2nd Year Art Student

Along with my performance projects I have also been working on Printing. Screen printing and etching. The project started through a task set by university. We as a group were tasked in making a book of prints. The group decided to make prints based on literature.

Dystopian Literature/media

• 
• 
• 

As an artist was interested in dystopian media. My first point of call was A Clock Work Orange. I read the book then watched the film. Burgess tells us what a Clock Work Orange is;

‘Clock work orange – by definition, a human being is endowed with free will. He can use this to choose between good and evil. If he can only perform good or only perform evil, then he is a clockwork orange—meaning that he has the appearance of an organism lovely with colour and juice, but is in fact only a clockwork toy wound up by God or the Devil or (since this is increasingly replacing both) the Almighty State.’

Admittedly I found it hard to make Print work that wasn’t illustrating a book, this wasn’t my aim. I decided to look further from A Clock Work Orange. I watched ‘Metropolis’ the Fritz Lang 1920’s sci-fi movie it was hugely influential, I was interested in the performativity element of the film, it did influence some of my performance work. For the print project though

I found interest in the Architectural element and the theme of ‘As above. So bellow’ symbolism, for me Lang actually re images the seal of Solomon. This in turn influenced me to produce my own symbols.

• 
• 
• 
• 

Etching

• 
• 

I attempted some etching more lately, I took influence from an image (taken by Emma Starkey, www.emmastarkey.com) that has been influential in other works this semester but I will talk about them later on. I used the image and distorted it by continuous photocopying so I ended up with a pixelated image; from this I used the outlines of the cloths. I was interested in the manner in which homeless people just become objects and how they can also disappear into the back ground but no matter what they always leave their mark, using the etching I made prints, ghost prints until the prints became just embossed paper.

Where It All Began

Last year in my BA Fine Art Course at the University of Worcester I started unbeknown to me looking at the absurd and the absurdist. It all started with a piece of work called ‘Simon Said’. I made paper handouts written on these handouts were instructions, absurd instructions to give to the public. Things like “Simon said dance”, “Simon said hump a tree” and “Simon said rob a bank”. The work itself work well I had a good response from people towards some of the less arbitrary, or farcical ones. A police officer responded to “Simon said rob a bank” in a less than humorous way grabbing hold of me and telling me off, which wasn’t a surprise.

But, I wanted to cause a reaction rather than force a reaction, I wanted to have the reactions from people without being told what to do. After researching allot into different themes and context I made a piece called ‘Homage to Yellow’. The Yellow Wallpaper influenced my performance the quote;

 ‘There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will.

Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day.

It is always the same shape, only very numerous.’

Influenced the Wallpaper design, her writings also influenced the manner in which I applied the paper to the wall using beans. I wanted to cause a reaction; this performance though didn’t ever get the kind of reaction I wanted from it as I only ever performed it inside of University as an assessment. The paper is crudely applied to the wall; I hate beans to the point of vomiting. There was always the potential of a reaction but one was never met.

• 
• 

 

The Moment of Enlightenment.

According to Brassier (2007);

‘Enlightenment consists in expediting science’s demolition of the manifest image by kicking away whatever pseudo-transcendental props are being used to shore it up otherwise inhibit the corrosive potency of science’s metaphysical subtractions’

I started looking at the non-manifest image and what that could be seen as, but in fact looking at what was already out there, using several different medias, I concentrated on a film I watched called ‘Frank’ I directly used the giant head idea to create my own ‘head within a head’. In ‘Gulliver’ I wanted to test people’s reactions to the absurd and incongruous. I also wanted to see how it felt looking out of tunnel vision. To look out at the world looking back in. The head hides my identity but also looks absurd a pointless act to make people look uncomfortable, in the same instance a representation of the modern street sales person who acts for the a faceless corporation they undeniably act for. The themes where there the work for me didn’t work as well as I would have liked, unfortunately only one performance has happened. But I had learned valuable lessons.

• 
• 
• 

 

Playing Games

I looked at the themes carried through Yoko Ono’s ‘Cut piece’ the scissors are never there in their true form but are there in spirt by handing props to people, I give the bottle and umbrella; there is always the potential of the ‘Scissors’ been opened and closed. I looked at the potential that the abnormal or absurd, by posing the questions and enabling the audience to partake, I can also encourage that whim upon them, by demonstrating an absurd act or acts it allows the audience to feel secure in their response to the work. I showed this particular work twice. Once at PiLOT and once in, Newcastle, at Breeze Creatives.

• 
• 
• 
• 

PiLOT did not work as well as I would have liked the performance ended to sharply the act to clean cut. I did nothing to the audience so in response the audience did nothing back to me, the way I handed out the umbrellas was a response to Lang’s ‘Metropolis’. I handed out the props much like a scene seen within ‘Metropolis’

• 
• 
• 
• 

Breeze Creatives on the other hand worked well  I had decided to ACTUALLY play the game winding up or demonstrating what I wanted in response from the audience. It resulted in Sculptures been made, water been poured everywhere and laughter.

Francis Alÿs Sometimes ‘Making Something Leads to Nothing’ (1997)

• 
• 
• 
• 

My Recent performance/Video work has been looking at the absurd; I have been doing rather than having done to me. I have looked at two contemporary artists who in their own way look at absurdist themes.  Francis Alÿs attempts this by pushing around a block of ice until it melts through the hot streets of Mexico City in 1997, this act seems ultimately futile as the ice melts due to the heat, and it has no meaning in the fact that it would be easier to carry the object. That’s if he needed it. The very fact he is pushing then kicking the object around becomes playful, an experiment to decipher how long the ice will last for instance. He keeps going walking past people in the street, some paying attention others not choosing to view the absurd act. The Ice eventually melts completely. ‘Something Leads to Nothing.’

• 
• 

In ‘Park the Bench’ I drag the home made pallet bench across a bridge seemingly from know where the film follows the acts through the city centre weaving in and of the crowds to get to the end point nature is seen in parts but the film ends the moment the bench is placed in front of the golden gates of the guild hall in Worcester someone taking pictures of the hall in the back drop. I sit down and wait the film ends there. Is this a protest or just moving of a home? Does the bench belong to me (?) why the guildhall. Why not take the bench to the park or field somewhere secluded? In ‘Conjunction’ the film ends abruptly once I pass through the doors.

Simon Raven ‘The Plough’ (2010).

• 
• 
• 
• 

Raven walks down secluded streets and city’s/public areas dragging what looks to be an old plough a comment on agriculture? Look closer though and you see that it is a satellite dish in ravens own words he comments ‘I was filmed from midnight until dawn dragging a domestic satellite dish through the outskirts of an unnamed city, from a motorway intersection, through a snow-covered golf course to a retail park. Scandal surrounding newspaper hacking/muck-raking was in the news at the time.’ His protest seemingly unseen becomes futile but this maybe a comments on how we are being watched by un seen entities.

• 
• 

At times in ‘Conjunction’ and ‘Parking the Bench’ I become unseen to the public eye, people choosing to not take notice to walk on and not help. Admittedly it does capture the eye of on lookers as well but the absurdist is captured like in Ravens piece ‘The Plough’.  Conjunction ends abruptly with me walking into the Hive, Ravens piece finishes with him vanishing into the morning.

Simon Raven ‘The Book Worm’ (2012)

• 
• 
• 

Ravens piece ‘Book Worm’ informed me on how to capture moments in the film with a stable still camera; both ‘Conjunction’ and ‘Park the Bench’ are filmed this way.  I took instruct from the manor in which Ravens ‘Book Worm’ was filmed. The side, front and back profiles still steady shots allow for us to see a, moving painting the public cars and nature captured within the frame of the image along with the absurdity, which lied within.

 

 

 

 

 

From this image (taken by Emma Starkey, www.emmastarkey.com) I have yesterday produced a film where by I drag a bench (made by myself out of a pallet.) Thinking about the recent plight of the Homeless that live upon our streets in Britain , the way they are moved on technically  moved away from their place of safety (?) their home. I decided to make a Bench out of found material, this a pallet recycled into another use. The idea of the bench comes from the way the homeless are moved on, whenever I see a story of the local services moving people on I’d imagined them comfortable or curled up on a bench. They cannot move the bench, so in theory move home. I can move my bench, it is heavy and awkward to move, splinters cut into my hands, the wood scraped my arms.

I sat in front of the guild hall in Worcester to obtain a stark contrast of the seemingly prosperous building and the roughly mad pallet bench. in doing so parking the bench.

Another work in progress is my flour scripted piece I have decided that I shall not learn the script after re-reviewing my video I have come to decide that I like the manor in which the performance plays out when reading the script from the wall, it becomes spasmodic.

Here is the finished script.

(splits flour bag) 
This flour! This flour!
Is my only friend.
But
I used it to my will, to make bread and cake!
It carried my daily diet,
I stand here preaching to myself.
It makes my stomach turn. Fading away into the wall on putrid piss filled streets.
I don’t know how many times I kissed the soul of boots.
It’s no joke
They have food, baths and a warm bed to sleep in at night.
I just get looks of disgust and distaste?
I respect them but, they walk through my home!
They don’t make me smile now. Are they sad about that? I don’t know.
Some may end up just like me some day. 
What is man without a home? My territory is yours.
Degrading myself here asking for a light.
A fucking light
To ease the boredom of the day.
Can I have a match?
 

 

• 
• 
• 
• 

Above you can see the finished out come of the prints I designed last year. I enjoyed the use of colour and felt confident in the use of one screen as I felt the way the paint fell onto the paper. Light to dark, dark to light the success rate went well as in total I made 20, 19 worked well, 13 are needed to make books, the best ones went into that. the one that failed was on print 2, I accidentally printed across the two pages, it was just a matter of my calculations which were soon sorted.