Around and about in Linz

Hooray for a much more productive day. I ended yesterday with a late night wrestle in the studio and skyped my other half for a bit of sanity. Too much alone time facing off a piece of work and I get into a funny mindset.

In working on top of these record sleeves I am searching really for a sense of the uncanny, of something unhemlich, a strangeness that appears in the best ones. Deconstructing the faces is part of a line of enquiry into the necessity of mystery, and thinkings and ponderings on hiddenness opening up new spaces. So of the human parts, only the eyes stare out from the photos, everything else – all skin and hair is covered. I am fascinated by the relationship between audience and object, and to mask a face, is to reverse the normal power dynamics in relating. In the context of viewing these works in a gallery space, it means that the object can see you the audience, but you cannot fully know or understand what you see. I find that interesting.

I had a stimulating discussion today around some of these ideas with an Austrian artist (and techno DJ) Katharina Gruzei, in the studio next door. She is a photographer and is also interested in object-viewer relationships, masking, identity constructing etc. The best things about studios is the platform they provide for these sort of interactions, where you end of buzzing off other artists and the creative temperature goes up a notch or too for everyone. When it works well it really works.

Robyn and I have also been hanging out a bit with Volkan Aslan (yes the best name ever), an artist from Istanbul also here on a residency. We also met up again with Peter Arlt (see post 1). Cecilia Kinnear (another POSTie) also arrived this evening. Everything is starting to gear up now to the show opening in a couple of weeks time… and I’m starting to feel excited.