 films and he’s managed to take over the entire gallery with immersive and involving installations. The cupboards were probably a favorite due to the personal nature of them; one was inside all alone, experiencing these films which are essentially all about solitude of video game culture and the relationship one has with these items that never seem to love you back regardless of all the attention you continue to give them. An incredibly ambitious, thorough and insightful show. Franko B was the subject of Queen Mary University’s second ‘Action Lecture’. He conducted the lecture in a fairly unconventional manner; both him and the audience were plunged into complete darkness for the duration and he spoke to the audience through a microphone, describing his work and the road he’s taken within his practice. When he had come to the end of what he was saying he turned the lights right up, which were faced towards the audience, stunning and stocking us. This encouraged our thoughts on the concept of lecture as performance and increased the material to add to the research.
There have been a handful of new works produced recently, which all seem to revolve around the moving image. The first is one that comprises of two parts; the first being a US drone spotted by a Russian fighter pilot and the second being Migratory Birds Flying Over Venice (seen here). There is an obvious link between this airborne duo but one is idyllic and beautiful whereas the other is a dangerous military weapon. In film, music is a superb technique to utilise when attempted to stimulate a certain feeling. We have decided to play Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 along side the film of the drone. This piece of music has previously appeared in romantic films such as Frank Borzage’s ‘I’ve Always Loved You’ or ‘September Affair ‘ by William Dieterle. It creates this picturesque scene when combined with the drone and if referential of James Bridle’s drone works, which are lovely to look at but hold a fairly darker message regarding surveillance. If this work were exhibited in a gallery, on the opening night we would want to get someone to play the piece on a piano in the space with the film on a loop for the entirety. The sister video involves the migrating birds as mentioned earlier. These are then put to an undesirable bro-step tune that shines these once gorgeous birds in an animatronic light. We’re reminded of Paul Virilos ‘War and Cinema’ that reveals the direct link between the technology used during the war and that to create moving images. Another piece with has been developing is getting music videos, removing the sound and replacing it with the sound someone performing karaoke. All the material has been sourced from the internet and the one we believe to be the most effective would be ‘Lose Yourself’ by Eminem (seen here). Both these works nod to questions regarding originality, by re-assigning the creative control to that of someone or something that wouldn’t be, conventionally, thought of as an artist. This brings into question the nature of what art is and what it is to be an artist. The idea that ‘anyone’ could do it’ is appealing and almost a goal for these works, a goal which is achieved by utilizing relatable objects or familiar situations. Making art that is deemed accessible is a high priority. A new idea involves a lecture-type set up where we are teaching/deconstructing various films based on the art that is used in these films. At present we are just collecting screenshots of art pieces in films but are unsure as to what the outcome will be; we’ve discussed overanalyzing the paintings or making up fake identities of the artists who produced them, even thought about suggesting they were our own. How they are used will hopefully manifest over time. The end of term crit is coming up and so we’ve planned a presentation/performance to deliberate over the content/context of our work. We are to present our work along side a 500 word artist statement. Ours will be in the form of a PowerPoint accompanied by a loose/conversational version of the statement. Included in the presentation will be references, exchanges, websites, and people who are all fabricated. Towards the end we will also we preforming ‘Imagine a Plinth’ which involves fabricating fictional characters, places and events through the presentation of a variety of objects. With the 3D/XD Open Studios coming up we wanted to put some of these new narrative based works to the test. ‘Home Movies’ is something we haven’t been able to revisit since its inception but now it has a platform and so we’ll finally be able to see if it works.
The 2D/4D Open Studios appeared to be very popular and was an exciting time considering it felt very unstructured. This is both hopeful and mildly concerning since sometimes events with more spontaneity are more fun and the XD/3D seems very planned. However, this could be due to our lack of involvement with this particular show. We set up ‘Anything I Can Do Is Not Art Because I'm Not An Artist’ on a stack of art history/theory books (seen here) which felt like an appropriate way to display a film of people critiquing ‘modern art’. The ‘BIG SPACE’ show was also this week in which we displayed the Sims paintings. We felt that during the tutorial this week we were perhaps slightly too eager to talk about all the new ideas that were going on. However it’s far better to enable Sarah to fill in the gaps as opposed to the other way around.