This week involved finishing
off the proposal for the collaborative show in with other students from CSM. In
the end we decided on it being about an Archie M. Walker who is attempting to
“stir the stage this season with his new production, Plastic Geraniums.” So,
basically it’s a fictional play by an invented character. We spoke a lot about
how the theatre could be compared to a swan; it gracefully moves on a
lake, is a picture of elegance in motion but what is hidden from the eye is the
activity going on beneath the water’s surface. We don’t see the hard work
conducted by the swan’s webbed feet which propels the graceful motion we see and
admire. We admire this because they are able to make the sublime look easy.
They do all the hard work in the shadows and display excellence and elegance in
the open. The swans feet are the unsung heroes of the theatre world; the prop
makers, the set decorators, the publicity managers, the costume designers
etcetera. The exhibition then became about the preparatory period of putting on
a play where the work of these individuals is prominent; the backdrops are
incomplete, the design of the posters are yet to be finalised and the auditions
for the actors are still being conducted. The reality of the world being
created is in limbo; currently the set wouldn’t be transporting you anywhere
but isn’t allowing your feet to be kept firmly on the ground either. This is
the feeling we want to instil in the visitors to the exhibition.
As we said previously, for the
duration of the show, the space will appear to function as a storage space for
an upcoming play. There would be various detritus around all the space, including
but not exclusive to props, posters, sets, costumes and scripts, all hinting at
various, generic locations or characters. A central component will be auditions
going on involving a monologue that we all wrote together via William
Burroughs’ cut-up technique. This system was employed to replicate the notion
of a standardised play. The people auditioning will be a mixture of ourselves,
visitors and people we source via an open call. This is our own rendition of
invisible theatre; instead of performing in a public space without informing
anyone, we are in fact informing without performing. And that’s it! We
submitted it to Intermedia which is an independent gallery space funded by
Glasgow City Council and managed by the CCA in partnership with Glasgow Life. [fingers
crossed]
In a little bought of
self-promo we’ve got a freshly peeled episode of artists and Friends where we
talking about Carroll/Fletcher's superb show 'United We Stand' which is part three
of 'Looking at one thing and thinking of something else', would highly
recommend it if you have time. Also took a moment to talk about a few of the
works in 'Room' at Sadie Coles and audio work by Rory Tangney and Dillon Lemon.
If you have any audio works that you’d like us to review or talk about then
send them on over to artistsandfriendspodcast@gmail.com.
The SketchUp Residency is now
onto its third resident which is exciting as it’s feeling like more of a
‘thing’ and more people are applying to be a part of it. We’ve also a new area
for experimentation on the website called The SketchUp Projects and it’s come
about due to us feeling that we’ll be able to do more stuff for the people who
are interested as opposed to just having one person for 3 weeks and then
another etc etc. This will be a space, which operates alongside the residency,
where artists can submit proposals for anything SketchUp related and produce
one off works or series for the site. Anything that can be featured on the
website will be considered; anything from still images, to films, to 3D models.
Something else we’ve been
working on recently is a new website since we haven’t updated ours for over 6
months. Hopefully by the end of this week it’ll be all up and ready but it also
means that we’ll be moving from Squarespace to Wix and we’ve still got a few
months left on our subscription. So instead of leaving it or just waiting until
it runs out to change we’re going to go on another curatorial venture titled ‘Dollspace.
It’s going to be group and solo shows by emerging to mid-career artists within
a dolls-house. This is another method to get around the whole
we-don’t-have-enough-money-to-actually-rent-a-space thing, similar to our
thoughts on The SketchUp Residency. Hopefully people will be interested enough
to apply with proposal for teeny tiny exhibitions – if you have any thoughts on
it then send them over to dollspaceprojects@gmail.com.
