research is so rewarding to do. i’m enjoying it so much i’ve been too tired at the end of the last few days to begin to contemplate some reflective words.
so now with a cup of tea, i find a few moments to note down my thoughts since the last entry.
the biggest surprise in my findings so far has been around the issue of mediation. i remember something along these lines in andrew bryant’s monthly email thingy, that at the time i read it thought oh that’s interesting.
one of the big things a year ago on the future focus programme was “how to mediate to the public” and“we’re here for the public so we have a responsibility to them”. words thrust at me with little time for discussion and deliberation with those imposing them on me, ergo little comprehension of what the hell they were talking about.
a year on, i can see that the mediation process begins with the building, it says…” here is a building in which you see art.” quite a clear loud message. in the gallery are more words, to allow the public to know that it is art.
so a year on and i’m researching in a non traditional art space. what have i learnt? without a building doing all the initial mediation for you, there is a vunerability imposed on the practioner. without words on the wall, well no walls actually again there is vunerability. in my research i have learnt that as a practioner working in non traditional art space, that mediation with the immediate environment is required. i have now developed my range of mediation equipment and will trial it over the next few days within the residency in the arboretum in derby.
proposition.
something else coming out of the research is the notion of proposition. this is within the advertising campaign for the piece. i’ve got to a point where i have instilled a proposal in the poster that further on into the poster there is a resolution of the proposal, for the proposal takes the form of a question.
what i didn’t expect to happen was a flip flop effect in realising about the proposal, it feeding back into the website design and content. and i have to add that the promotion of the work is taking up as much time as making the work and actually is becoming as enjoyable as making the work, as all the thinking and developing can now be passed on to those that i am leaving posters with. there seems to be a freedom working in non traditional art space.
reflectively, i wonder if the problem with traditional art spaces is that they are so heavily mediated by nature that developing new audiences is held back by the mediation to existing audiences.
a good friend of mine has lent me ‘essays on the blurring of art and life’ allan kaprow, edited by jeff kelly. page 53…
kapow sums up the need for mediation in non traditional art space thus:
“the power of artists is precisely the influence they wield over the fantasies of their public.”
that comes from the 1964 essay ‘the artist as a man of the world.
there are some things that change and some that stay the same….(misquote from the matrix trilogy)
i’ve felt a little behind schedule in the residency this week, however today i feel i have caught up some ground and i’m looking forward to my business mentor visiting me on friday to see the snee snaw for herself.
and once again, my favourite misquote from little miss sunshine:
“suffering makes us who we are, don’t miss out on the suffering.”
and while i remember it, start the week, monday this week, well worth a listen if you are just leaving university. the section i mean is about success. listen to it…download the pod cast…in fact i need to do that right now…
