Week 9: Final reflections on the relation of research (what I have already done and plan to do) to my studio practice.
Through weeks of research , books about ‘MEMORY AND MATTER’ , ‘PROUST AND THE SENSE OF TIME’ , ‘BEING’ , and artist's work (mostly 'neo-dada' has a major impact in my work, i.e. Kurt Switters's collage pieces , fragmented pieces) or the spirit from 'seven DADA manifestos' - how you should produce work with spontaneity.
Developing ideas from the general concept about ‘time’ to other aspects of it , by dissecting the clock to re-assemble the parts (of what's inside the clock or time?) ; by exploring like a mind map on a board , is the first step to clear out the clues of what I wanted to do about ‘time’ , trying to find the order or logic about what time is about , Daniel Spoerri’s assembling work ; Keith Tyson’s visual 'out-of-order' map ..
During the stage of experimenting , I’ve been missing a concrete direction and easily distracted by the new thoughts that come along , comparing to control the 'dis-order' (disorganization of what to choose) or to "trust" the object/the work you've started , to control or not to , to "trust" the material , the objects , the work you've started .. 'information overloaded' .. finding self (approach / style / by not changing the way of thinking) . what works for me the best ? mess , immediacy (without overthinking just doing it - reading when ripping the newspaper off , throwing them into found box - then think about the meaning behind the action - time ? about 'information overload' ? ) , aggression or conventional with certain style/order ? to change not , but to find the pathway and follow (self) .. not with identity disturbance .
Installing work in triangle square , without trying out the equipments (of how the lighting device through the fabric/shower curtain/transparent paper?), there's the lack of experience/experiment, therefore , the result is not planned out well , i.e. how to connect media player with projector , when to collect items from loan store and all the other technical issues that are needed to tackle.
Week 6: Possible research areas and texts, artworks and related objects
Dali’s dream about time passing; the film with massive eyes , optics and views ? what’s dream logic ? what’s dreamscape ? candy floss ? past and present , seems time always goes with space , If daydreaming or dissociation have temporary or depth ? reality (contemporary realities) and Fantasy in dream worlds.
“Coolly dissected the state” like a brain anatomy , the shadow , look closer , to the tree trucks , the falling paint from the rusty metal bars , the emerging secret whispering through layers layers of the wall paints , signifying the history and time of the host (the subjectivity) , “the aesthetics and the subjectivity” , The space In the dark , the attic the dark room , the cassette , the safe room , is there any absolute exists ? What does it look like , the echo , the star gazing , how far is this to go ? frequencies ? the invisible ? the meaning of the shadows ? what if i gather some elements from nature make it like a garden as one piece (i.e. French artist Nicki de Saint Phalle's garden, but by using lighting devices to create shadows and space? the myth of spiral, the natural presence..)
Week 3
Group crit . "What is 'crit'?" , it includes practical analyze ; giving others constructive suggestions ; participate ; how would've changed if doing the other way or so ? It's a learning process as well , to see the other 2 groups' collaborative work , to hear about the ideas behind the work , for example : the paints on the paper , is that an abstract painting ? what does the dripping colours mean ? After showing the video that's recorded the making progress , the work seems much more interesting as in choreography , the walking as a movement , one after another , the trace of the marks left on the paper alongside the walking . So for this piece , the process itself (the ways to present / what to show and what to not) looks unified or better with the still painting itself on the wall .
Based on the big term 'feminism' , our group searched some controversial topics online , everyone's involved as a group , depending on the questions and answers (of agreement or in the middle or disagreement) to get the paint on (accordingly) , creating own patterns to react on it (the subject) . It went well and the layers and layers of colours (reactions) from circles of movement (with different styles/surfaces by each member of the group) .
The lecture about 'space' , about two terms 'Contemplation' and 'Tactile Appropriation' , how the stairs can have functioning , the experience with architectual space within (when engaging with it) and the effect on people 's (visual) physical experience . 'tactical' or 'optical' ?
Thinking about 'space' , hollow sphere , through sound , echoes to identify or testify the depth , having a vague sense about how far it could go , imagine in a dark place , the concept of 'place' seems to magnify into something much bigger , same as all the senses through the whole body , the alertness , the mass of physical experience ..... Empty space inside out , do we exist ? the identity disturbance , the dissociation the association the (physical or mental?) connection , body as a container , what's inside the vessel ? the silhouette becomes full (dark like shadows) .
It reminds me of the rainy day during the Open House weekend - Rudolf Steiner , talking about architecture , or 'home' , what is home ? a shelter ? sadly we can't take them (and the objects within the house) with us , if we're drifting away , is that a restriction , a prison or a safe place (when disaster happens , the weight of the materials / structure becomes de-constructed all crash under into grave , a trash , ashes ....)
serene
shifting sand
the hollow crown
day and night
absorb the sunlight
fraction , a borderland
outburst the darkness beyond
tilted forms , feel the squeeze
looking through the opticals ,
does the land ever really exist ?
Week 8: My work-in-progress evaluated through the lens of my contextual research so far
'The Memory of Place' written by Dylan Trigg, mentioned about the 'in-between' place or non-place or the third place, following with Husserl's idea of morphological essences. What if 'art' (the work) becomes something that eyes can't catch/camera can't be capture, just being left with the 'scent' the sensation within a dark room, does it mean anything ? same as the invisible air, if time can be everything ..
Imagine the realm is one form of experience, "middle term between presense and absence" (Merlean Ponty) , as being in time to feel the surrounding by using the whole body, while the energy is invisible transcending in the air through light . Taken away the visual footages , headphone's on with the sound of waves paddling into each other and the broken glasses , wind flows around with the scattered light (reflections on the wall directed through mid-air) , Olafur Elisson is a great inspiration when playing with light and space , also the present experience he's trying to expand onto the viewers - just being there in the gallery (dark or not) space, slowing down and thinking and feeling the magic of lights - refresh the senses , something to empower the viewers to infinite space .. Exploring sensations (through smell, sound and visual), either pure sensation or nascent ones , within the intimate space of one's own imagination , scent and layers of memories , the immediate present , here and now and the past and future .. The process when installing the work is the experiment itself , to put out the final piece , being there , the light , the sound , the space .. one step further , the try out with lighting , quite site-specific . as pre-pictured in the headspace , as light itself is capricious , things can go absolutely not the same as you planned to be .
Week 5
'TIME' , reading 'Proust and The Sense of Time' , through conversations with others , the concept seems to become broader , from the explosion , the big bang , the elements of fireballs (dust , fractions , cells glancing through a microscope from the living body .....) where does time come from , what actually it presents or mean to us as human , where does this time perception come from ? they have three-dimensional psychology (sounds quite 3D) , 'felt time' , the sense of time - winter time , Monday (looked at the old clock in wood workshop , then come back , looked at the 'modern' phone screen , just realized that one hour more for the day , which means more things can be done than originally thought it would be without the extra hour
There's also the book entitled 'SCHOOL' , with a clock on it as the cover , time and school , the connection ....... the sound of the clock can cause anxiety at night (sound installation ? inside a dark space ? as (?)
the representation of the clock , a circular form with seemingly no beginning or ending , it goes on and goes on till the battery dies , till the planet dies out when there'll be no sun no daylight no stars to measure the time , roughly or precisely about 'when ? / now' - the existence . the presence . the immediaty ,
as the test mentioned 'the taste of childhood regained emanates from A la recherche as it ends and comes full circle' , just as the clock plate , a surface with some (roman) numbers but it includes the lives (memories) of others , with the mechanical
'Time Regained' as the Proustian moment , when involuntary memory sneaks in , what is about 'the dimension of time' when the boundary of past and present smudges into something vague ? The End - over and beyond the time , 'after this avowal of cruelty , it is .......'
when you say 'lost' , lost track of time , lost ..
the dream sequence that appeared in Bergman's film 'Wild Strawberry' , when people in their dream , the time within is longer than the real life experience of it , (clock with no seconds/numbers , a blank form with nothingness , 'yet the entire closed spiral made manifest by .......' 'meta' , metaphysics , the circles of metamorphosis , with metaphors , it is that but it is not but beyond that (what is that?) .
Week 2
'What is Art?' , Monday lecture , following with the artist talk on Tuesday 'Gavin Turk' .
In relation to me and the process when approaching projects , I never quite understand what contemporary art is or the differences between 'modern' or 'contemporary' art , also literally speaking ; when approaching to make or produce , there always are reflections emerging along with research , something like 'anti-art' in Fluxus , what is an artist as there are so many self-proclaimed artist nowadays , what is art when the definition of 'ART' (or/includes fine art) has expanded (evolved to include more to construct the gigantic strong word ..
Two weeks , during lecture or tutorial , the 'aesthetics' , the 'authenticity' were brought out on the table , which also is something more to dive within along with the theories . how the signature of the artist or anyone else gives the paper itself a value to it ? does your signature actually mean something while you can just doodle something randomly on the paper ....
'Museum of ...' . Brought in the object , what I chose is the black cassette from the used Polariod film pack , produced from the Impossible Project Amsterdam , the reason why cassette (?) is the 'uselessness' after filming , the notion of the forgotten object of the cassette itself , looks like some disc (device or hard drive) back in the 90s when things were around , back now they're gone , same as the Impossible Project , the value of the disappearance or the existing things .....
A few questions that had been brought up during the group crit :
how you respond to things ? that can feel relatable by humanizing an object , for example , the work with a milk bottle , that had had transformed into a body part from a cow (the belly) . The item i've got is a yoyo after the exchange , listing the key words of association , it is a still yoyo (not functioning any more , with no strings attached) , the sentimental value fits the catagory of old (childhood) 'toy (spent fun time with and other 'mysterious back stories) . So i got around with my collection box , played with the way how it represented - install the work becomes the most important part , to see or to hide in the drawer ? leave a note - to the next memory holder , but what the item is truly is ? look closer or guess ?
week 7
The light , the shadows , the shades , the reflections , (blue eye colour changes into green ?) the Tyndall effect.
Water , life , time , time is water , time can be everything in a metaphorical way of speaking , thinking in a poetic way or conceptual ? "Water is a funny material" , the radio 4 program 'In Out Time: Water' playing , it's so common yet the energy is huge (the boiling point , the forms of ice , intrepid molecule , the structure of snowflakes ect.) as the everything else that exists on earth , time is the standard of measurement that comes later after the existence itself .
It was until the group crit that i realized something , the relationship among objects i've made (displayed on the floor) and the objects (abandoned stone that i carried away , under the stairs outside the workshop space). Then how those objectes relates to each other , is to find connection or association, how time relates to E=mc2(?), to daily objects that contains energy within , the existence between life and death and its marks on the path of decaying (the process).
'order=disorder; ego=non-ego; affirmation=negation...' what is an 'absolute art' , what's the fine line by defining DADA or Serialism ? so the value or the aesthetics of the work doesn't matter ("talk about your ideas even it doesn't look like fits our tastes"). Down to the concepts, if every production of disgust is the negation to the liberty side of it , the spontaneity of 'i-don't-give-a-damn' attitude , or 'between the two deaths' (?) so what's 'beauty' out of 'ugliness' ? what's artist's role when everyone is an artist , or everything is (can be) art .. it's 'when the yes and no meets', experiment out of the 'aethetic' but to the core of the materiality. it's the uselessness as everything (else) .. dada or life (which doesn't mean anything) , not a word , not a term .. not a choice (chance operation is a structuralized plain) or it is deliberately the option paralysis ..
Week 4
"I'm lost" , that 's the old sentence again , that should be the perfect conclusion of the week , not all the time . I don't know what particular things i should work on , what theme or what i am particularly interested in , but i've been doing something else instead , exploring i guess , as a progress , (did feel stressful to look around others' space after decorating or having something on the wall) , it's everywhere yet nowhere to find , at some point , the ideas come .
Reading in the library or somewhere outside the campus has taken part of the time , 'TIME' , Proust's sense of time , comparing to my time management , sleepwalking or daydreaming ?
'ad nauseam' , unmapped recontres , according to the frequency of appearance , the repeating pattern , within 7 (?) days :
Foucault / french , nouveau roman , temps trouvé , meta-xxxxx (physics) ect.
so long not long ago , 'remembrance of the things past' , the 'felt time' , the absolute , the shadow , searching , researching ...... 'trop dur et trop fatigant' .....
am i the necrophile ? who's drawn to the dead of hellish things . raw concrete , the fetishization of the cold .....
'BRUTALISM' is appealing to me , as an architectual style or it 's the book with concrete 's greyness or the sense of the word itself .
Joshua Bonetta 'Low Islands' , is something i'm going to 'learn' , as Luke Willies Thompson's work at Turner Prize , the touch of nostalgia , the sound of the high end telecine , comparing to the silent screen , seemingly telling audiences some stories (or truth) back in time (black&white) .
Two weeks , been engaging conversations with 'technician' , learning bits about 16mm/35mm films , Bolex Standard 8 or Super 8 camera ..... knowledge , apart from the fact that i never really is a fan of technology or taking '4D' (video) , this is interesting to try the medium and not playing safe , will be fun and take time if to hand-colour the films (frame by frame) .....
Film (clips) screening 'la coquille et le clergyman' (The Seashell and The Clergyman), Germaine Dulac, 1928 . There's this scene when the main character is letting go of the memories , when the elements of fragments of moving images . I like the way how director used river (or stream) , floating (quite vague images) as the term 'stream of consciousness' , how those thoughts flow in/through/out like the river , it never stops . Metaphors or poetic , the sensory the sensation , sunlight through wind , leaves , reflections on the wall , shades whispering , all those evoke (in some extent) the action (voluntarily or involuntarily) to think back (troll in the mind trip or trick - tunnel of time exploring) .
Week 1
The group meeting with discussions , emerging from the place whoever speaks out , brought out some interesting points which I might would miss , such as ‘forms of context’; what is ‘critical’; words like ‘theoretical’/'experimental'/'analysis'/'context' were addressed on. Playing on words, digging into something which seems to be underestimated. so 'content' or 'context' ?
I think I was doing well, apart from a bit heightened nerves around the small group of people , taking about your own work and the ongoing problem about how to organize your speech (where/what to start/continue) or a writing, such a train wreck . The skill for public speech is essential as well for a better communication/understanding for all, so just be bold as “bold style conquers all” (via David Shrigley) . Having doubts and no fear of the wrongness or failure - responding/questioning, 'critical / theoretical / context' so many words out there are hidden under the lines , "opinion is not judgement" , what's the meaning or difference ?? THINK . brain work . is a satisfaction . to feed on experiment , been experimenting stuff (i.e. self dyeing hair colours) but so hard to put into exact sentence about the 'experimental' / 'analysis' .. detailed little things (tons of information) to take notion .
i know with the bit of the guide , a theme or a deadline or a project , it sets the goal have started , the second week , earlier this week , i was sill in the state of a bit group presentation is a good chance to get to know the pot of people , as artists’ work that are exhibited it’s interesting after you hear their stories behind the work they made then presented , (how to present) ? the question about ‘aesthetics’ ? does it have to be perceived 'beautiful' ? To hear about their concepts from the work , the duplication from different perspective , or more authentic point of view and how others see your work , there are just so many artists you’ve never heard about , the ones that you should know , such as the final piece I took from the foundation , ‘Anthony Caro’ was not existed on my research radar. I do feel a sense of fear/worry , as the word ‘prudential’, careful and avoid risks, which is right the opposite to what I suppose to do ........