barren residency at Artsmith;Derby 3/6/2013
Working in a space with a collaborator presents certain pressures – sometimes it is best to ignore the other and the pressures, and just begin – silent workers. Usually you end up gravitating, which we did, and focussed on the apex area of the roof at Artsmith and the greenhouse panel which we would like to use as a starting point for a wall drawing. I have been co-opting Dave to help with a kite project for the PhD which has developed to become a duel film piece together. We have unfinished business with the subject of the kite on motion and static, so this looks to be on the agenda.
The greenhouse was also a project for the PhD and my first etched panel sits in the gallery – however we took it down and transcribed the technical drawing of the blueprints, I had been working on, and followed those through behind the glass, intersecting lines to begin.
We were flummoxed this morning because I had thought to myself, just continue to draw the greenhouse, then it shifted to mapping places which we were agreed upon but now seemed a bit naff. So Dave turns to me and says ‘shall we draw the greenhouse?’ – I nodded, we already have several short films and stills using the greenhouse as a lightbox, set and stage so projecting them onto the space and extracting and re-scaling seemed the best place to go. Dave’s short films from inside the greenhouse projected onto this has already created a new range of images……
As Perec would advise there is no sense in meetings in spaces like these – everything has been studied and there is no question of getting it wrong and no case of any error being detected. He comments on the amazement of workmen meeting together. It feels like this – tea, coffee, looking, seeing, agreeing, banter then agree and do. The doing is such a focus that actually not doing seems very productive and decisive because the intention distils. Perec. G. Species of Spaces ;Pg 89)
