barren

barren day 19

Scores and Inventories

Three scores or more

Two lemon sole and One Flapping sole

One pallet for mammon

Nine dancers drumming presentations into One head

One can perhaps see that this beginning of an inventory mimics Perec (1997) but is also consequential to a conference day where various presentations have left rather a void like space in my mind. Primo Levi was not an immediate commentator on experiences but left them for distillation before recounting, retelling and shaping.

Three large cups of coffee

One banana

A pot of melon with grapes

Several remnant of packaging with phosphorescing agents

There are many aspects to this blog that remain to be distilled and developed more rigorously but I am compelled to recount additional sets of thought that have been filtering through. The first set is upon the wall drawing created by using the architectural imagery Dave and I collected, I have referred to it in an earlier entry but something has occurred. It is perhaps not a drawing but mor a drawn sculpture. The use of shape and outline, abstracted architectural elements are composed to bring body and shape rather than just linear clarity. Tremlett (Drathen; 2004) moved from place to place leaving daubed wall drawings of abstract elements of spaces and these now appear to have a strong link to this direction. Briefly I had through that these could be transferred to something more portable …more framed but these exhibitions have been undoing the frame and therefore feel I must relinquish it for this aspect. Rather the development has unwittingly occurred in the carving of Icarus in a skirting board. Again drawings into an existing space and therefore walls and portable pieces of architecture have taken the stage in my drawing practice. The chair equally echoes this therefore I am bound to admit that while Tremlett was nomadic and moved from place to place marking those spaces; I am bound to removing and abstracting elements from existing place and moving them elsewhere before drawing upon them. This seems a satisfactory resolution to work with for the time being and one I will take with me to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in August.

One packet of cashew nuts rather stale

One set of presentation on the patronizing nature of some socially engaged art

One niggling idea on scoring as inscription to surface and notation

One USB house to possibility

During the course of the presentation one spent some time on deliberating the possibilities and restrictions of traditional notation on electrical score music in terms of interpretation. This quickly moved into an analysis of graphic scores those wonderful pieces championed by Cage and others into the experimental field of inverting and dis-coordinating staves, using shape and graphics to elaborate on the score for the musicians interpretation rather than the didactic nature of the composer. The composition became a discussion and open rather than closed and fixed. I have previously drawn a range of images attempting to graphically score the body and it is with this in mind I recalled my skirting of inscriptions of the body, scribing its presence rather than its motion, arresting its time rather than its shape. The issues was raised over how the graphic score worked as art rather than score and refreshed my point of view that the scoring of the body beyond notation should not be abandoned just yet. Preoccupations with abstracting architecture were and have been a notating of the body intrinsically working with the classical notion of the body and architecture. In Mesopotamia the foot was used to measure space and the significance of architecture and the body has taken a trajectory that now has us examining clothing as architectural in reference to the body and has architecture behaving like the body as Borden would address architecture as only a way of looking at space’ (2001) and has argued the case for an architectural history based further on conception, a set of flows, reproduction and experiences.

Four feet of lead

One head width of skirting board

Three head widths of flow glass etched

Twelve feet of wood frame

One arms length of plinth…

barren day 17

Absurdity at 11am with Kippers

So the image of Icarus falling preys on images here, subtly, not as a myth making device but similar to other artists giving it meaning via failure, ineptitude, foolishness and folly. I like to see this image falling against the vertical structures of architecture and our absurd notion that neutral non gendered sites are possible. I myself am absurd for attempting to develop new approaches to architecture through art by developing activity that occupies edges in a revolt against growth. The growth of architecture seems to signify so much of the cavern for capitalist towers vertically dominating. In our foolishness cities vie for a better, more modern more iconic tower. Interestingly we did not learn from the narrative of the tower of Babel which I now see as the architecture of internet and global economies. This is not a rant against social networking, information sharing or otherwise but an observation as one side of the coin to Camus’ discussion on absurdity in relation to the Greek Myth Sisyphus. Sisyphus is pictured as relentlessly pushing a boulder up a hill. Building and development is relentless in its quest to do better social housing, greener solutionsand organistation for more accessability, choice and information etc. So why not picture Sisyphus in these images instead of Icarus?

Icarus is the son of a craftsman and bears the signature of those who craft. Daedalus is the image of those who work for fine finishes and hand craft, develop craft. There is an attention to care and a honing of skills in order to achieve it. We give meaning to those crafted objects and what is well crafted or deliberately produced in cack-handed design. Therefore Icarus gives two sides to the other side of the coin to Sisyphus. Sisyphus the labourer relentless, persistent and absurd; Icarus foolish and absurd but son of Daedalus the craftsman. Icarus and Daedalus together provide the revealed element to the Sisyphus myth that it is absurd to apply meaning to objects and what we make, futile seeking meaning in the course of our humanity and indeed finding satisfaction, accomplishment and pleasure from these endeavours. Yes we do. Humanity is foolish for many things, accountable for many wrongs but the endearing and baffling part I would see through the eyes of a badger is that persistence to do better, the toil and pleasure in our efforts are utterly absurd we are.

The opening of an exhibition to then work on and convert, the perverse nature to embark on a process to challenge how we use space at our edgelands as some kind of protest to sprawl, is in fact absurd. However while the struggle is applauded there is a poetry that can be accepted in this contradiction.

Daedalus and his son Icarus become more potent when he is the inventor and builder of the Labyrinth. There is no labyrinth here but there is the use of floor plans, frames, space frames, airborne and building elements that are labyrinthian in their concepts, notions and perception of space. Homer provides one further thought on these perceptions, Daedalus was considered the clever craftsman so much so that in Ovid’s metamorphoses he refers to Daedalus entrapping himself within his own labyrinth.

When surveying the body of work under progression against that of my research I begin to see that the investigations into space, architecture, occupation, gender and environment, open connect and reconnect to make pathways. They have become the architecture of my own labyrinth. And this is the absurdity; in attempting to escape the restriction and determinist conceptions of space in architecture and organisation I have constructed my own and it is limiting. The boulder then, is to keep escaping and moving beyond the architectural limitations I set for myself within my body of work – kippers!

barren day 16

White plastic eraser

Rauschenberg acquired a Willem de Kooning drawing and erased it see whether a drawing could be produced from entirely erasing and removing marks rather than adding them. The act of labour and production was elevated within the boundaries of what could be defined as art. The drawing becomes psychological. It becomes the idea of obliterating an eminent figure and brings the idea of trace to the forefront of visibility.

He has been described as iconoclastic but not for smashing iconic art but for breaking up ideas and notions regarding drawing and making. It comes under the act of a deconstructive process and process does seem to be central to our collaboration. Joseph Kosuth who wrote on Philosophy after Art comments on Ad Reinhardt’s painting noting ‘painting had to be erased to make room for the art’ and Reindhart certainly worked back towards the canvas to create a different surface.

Meanwhile Dave has four boards which have been carefully painted, sanded and painted again. In the sanding he is erasing the painting he embarked upon and while the board or canvas is not revealed the removal of paint appears to have left a drawing. Tiny points accumulate to create shaded spheres. It is interesting to compare Reinhardt’s black canvases which were a note to departing from painting and negating the values associated with painting, with Dave’s spheres which do not use gesture. Rather an attitude of labour and method for the removal of paint. Whereas Reindhart’s work deconstructs the romantic and mythical notions of painting whilst being complete reflective of the tradition of painting Dave’s method does not so much indicate the tradition of painting but seems to indicate a differentiation of class, labour and attitude towards a painting. There are signs of the minimalist aesthetic achieved through deconstruction but there is a labour intensive anonymity to the method which removes that self associated with a painting.

A psychological idea of painting clear here – Reinhardt attempted to delete the signs associated with painting but Dave’s erasure appears to reveal other signs through process. This is perhaps as a renovator Dave employs both the acts of artists and the methods of trade. These combine to make a thoughtful approach to process.

We are used to the realist social images born out of the realist movement and now depicted in photography and contemporary painting but conceptual painting that bears the marks of class is worth a consideration. Particularly when the minimalist aesthetic once associated with high ideals of formalism then became the rhetoric of aspirationals demonstrated through interiors and design. White pace was deemed as negative space but became that which denotes modern nature, elegance and conveys power and a refined taste associated with the upper class strata.

My work of an architectural screen depicts the exact number of queens for the spaces on a chessboard elongated into a screen which was designed to comment on the powerful rhetoric which is our architecture of space. It stands off the wall leaving the shadow, a space for the margins and that which is veiled and hidden behind rhetoric. John W. Pracejus, G. Douglas Olsen and Thomas C. O’Gunn (2006 ) collaboratively wrote an article on Space, Rhetoric, History and Meaning clearly conveying the implication of using a white space to challenge art historical ideas, a visual idea rather than pictorial event. It offers an opportunity for demonstrating social forces so when looking at my screen and Dave’s white boards with black spheres I am struck by the symbiotic significance of our work. The use of technology to produce mine smacks of industry and labour whilst Dave’s is hands on, the white designates powerful spaces and becomes a visual conversation on aesthetics, the use of white space for drawing spaces which are imbued with power tussles and social architecture.

barren 15

Open drawing

As we were making box kites the use of thread to wind and strengthen joins revealed a structure that we are reluctant to now clad. The open structures are reminiscent of Sol Lewitts open structures sculptural drawings. Having used line and the frame to open and reveal a pictorial ground for space and construction it now seems that we are embarking not just on space frames but spatial structures that are the skeleton of objects we use to fill a space with.

Lewitts structures (1979) were designed to be without emption but I’m not sure that can be true of these when they signify structures we use and have young memories of. His were logical systems and followed progressional patterns, whereas there is an arrangement here which cannot be defined as merely formal and abstract, the pictorial is here too. He also used wall drawings according to these systems creating optical and abstraction quas-geometirc shapes. He started with the open cube and that is certainly a starting point here but treated as a pictorial frame, a textual frame and space frame. Therein we depart from Sol Lewitt and enter Eco’s domain and the open work where the composition of possibilities is apparent and the interpretative nature of the openness of these familiar frames is revealed. It does require imposing a judgment on the work according to the elements constellated in the space. Perhaps it is best described by Eco.

The Open Work remains significant for its powerful concept of “openness”–the artist’s decision to leave arrangements of some constituents of a work to the public or to chance–and for its striking anticipation of two major themes of contemporary literary theory: the element of multiplicity and plurality in art, and the insistence on literary response as an interactive process between reader and text. (David Robey; 1989)

While semi symbolic there is an indeterminate ambiguity available. The patterns and structures offer a place for conversation and progression rather than a finality. The elements contradict and complement one another but do not resolve as a complete performance. He also tackles the issues of the horizon in terms of providing line as turning the eye this way and that, which on entering this space certainly begins to occur. It is such then that a dynamic site and a multiple site occurs. Essentially then the artist deliberately leaves some of the perception to the public and chance. The multiplicity and plurality of the work is insisted upon whilst engaging in a conversation on the signs presented. This is not a sidestep to interpretation but an attitude to the element presented as they clearly point to drawing, structure, the frame , space and the body but the cross dimensions of these interplay within and upon a stage space therefore I would have to readily agree these works that stand here constitute an open work made from a set of influential/influence lines.

Perec in Species of Spaces listed as areas of open and closed spaces that bore marks of emotional interpretations of space from enclosed, blank to null space intermittently punctuated with formal titles of three dimensional space and edges of space. barren’s compositional elements consist of these:

Edges of space

Wide open spaces

Blank space

Void space

Arched space

Inverted space

Space of a moment

Moment in space

Blank space

Dark gaze space

Wasted space

Organized space

Apollo in deep space

Euclidean space

Projected pace

Unit of space

Structured space

Space frame

Black space

Cold space

Hard space

Ascending space

Mapped space

Cratered space

Lined space

Timed space

Limited space

Written space

Staring at space

Still space

Silent space

Inhabitable space

Ocean space

Drag space

Divided space

Aerial space

These constellate the indeterminate and open aspects of barren’s landscape.

barren day 12

Virtual occupation

Coming up to a conference I am dealing with the idea that our consumption to enjoy and developments of lifestyles mean urban sprawling and abandoned spaces are not occupied sufficiently to prevent the encroachment upon land. While we watch, play and attend cultural events, culture at our feet is something represented – and here it is in the gallery. In this case cultural activity that sports in edges to towns and cities and other would be abandoned or valueless spaces. Activity which would otherwise occupy sites which are are happening in a gallery. This is designated gallery wishful thinking to transfer these ideas into those spaces considered barren.

Dave and I have observed how pressing Like on facebook for various protests and activism and petitions is like a virtual doing it. We like the idea, we hold true to some of those principles in our private homes but beyond that interaction with the computer button and the social network it’s hard to get very far. barren intends to have a manifesto and challenging our own virtual behaviour is part of that. By physically occupying spaces we begin to territorial activity making those spaces into places. Those spaces then become active and physical rather than a nostalgic nod to the imagined romantic notion of lost and hopeless spaces represented through dewy photographs . Likewise we have documented and recorded every inch of this exhibition and the photographs go up on Artsmith relegating actual attendance to the gallery null and void. By viewing it through a lens or screen the exhibition might as well be completely virtual.

It occurs to me that there is some cross over between this documentation and interpassivity like Zizek’s (How to read Lacan; The interpassive subject; 2007)example of the canned laughter on a sitcom which fulfils the requirement for us to laugh ourselves. Does barren in a gallery fulfil its idea of occupying edge spaces, barren lands by simply incorporating and imagining what it would do if it was in the space physically?

So I am presenting at a conference and it is on this very subject that I’m embarking on a short film to actually do the physical thing of occupying a bit of land performatively and film it. It will be shown in Wolverhampton on Thursday and I’m keen to put myself under pressure to realise a few ideas on this. Namely that the film will be silent singing/shouting a little like the old silent movies. It will demonstrate the very virtuality it chooses to challenge and hopefully begin a criticism on how we occupy and use our spaces regularly without ultimate planning for festival, workshops or booked in dates on a highly prepared schedule, but spontaneously (reasonably so) actively and with an energy that comes from activity not interactivity. However I will be sure to upload it so that all can enjoy and consume it via interactivity on your screens!

A more spontaneous approach is often referred to as improvisation and can import that notion of duende (x factor) that Garcia Lorca (1933) translates to us. One of my methods within choreography and over my whole practice is to work with loose structures. They are planned but they require an intention that is still working hard to the last chance/improvisation that comes from many of those discussions. It is essential when grafting in this way. Tim Ingold (2012)would refer again to the innate sentient knowledge brought through experience which I’m now counting on as I move bodies silently into a line on top of a hill to silently yell at passivity to form a boundary which embodies obstructing the onslaught of things creeping over borders like the slapping of a tidal edge and the strategies put in place while we are interacting. It is a silent call for activity and since authors have written on the power of silence as protest this is the silent movie in chorus for the conference exhibition.