After renting a camera and tripod we spent most of yesterday sweeping the studio to collect dust. As of yet we are relatively undecided on the format, but we really wanted to sweep the room while everyone's work was still up. Cleaning the room post-crit, post-term has an element of stealth, or at least invisibility. The idea of people returning to a clean studio space is reminiscent of your parents cleaning your bedroom when you're at school, it carries notions of unrecognised and generally underpaid work that keep companies ticking over behind the scenes eg. Caretaker, Janitor, Gardener, Parent (mother). In terms of documentation, we filmed the process of sweeping the space, which we have now edited into two videos both suited for different methods of presentation. The first version involves a selection of short clips edited to form a loose narrative, enter>sweep>leave, this process would be looped indefinitely, thus staying in tune with the idea of recycling; art from art. The viewer is then able to drop in and observe a section of the process, rather than the process as a whole, this mirrors the selection process that artists and curators undergo when selecting work that is shown to the public – as apposed to the work that is deemed unworthy, or un-finished – the dust. The second version of the video has more of a voyeuristic theme; the unedited videos of us sweeping each section of the room (of which there are 6) are played simultaneously side by side. The set-up was inspired by our recent collaboration with Sarah Harvey, in the video she made for us the six videos all shared one screen. This, grid-like set-up reminded us of televisions displaying CCTV footage; when these are shown in films it is implied that someone is sneaking onto someone else’s property, and most importantly, someone is watching. We thought it would be interesting to exploit the idea of persistent surveillance; CCTV cameras pry into secret areas of society, they dip into little pockets of secrecy and intimacy retrieving the elements of life that many would want to turn a blind eye to. The street fights, burglaries, assaults, and fails of life – the dust.
Now we have the dust from the studio floor and some documentation, we need to start thinking about how the dust will be displayed or if it needs to be displayed at all. Given that the general idea that the objects to make art surround you constantly we thought that it would be funny to project the dust into a ‘gallery view’ stereotype – in a pristine cube, or a gold frame. The collection of dust and elevation of it to a position of value holds traditional value too, when people are cremated, their ashes are commonly put in an urn and subsequently take pride and place on the family mantelpiece. Similar to the final episode of the Royle Family, one of the saddest and most touching storylines in British comedy; Nana is cremated and her urn is placed atop the television that she spent so much of her life watching. No longer is she the participant, but the subject; it is only when she is placed upon a pedestal that the family sit and watch her.
The possession of a decent video camera means that we are able to film some ideas that have been brewing for the last few weeks; attempting to break world records and a performance involving hundreds of miscellaneous keys we purchased online. Named ‘The Key to Success’ we are planning to hide the keys to a locked ‘petty cash tin’ within the keys we purchased, the performer will then fish through the key pile attempting to find the solitary key that will open the tin. When the tin is unlocked the performer will proceed to put all the incompatible keys into the tin, lock it and walk away. We are going to film this process twice, with two different subjects, the videos will then be shown side by side, suggesting that the two are in competition to open the box. Inevitably this competition is only apparent when one of the performers completes the task, for it is only then that the viewers will realize the whole process. Obviously we don’t expect people to sit through the entire video, meaning that the ones who see the tin opening are lucky, mirroring the luck of the performer to find the correct key – this may take 5 minutes or an hour. The entire process pick>test>repeat is representative of a struggle to be successful, or at least what society considers to be successful; successful individuals are ‘compatible’ with this construct while the ‘incompatible’ ones are hidden away within boundaries controlled by people in power – the compatible ones. On a more intimate level this process also reflects personal analysis of the self in relation to others; we often pit ourselves in competition against our peers. The act of locking the ‘bad’ keys away is the same idea that becoming successful renders you problem-less; shows like X-factor and Big Brother promote this notion. DJ Khaled projects similar messages; within his endless bragging on Snapchat Khaled often references “the major key” or “the key to success”; these generally involve Khaled giving life advice with the gold key emoji as the only ‘text’ within the Snapchat.
The reaction drawings from the children are scruffy and inaccurate, these lead us to think about funny stories that parents tell about their children making a mess with art supplies. We have started to compile YouTube videos of parents telling their children off for making a mess. General examples of these are kids who have drawn on the walls, spilt glitter everywhere or covered themselves in paint. The parents then make funny videos where they shame the child in question; “Ok Timmy, can you tell everyone what you did?”. Most of the time the children’s reactions to this are very funny, we found one child who insists his puddle of paint on the kitchen floor “is beautiful” and he made it because of its “beauty”. Not only are these videos funny but also they show the massive difference between childhood and adulthood, specifically the way in which they interpret the world – a child may see an accident as “beautiful” where a parent would see the accident as time consuming and therefore they assess the child’s mess in a monetary way – the labor cost to themselves of cleaning up the child’s mess. The presentation of this idea is something that we have yet to properly assess, our initial thoughts was to make a screen recording of us opening these ‘mess videos’ on top of each other, so the little video clips fill the entire screen thus degrading the visual and audio qualities of video as a whole, and more importantly, making a mess.
We have been thinking about the possibility of running a stall at a summer fete; these events are typically attended by families and it would be a good chance to stage some of our ‘art games’ that we’ve been thinking about. Art paper toss and art bingo are games where the audience either win or throw away Google searched images of famous art works. Another work that has been in the pipe-line for a while can be loosely described as ‘impossible balances’; we want to hire someone to make videos of us balancing things on top of each other using visual effects software such as Flame. The aim is to create a visual truth that’s obviously a lie ie. A lie that people only know to be fake through their knowledge of the world – one is aware that a chair can’t balance on top of a wine glass regardless of whether the video shows it. Hito Steyerl described post-production as “pimping pixels”. The world can be understood but also altered by its tools, visual effects tools in particular are tools of creation for image and world.