They are here

I had the opportunity to see a piece of work made by They are here recently at CCA. it was a really interesting and enjoyable exercise to witness, as the screening that i attended was the first that the participants had seen of the film, so there was a sort of nervous tension in the air. Seeing the changes that where made through each stage of filming was so interesting and really very funny at times, and on reflection I know there where pieces missing or being lost from start to finish but even my own immediate memory of it was so scrambled I couldn't pin point exactly what was wrong. In the introduction to the film the artists described the process as something a little "like Chinese whispers, but with film" and I can't think of a better way to describe it myself.

Martin Creed

Marina Abramovic

Francis Alys

I've been watching a lot of artist interviews on Youtube, which is a nice way to spend time.

untested bounderies

For my self directed project I decided to follow an idea i have had on and off since the beginning of term one. I liked the notion of testing myself physically in order to learn something about myself, my own boundaries and also my understanding of them. 

It was recommended that I take a look at the work of Smith/Stewart. I found mouth to mouth and breathing space particularly interesting, for the way they approached their subject, they way they deal with each other and also the aesthetic composition of the images.

Mouth to Mouth

Breathing Space

cool hunting

Cool Hunting

I was introduced to this website a few weeks ago and have become a little bit addicted. Their site is made up of collections of videos on topics that the makers have decided are quite interesting, The subjects are very varied but all are shot in a similar style which gives a nice line of continuity.

This was one of my favourites.

100 photographs, 1 taken every 5 seconds for 8 minutes and 20seconds

Gina Pane

Gina Pane is another of the artists I found in the library, I really knew nothing about her work but her name came up relating to what I was researching. This was a good few weeks ago, then just the other day... now that I've planned what I want to do and am in the final stages of doing it... I was flicking through her book and found this piece of work. It's called (extending a wooden path (for going from one place to another for the purpose of communication)) 1970 and she is doing almost exactly what I am doing. The only thing that I can see different is the location and the material.
Part of me thinks it's really exciting and that maybe that means my ideas not so bad and the other part is a bit sad that it is practically identical and also everything I'm interested in has already been done in the 70's.

Marina Abramovic

I found a list of artists who have made work which I can relate to what I'm interested in at the moment and one of them was Marina Abramovic. I know of all the usual pieces of her work from projects that other people have done but I've never looked at it in relation to mine and now I've found it's really really exciting.
There are a few works in particular that I can relate to what I'm interested in with this project. They focus on endurance and pushing your body to its limits. I also really liked the way the performances where documented, it was very simple, Just one photo from what she felt was the most powerful or relevant and a short description of what happened.

Freeing the voice.

'I lie on the floor with my head tilted backwards."

Performance:
"I scream until I lose my voice."
Duration 3 hours.

And also...

Freeing the body.

"I wrap my head in a black scarf."

Performance:
"I move to the rhythm of the black african drummer.
I move until I am completely exhausted.
I fall."

Duration: 8 hours.

Public Art Project Term 2

click here to see photos from my public art project so far.... although theres no real information about it there and they are in no order?
i'll get on it later.

As Long As It Takes

I've just heard about John Cages piece of music "as long as it takes". There was a BBC news article about it because in 2001 a church in Germany, Sankt-Burchardi-Church in Halberstadt, began playing the piece on their organ and this week the note changed. An average playing of this piece of music has taken between 20 to 70 minutes but this church is attempting to play for 639 year. So a note change is a pretty big deal, as it will be months or perhaps years before another happens.

Schedule of note changes:

February 5, 2009
July 5, 2010
February 5, 2011
August 5, 2011
July 5, 2012
October 5, 2013
September 5, 2020

They keep the continuous note by weighing the peddles down with sandbags.

Circles

while walking home the other day....

I passed the Great Eastern Hotel on Duke St, I've passed it everyday for the past year and have always found it interesting and loved the idea of what might be inside. It was famous for being the largest homeless mens hostle in Britain but it was closed down around five years ago with big plans to turn it into something else but nothing has been done yet. It looks like nothing will be done in the near future either as in January this year a huge storm blew the roof off and theres been no sign of any restoration being done or even any protection from the elements? I imagine it will eventually just be another building left to rot and then easy to knock down.


But back to my walk home.... as i was passing it about two weeks ago i noticed that the ground floor side door was not only unlocked but sitting open. this temptation was just to much to resist so i went to explore. I dont doubt that it was stupid and a bit dangerous but it was fantastic inside!


the ground floor was full of odds and ends like chairs, traffic cones, old kettles and mugs. it smelled terrible and im sure there must still be quite desperate people spending the night there, its the most wind and water tight of the whole place and is probably a more comfortable alternative to the street. Going up to the different floors was much more exciting though, the floors higher up are so bare and as huge as ballrooms now that they've been cleared of all the tiny dormitories. The higher up we went the less floor there was and the more you could see the sky peeking through the holes in the floors above but we where "safley" taking pictures from the concrete side stairwell. by the time we made it to the fourth floor i was well and truley spooked and too scared to chance the very very narrow dark stairway to the higher even ricketier floors, particularly when we became sure we heard someone moving around higher up.


So narrowly escaping with my life (or at least thats how it felt at the time) and a few pictures it feels like another little bit of the city thats not such a mystery anymore.

ok... so...

I did manage to do a little bit of making over the summer, but only a little. I wanted to try just making for the sake of it and for the enjoyment of it instead of always trying to find a meaning in everything.

so i started knitting.
Knitting is something that i sort of enjoy anyway, I'm not great at it but you can do anywhere and once you get into the rhythm of it, it becomes almost meditative and very addictive... which is nice. Again i was trying to stick with the making for the sake of it and not to try to hard, so i practiced on certain bits and experimented with stitches and materials on others and when i was finished they began to look a lot like big creeping webs.


With this in mind it seemed natural to put them outside, so i did.

I though it would be interesting just to leave them there and see how they change. so far... nothing but its early days!! it would be nice if it started to become overgrown in the way that rope bindings round trees sometimes become swallowed up by the tree, but we'll see.

ive had a few coments on what they remind people of, one friend suggested it would make a nice homefor a lazy spider and another said it was like weaving a yarn. Like i was telling a story but in a physical way and they told me a little about Anansi the Spider who was The King of Stories in ashanti culture.

Swedish MFA

I visited Gothenburg at the end of last term and happened to be in a gallery as their school of art unveiled its equivalent to the MFA graduation show.
There where some interesting things but it was a little tricky to grasp everything that was going on as they had Fine art and Design mixed together and some of the design show is still a bit of a mystery to me.

There was one piece in the show that i especially like, I loved the used of the material and just fell in love with the presence they had in such a crowded space. There's more pictures on Flickr just click on the picture.

While walking home...

I passed the old BBC building just off Queen Margaret Drive. I think its a shame that it'll eventually be turned into just another giant hotel but there you go.
What i did see in the old car park was this!

Ive no idea what it is or was but i think it looks fantastic now. So i took lots of pictures and stuck them on flickr.

And speaking strange things you find while out walking I came across this tree in the park about a month ago. I spotted it because it was shining bright white and bare in amongst all the other freshly leaved trees.

I don't know what insect caused this web of silky stuff... it could be silk worms but I didn't think we got those in Glasgow?... It really was completely covered in the stuff and there where hundreds of little wiggly worms.

summer time

I thought, as its only a month till school starts again, it might be nice to write a few more things on my blog.Ive been doing a little bit of personal research but as its just for me its been fairly erratic, a bit hit and miss?

Two books I took from the library and keep flicking through are The Art of Lee Miller and Tim Hawkinson.

Tim Hawkinson in particular has some pieces of work that I found interesting. He makes some fascinating machines, most of which are made from found objects, like clocks made from tubes of toothpaste, envelopes or plastic bags. I love the intensity behind the making of these objects, the idea of someone being so dedicated and devoting themselves to making these things purely for the joy of making them. One of my favorites was signature

its made from an old school desk with a hand built machine which seemingly endlessly churns out the artists signature.

Another is Wall Chart of World History from Earliest Times to Present

I find it staggering to think about the patience and obsession it must take to make something of that scale. Its really the obsessional nature that i find most fantastic.

Also the materials which he chooses in his work are really interesting, the way they are carefully chosen and reassembles to create something new. This is done so carefully that at first glance you probably wouldn't recognise it was anything other than what it pretends to be?

Eggshell made of ground hair and nails

Feather made from the artists hair

Spiders web made from Hair

That its so well made makes me question the point in making it at all but i suppose that is the point, the novelty, the patience and the skill is really the interesting thing not the finished object.

Head in the railings

I went looking through the artist books in the mac library today. All the books I looked at where of a pretty standard format, not anything like some of the pictures I was interested in online. This has made me think that perhaps artist books aren't really what I should be looking at? I want to make a book that could be seen as something apart from the content, something like the camera in the last post.
What I did find in the library though, which I think is fantastic and applies really well to what I was trying to do, was a book of photographs by an artist called Sion Parkinson called Head in the Railings. It shows a series of public interventions made by the artist and under each picture there is a description of how he experienced them.

Artisit's Books

With all the pictures I have taken this project I have been thinking about making a book, not to be part of my research instead of the blog but to go along with my final piece, like an explanition or a guide to the finished thing.


With this in mind Ive been trying to look at more Artists books for aome ideas. I have found quite a few that I'm looking forward to going through but they are all in the Mackintosh library but as its the bank holiday weekend I wont be able to look see them till Tuesday. I have managed to find nice examples online.

Lygia Clark 2

With the questions I had in mind yesterday, I decided to have another look through my Lygia Clark book in more detail and to my surprise I found lots of her performances that where similar to what I have been doing.

There where hoods that she made

and particularly one piece called tunnel

In this piece she had participants crawl inside a long cloth tube, which clings to the body like a stocking. Along the way they are helped by others and if one participant feels suffocated a cut is made in the cloth. It sounds fantastic to me, all the work that she made was to do with approaching materials and actions from a new perspective. Putting them and yourself in a new context in order to experience them freshly and as something new. I really feel like finding this has helped to understand what I have been doing a little better.