We've been ill*
*words that also apply here are sick, poorly, indisposed, ailing, not (very) well, not oneself, not in good shape, in a bad way, out of sorts, not up to par, under/below par, peaky, liverish, queasy, nauseous, off, off colour, under the weather, not up to snuff, funny, peculiar, crummy, lousy, rough, ropy or grotty.
But we did still manage to stay well during a couple of our exhibitions that occurred the previous week; the isthisit? online show that coincided with the start of the Scaffold Gallery one and 'An Art School' at Tate Modern. We decided to produce works specifically for the online exhibition as opposed to merely submitting photographs of the physical pieces we were going to have in the gallery space. With 'Invent Something' we went over a couple of thoughts around looking for a file on a computer and what happens when one searches for something that doesn't exist; either you get a pop-up notification suggesting what you are looking for is not present in the place you are looking or you're merely faced with an empty screen.
We played around with this but it didn't feel like what we wanted to portray - it needed more presence (even though we didn't want it to be ACTUALLY seen but it needed more of a shadow or echo). We therefore went for a file that is visible but one that appears empty within the thumbnail - this felt more in line with the original idea of a layered reality.
For 'Exploit People' we created a similar sort of time sheet to the physical one but this time we were using Microsoft Excel which only came into existence in 1985, over a decade later than the first use of the bar code in 1974. This time the entire sheet has been filled as opposed to it stopping on the date which the historical event took place. This new document isn't viewed in the same way as the one which has a stronger resemblance to what might have actually happened - this is inherent in the way we act with digital objects, due to them being constantly editable, history is never stuck, it has no need to be paused because it can be rewound over and over again. This time sheet may have been completed but that is only to do with providing all the necessary information for a user to then do with what they please.
Both the works in the How to Get Rich Quick exhibition owe a huge amount to the idea of film props and how objects can be used to tell a story. However, because these props are left to fend for themselves, they tell an incomplete tale, one which can only attempt to be complete by the use of ones imagination. This is a relatively big part of what we're interested in - how can we make something which instills a level of uncertainty into the minds of the people viewing it - definitely a big challenge and we're only claiming to try but we think that it might start with proposing or displaying something that isn't totally 'finished' or only contains half the required information and commands some interaction in order to fill it to an amount that makes it legible to the individual.