u n t i l n e x t t i m e

Before getting into the madness of attempting to recap on another incredible experience of the Venice Biennale, we got some images back from the exhibition in a bin! A new and fun premise with some bizarre documentation. 

Venice Biennale was, as always, absolutely saturated with amazing work from all over the world. Some knowing art history references form Cody Choi, including a sculpture that has the shape of Rodin’s “The Thinker” but is made with pink liquid Pepto-Bismol and toilet paper, the two objects that represent his early cultural indigestion and are very much in line with his exploration into clashes between the Eastern and the Western worlds. 

Mika Taanila’s project ‘Film Reader’ contains a series of prepared cinema books but instead of text editing, the artist has created a process parallel to traditional film editing, i.e. splicing. These books are works of moving image, quite literally: images are moved and taken out, erased, cut-out, transformed and discarded. Immaterial ideas of cinematic writing/reading transform into eerie cinematic collages. 

Anne Imhof’s work in the German pavilion was a favourite of ours. A glass floor has been installed across the span of the pavilion, and for the first few minutes one is overcome by an unnerving feeling of vertigo. Underneath the glass, a series of objects are arranged in clusters: a leather mattress, cuffs, spoons, chains, and bottles of liquids of dubious nature. Imhof’s loyal crew of performers wear tattered sport clothes and dirty jeans, and can be found scattered across the space. The entire time, the performers move about. They stand on plinths, sing, dance, and then move into the claustrophobic spaces below the glass floor, where they engage in activities which range from looking sulky to checking their mobile phones. Then just as you’ve got used to them wondering through the space an industrial soundtrack explodes on the speakers, filling the room with metallic beats. The performers all come together in formation and walk across the room slowly, like an impossibly cool army of zombies. They reach the front end of the pavilion, where instead of a door, a glass window has been installed. Audience members that didn’t make it inside are piling up and squinting to see. Then, the group turns and walks back to the center of room, looking deadpan towards the viewers, who are photographing and videoing their every move, fascinated, despite the mildly threatening feeling these characters provoke. A truly chilling but enchanting experience.

Next up was Nathaniel Mellors and Erkka Nissinen who produced a hilarious film installation re-imagining Finnish society through the eyes of two messianic outsider figures, who offer a cosmic-comic perspective on Finnish creation mythology, contemporary Finnish society, and its possible futures.

Søren Engsted had a funny and intelligent film of a performance where he uses the technology seen in street magic to make the appearance of levitation. He then delivers a lecture on all types of levitation whilst in this position.

Taus Makhacheva’s film tightrope is another example of a beautifully presented metaphor only this time one involving balancing on a tightrope. It’s about the basic doubts an artist might have in making their own work, and the difficulty of trying to balance real-life responsibilities with an artistic practice.

As always, great to see Charles Atlas film featuring Lady Bunny. In ‘The Tyranny of Consciousness’ Lady Bunny reveals how she finally found a voice and managed to speak about politics only after growing up, and then talks about peace, life, our planet, greed and the confusing and complex times we are living in, all to a backdrop of 44 sunsets.

Another top moment was seeing Guan Xiao film titled ‘David’. We had never seen one of her films before so it was great to witness. Named for Michelangelo’s sculpture, it’s an absurdist commentary on the contemporary commercialisation of a centuries-old sculpture, including some amazing Chinese karaoke.

‘Living Dog Among Dead Lions’ was an installation by Vajiko Chachkhiani in the form of a small abandoned wooden hut, found in the Georgian countryside and reassembled on-site. Furniture, pictures, lights and other household items are the only occupants of the cabin. Then they simulated a never-ending rainstorm inside it by puncturing the ceiling with hundreds of holes and installing an irrigation system above. Water puddles on the floor and furniture, and trickles through cracks in the wood. The intention was that visitors can watch the interior decay and rot over the course of the biennale, while the exterior of the house will remain untouched, but this would have been more prominent if all the interior hadn’t been covered in plastic sheeting.

We had been looking forward to Rachel Maclean’s ‘Spite Your Face’ for quite some time and it did not fail to impress. The film takes in part of the narrative of Pinocchio and follows Pinocchio-like characters who encounter situations where a normal sense of what is true and what is false is confused, and so the viewer’s sense of what are lies and what are truths becomes confused as well. It’s clear that it’s a direct commentary on recent events, but there’s no Trump, or Theresa May, front and center beside the wooden boy. It’s more allusive; you can pick up on certain things or certain tropes in political characters. It’s much more thoughtful to have characters to feel a little bit more like an amalgam of different characters and different ideas, get the audience thinking.

Evan Penny’s ‘Ask Your Body’ exhibition was an amazing display of technical skill. However, we didn’t think the actual hyper-real sculptures were necessary, it felt a little gimmicky. However, the photography of them was amazing and felt more connected to how viewers might perceive their relationship with themselves and others.

‘The Imitation of Christ’ is a large scale project by Roberto Cuoghi in which Jesus after Jesus is cast by assistants working the moulds and kilns, before getting laid out on their backs by twos in little plastic bubbles. Then they are left to disintegrate until they have fallen apart, the body shattered into different parts – thus resembling the shrivelled-up relics that the crusaders set off after so long ago. It was quite a spectacle, and its byproducts quite gorgeous. Creating work about religion, and more specifically Christianity, is always a tricky one; so much has been done to investigate of the historical figure of the Christ. Yet Cuoghi has tapped into this very unexceptional fact that no one knows what he looked like, and that’s why you have 200 years of art history trying to depict him. The work is then showing the multiplication of his body as a man, and then nature comes in and alters it.

Another highlight was Andy Holden’s ‘Laws of Motion in the Cartoon Landscape’, something we’ve been looking forward to seeing for sometime and have soured the Internet for to no avail. The work comes in the form of a two channel film presenting a theory that the world is now a cartoon, and explores how an artist might operate in a landscape in which everything has been done, everything is equally possible, yet certain things endlessly reoccur. Taking ‘cartoon physics’ as its starting point, this dual-screen work, with artist appearing as narrator, via green-screen and as animated avatar, in the Cartoon Landscape, tells the history of the golden era of cartoons; interweaving quantum mechanics, philosophy, art history, and politics, to construct a set of Laws. The presentation mixes critical theory and conspiracy theory, oscillating between historical fact and bombastic speculation, each idea flowing into the next with the logic of a cartoon. Animated sequences sit alongside extracts from Stephen Hawkins, Greek philosophy, speculations on the 2008 financial crisis, Donald Trump, musings on the potentially animate nature of all matter, and the role of the artist in this post-human landscape. Even in the baking Summer heat we stuck it out till the end and we were rewarded.

Last but certainly not least was Damien Hirst’s ‘Treasures from the WRECK of the Unbelievable’. A site of total over indulgent excessive activity, which was incredibly entertaining and enjoyable. As you can probably tell it’s a complicated triumph. The labels for the works on display, dozens of objects, many enormous, depicting mythological beings – monsters, ancient royalty, maiden warriors, three-headed dogs, and suchlike – refer to them in a slightly puzzled or distant way as if only so much can be known. In other words, they’re like the labels in places at the British Museum, and the objects are like the antiquities you’d expect to find there. We are told that these ancient artworks were found lying at the bottom of the ocean after a ship carrying them, called the Unbelievable, sank, 2,000 years ago. This is untrue but it is true that works were sunk into the sea and then dragged up again and the operation recorded, just for the sake of the photos. This is only made more insane by the option of having a tour guide where the guide acts as if this is in fact true. As mentioned before the success is complicated; the objects remain aesthetically worthless but they’re needed for the concepts – after that they needn’t be looked at again. The true artwork was in the whole astonishing vision, the spectacle of a lifetime – his wondrous invented museum.

Well Venice Biennale, until next time…

a b s o r b i n g t h e s i g h t s a n d s o u n d s

Finally managed to watch T2 Trainspotting this week! Having made plans to see it 3 times at the cinema and missing every single one we were really excited for it to be accessible once again. As with any sequel the chances of it continuing the excellence of the original is unlikely but this was a genuinely thoughtful method of catching up with the characters 20 years in the future. At point we were almost left with tears in our eyes watching these useless individuals make the same mistakes again and again. It truly is a very worthy sequel, respecting the rough edges of its forerunner while putting middle-aged flesh on the once raw ribcages of its oddly sympathetic subjects.

Another film we wanted to mention was Captain fantastic as this is another that got away from us at the cinema and was cast away to the ever growing 'FILMS TO WATCH' list which resides within google docs. If T2 Trainspotting got tears in our eyes, Captain Fantastic reduced us to infantile children, unable to control the physical representation of their upset. I proper journey with real life conflicts and uncertainty, which makes you question the beliefs of the characters and yourself simultaneously. A lovely part of is when the father asks one of the children what they are reading, and she goes on to describe the plot, he then retorts that he's not looking for regurgitation of what's on the page but her own thoughts on what it. She goes to describe the book as 'interesting' but this is met but a roar from the other 6 children that 'interesting' is not a real word and shouldn't be used if one is to convey true feelings. This has genuinely altered the way we're writing and from now on 'interesting' is being used when only backed up by other, more appropriate vocabulary. 

In addition to films we've also managed to see some art! Ron Nagle has a solo show at Stuart Shave/Modern Art, not usually something we would warm towards but credit where credit's due. In the first room, one diminutive sculpture is set into a bright niche in each of the four walls. This style of presentation felt very appropriate for this jewel-like votive objects; each one combines hand-made abstract elements of contrasting texture and colour, arranged with a zen-like poise and balance. 

A Handful of Dust is on at Whitechapel Gallery which is a whole exhibition is a playful and at times provocative response to Man Ray’s photograph, not so much a history of dust in photography as a series of tangential nods to his image, encouraging viewers to make connections. A clever title that references TS Eliot’s bleak modernist poem The Waste Land 'I will show you fear in a handful of dust' and perfectly captures the visual journey through the motif of dust, wartime destruction and natural disasters.

Also at Whitechapel was Benedict Drew's 'The Trickle-Down Syndrome'. It demonstrates Drew’s continuing interest in and response to global events and the current socio-political climate. He wants the viewer to be ‘overwhelmed by images’ and ‘disoriented by history, layers and layers of history’ in order to ‘generate a state of being that can escape’. The central installation is a symmetrical mound of mirrors, monstrous eyes, TV screens and a big quivering gold gong. A voice from the screens waxes lyrical about socio-political economics as electronic blips and bloops fill the air. Images of bodies moving through mud blob across the screens, static hisses, the gong shakes. It’s like a future altar, a place where the 'povos' go to praise their rich overlords. The experience is immersive and sensory, an audio-visual feast of video screens, kaleidoscopic projections, landscape drawings, sculptures and banners, as well as experimental synthesiser compositions and an audio narrative which accompanies visitors through five different rooms. There are some apt references to Busby Berkeley’s classic Hollywood stage sets to the surrealist artist, Max Ernst, all combining to create a sense of the artist’s idea of escape ‘as a potent form of resistance, ecstatic protest’.

Last but not least was Paul Pfeiffer at Thomas Dane Gallery, reminding us that long before we learned to Boomerang on Instagram, manipulating and looping video clips was his bread and butter. He carefully edits found sports footage, often from NBA games and boxing matches, to reveal the disturbing desires underlying sports spectatorship and our consumption of mass entertainment. It was great to see some of his earlier pioneering works IRL, as well as recent additions to the ongoing series 'Caryatids' and 'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse'. By drawing our focus to the cult of the arena, the exhibit unpacks the interplay of race, gender, celebrity and religion within professional sports. 

( a r t ) s c h o o l ' s o u t f o r s u m m e r

Goldsmiths had their Fine Art degree show private view this week and we walked away fairly disappointed. Perhaps it was due to the amount of work on show and excitement/energy compared with how few things really caught our attention. However, there were a couple of pieces that did stick in our minds. The first of which was a series of videos by Hollie Bird employing the video game Sims. It’s difficult not to find the idea and aesthetic of the game appealing. An attempted simulation of life which is a mere shadow of its complexity is a truly thought provoking thing; who decides on these human traits? Why are certain behaviours more evident than others? How important is the way we behave as a child when thinking about the future? All these questions are brought up by the gae by in a ‘lite’ format, almost like a trial for the one shot we all get. Returning to Hollie Bird’s films, she has somehow modified the game and removed the green diamond and control panel from the screen, increasing the similarities between watching this and a live action film. The most interesting shots are probably ones of the scenery, eg a child’s dollhouse, with the Sims background noise playing in a similar fashion to that of a radio. Click >>>here<<< to go to her Vimeo channel to see the rest of her work. 

The other piece that made us pause was Ben and Adam Wells’ collaborative performance work. It involved 3 participants, wearing transparent clothing, going between two tiled pools and meticulously cleaning these water lettuces with ear buds and then placing each earbud onto the windowsill in uniform fashion. It made us feel almost uncomfortable to watch, it seemed like quite an intimate exchange, one that might usually might happen behind closed doors. Purity was a clear theme they were working with, from the see-through clothing, to the bright white space, it was all contributing to an attempt to gain freedom from contamination. Their respective websites are >>>here<<< and >>>here<<<.

Next up was the Chelsea degree show which we actually found much more exciting. Perhaps it wa because of the architecture of the space; lots of smaller rooms as opposed to fewer bigger more open spaces. Either way we were able to find much more work we wanted to spend time with. One of our favourite was Rachel Mukendi’s ‘JUNGLE: The Reunion’, a film which acts as a post-show style discussion about a reality TV program similar to the notorious ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’. The reason it was so engaging was that it used these fairly humorous contemporary ideas to talk about how we’re constantly surrounded by narratives, political or other, truths are being questioned, images are being appropriated and displaced. A very thorough critique of these narratives by using pop culture and appropriation. Her youtube channel is >>>here<<<.

Louis Judkins turfed an entire room, and was showing a pretty insane film where at one point he becomes a newsreader and discusses some fictional ‘Art News’ about an artists who was made out to sound incredibly shocking. This seemed to be a lot of what was going on in the film; pornographic imagery, mistreatment of animals and other various attempts to shock an audience. If his suggestion is in line with Grayson Perry’s claim that art can no longer shock then we would be inclined to agree. His vimeo channel can be found >>>here<<<.

There was an amazing carpet produced by Emma Ha along with some other very well thought out pieces with equally considered titles. The carpet being ‘Mosaic for Office’ and the piece next to it is ‘Crowd Control in Fresh Forest’. These give a lovely insight into the intention behind the works; office environments not being the most lively or ‘sunny’ and then some how by applying imagery of a tree, this brutal object used to control is now one which is about something natural such as a forest. Objects waiting for many interpretations, always a positive. Her website is >>>here<<<

Finally, a genuinely incredible and praiseworthy work was a escape-pod-meets-tanning-booth-meets-futuristic-bunker by Tom Ribot. The door was fitted with hydraulic cylinders and inside was a padded one person chair. Unfortunately the queue was too long for us to be able to get to see the film which was being shown on the inside but we thought it was worth a mention anyway since it was such an amazing thing to look at! A full low down can be seen at his website >>>here<<<

a n d i t a l l c o m e s d o w n t o t h i s

Today was the last day of residency in Wigan; the private view was very busy which was surprising for us since we didn’t really expect a huge amount but perhaps when there aren’t many organisations with things of this nature going on anyone who is even remotely interested comes through. As always, fun to hear what people thought of the work and to talk it over with people who come to it with a slightly different historical, political, cultural backgrounds; fresh perspectives for all. One of the sand castles did get a foot through it, not something we were at all surprised or upset about, but something we would’ve like to see! Generally, it was a great experience and something that we would love to be able to do again. Photos should be up shortly and below is a little piece of writing we knocked up for the press release. 

An abandoned radio murmurs from the corner of the room, scattering hushed conversation into the space. Several voices can be heard all discussing the same court case in a post-match-analysis style, similar to what one would usually hear after a football game. This is one of the subtle interventions acting as a vessel to tell (and/or retell) a story, all collectively fitting into an overarching narrative where fictions and realities collide, attempting to explore The Old Courts and Wigan as a whole. In the same room, carpeting the floor, are 63 sandcastles representing recommended pubs and bars. Sand being employed here to reflect the unique properties which contribute to something that on the outside may appear uniform. Distributed around the building there can be found various mementos of a 2007 gig by a band by the name of ‘The Left Book Club’, a title inspired by the publisher of George Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier. The left over posters and CDs act as a memory, objects made for an event in the future but now exist in the past. In the same vein as The Old Courts specialising in tribute bands, this fabricated ephemerae acknowledges all which have come before it. It’s about thinking about the idea of disclosure, and giving the spectator space to imagine their own thing, rather than giving them everything on a silver plate.

We also made the spontaneous decision to make a film when we destroyed the sandcastles. We each took turns to destroy a castle in a different way, making it appear like some sort of game was taking place, but the rules never really becoming clear.

w h e r e d i d a l l t h i s a r t c o m e f r o m

The residency is now in full swing with tomorrow being the last day before the install of the exhibition. We’ve developed a few different works all around traces, subtlety and narrative construction. The first of these is a 63 sand castles all mapped out to represent all the pubs we’ve been recommended during our time in Wigan. We chose sand castles because a lot of the stories about the pubs were accompanied by war or battles of some kind. Another comparative element is that a grain of sand goes unnoticed by itself but when brought together with others it can form something much more apparent, in the same sense that one person will struggle to create a community but a pub can assist in the construction and maintenance due to the scale.

The next work which is in progress is a radio that appears to have been left on in the gallery, abandoned by whoever was installing the work or by a bored invigilator. Coming from the radio will be a post-match-analysis style discussion similar to what one might hear after a football or rugby match. The difference here is that being instead of discussing a sports game, we’ll be discussing an 100 year-old court case which occurred when The Old Courts were still functional. There will also be people phoning in to give their opinion on how they thought the ‘match’ went. All the callers will be other artists on the residency and we will present the show. Here we were trying to present something in a methodology that mirrors the space but also might enable someone to think differently about what they’re presented with at another time. A sort of ‘not everything is as it seems’ scenario which prompts an audience to look a little closer.

Our final piece is the invention of a fake band called ‘The Left Book Club’ a name which is inspired by the publishing company who published George Orwell’s ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’. We going to create posters, CDs, and flyers and distribute them all over the building. The posters will be advertising a gig from 2007 and the CDs are left over from that final tour. We were considering these objects as strange distorted memories, things that were produced in the past but for an event in the future. Similar to the way that an exhibition guide is the only thing that remains after it’s de-installed, these posters are a little echo of what once was, or wasn’t. We’ve also decided to burn the sound work from the radio onto the CDs and people can take them on the opening night.

We’re also very excited that the SketchUp Residency has been invited to be a part of Keiken Collective’s upcoming project with Tate St Ives! On the 17th June between 12-4pm the SketchUp Residency Instagram will be taken over by Keiken Collective to broadcast 'BCNU', which is a dream time life simulation RPG taking place at Tate St. Ives / Tate Collectives featuring two AFK women, one in Japan and another in Berlin, whose online avatars will come to life within the gallery. So, if you like the sound of that tune in to one of many Instagram accounts to watch it happen live. The participating organisations are Keiken Collective, isthisit?, The SketchUp Residency, iouae and Hutt Collective. Click >>>here<<< for more info.

w e h a v e l i f t o f f

So the Dollspace private view was last week and it went really well! Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves and Bobs final work looked great – it all came together. We also produced a map and full press release which guided the visitors through all the floors. The content of the press release is below.

When was the last time you were in one of those office spaces? You know, the huge, never ending ones with hundreds of employees each with their own cubicle. Maybe you were in one today. Maybe you even work in one. Do you ever wonder sometimes just how you ended up in that cubical? Or perhaps the more likely question of how to get out of it?

For his first solo show at Dollspace Bob Bicknell-Knight has created a utopian office space, carpeting all three floors of the gallery in a work titled 'Supacord Anthracite', while a sea of blue tarpaulin, Tarp Island, turns it into an unconventional ship. 'Standard Assets > Water 01 - 06' is a series of water texture prints from the game engine Unity, a repeated motif of his work, one which is hinting at how video games are a source of escapism for many in this world. This is equally apparent in his moving image work, 'Everything Bad is Good for You', a title referencing Steven Johnson’s book which looks at how video games and television are making society as a whole, smarter.

As well as charting the evolution of water graphics in games, one is also able to swim the mysterious depths of Venice Beach via his VR piece, 'Do you really think you can escape by swimming underwater in a badly simulated video game environment on an eighth generation console for 15 minutes at a time?' Continuing down the road of the simulated world, Bicknell-Knight has employed artificial rocks in 'Fake Lump of Rock > 01-03', usually used to add realism to train models, but in this case to create an idea of a virtual environment. This is another nod to the notion of utopian spaces, or the idea of a perfect place, and attempting to replicate a perfect experience, or a completely serene one, or looking ahead to how one will function in a fully simulated society.

Video games could be argued to be this perfect utopian space, where nothing you do matters and everything is forgiven, alongside the fact that it literally is ‘no place’. Feasibly we are looking into the future, the tranquil and idle nature of a future space, one where you’ll regularly go on walks through your devices. We need this ability to dream, to return to the water metaphor once again, ‘In civilizations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates.’ Michel Foucault "Of Other Spaces"

All in all we can’t wait to get the next one in progress, it’s been a fun and rewarding experience for all. (are we officially curators now?)

Today was the first day of the week long residency in Wigan. Since our plan was to absorb what we can about the place and try to put our own spin on it. Our aim is to try not to repeat their own history back to them but somehow invoke questioning and thought into things they already are aware of. This meant that today we were mostly wondering around town, talking to people, taking photos of things we found interesting and asking questions about Wigan. One of the most prominent findings was the variations and sheer number of pubs we were getting recommended just on this first day!