Flux Without Pause

It was 11 pm I was tired from a day that I had my work all set up ready for assessment. This was the last piece of work of my three-year course. The thought end of this part of my journey had started to kick in. As I walked up the stairs, the corner of my eye caught the sight of something spectacular. My first words were “Jesus Christ” there it was this massive beetle with these giant claws I scared the crap out of me at first but I found a box to put into and take it outside. When I went to research what I had seen I found out that it was an stag beetle then the more I researched it started to find out some facts that were very poignant to me.

They live up to seven years.

Most of those year are as Larvae.

The stag beetle’s life cycle is a complete metamorphosis and can take between 4-6 years.

The stag beetle is a protected species and only found in a few areas in southern Britain.

The more I read about the stag beetle the more I felt this was becoming a significant moment.

This month enters the seventh year of my 5am experience. I realized that when I had this moment in 2007 this creature was at the beginning of its journey of a slow process of metamorphosis Larvae to the magnificent structure that my eyes behold. The thought of the amount of cycles of thought and new ways of seeing I had experience over that period via moments of wonder. Like the formulation of the Larvae living in the underground to fully form to connect with the outside word my project has required a sense of inner knowing.

When looking at the mythology aspects of the beetle I came across a word, which captured my 5am project… discernment.

Beetles aid in transformation, metamorphosis, resurrection and rebirth – rebirth of the soul to a new spiritual ideal and renewed devotion. This animal teaches harmony in the coming changes by utilizing your intuitive abilities and teaches discernment where you need it the most. Beetles have a protective quality that will aid in the ability to socialize and communicate effectively by illuminating problems and situations in the correct perspective.

Beetles will teach persistence with charm, trust in the process, proper movement and actions, which allows the regeneration of your spirit to prosper.

Albrecht Durer (1471 – 1528) became one of the first artists to realistically draw a Stag Beetle. In his paintings and drawings, Durer associated Stag Beetle with Christ.

People do pay attention to Stag Beetle but little understand Him or his ways. People usually disliked Him because of his ugliness. However, Stag Beetle still quietly goes about helping the forest grow. Durer did recognize Stag Beetle’s attributes when he used this Beetle to symbolize Christ’s quiet service to humanity.

“Art is omnipresent in nature, and the true artist is he who can bring it out.” -Albrecht Dürer

When I saw the name Albrecht Dürer it sounded failure, then I remembered that he drew the famous praying hands. Then I remember the story about the painting where him and his brother made a deal that one would support the other in art school by working in the mine pits and then they would reverse the gesture after four years. Albrecht won the bet to go first but by the time it was his brothers turn his hands had been so damaged that he couldn’t be an artists so Albrecht drew his hands as a tribute the metaphor for this image is a that you cant do this by its yourself.

The word discernment means the activity of determining the value and quality of a certain subject or event, particularly the activity of going past the mere perception of something and making detailed judgments about that thing.

This described my journey over the past 7 years and especially over few months making the invisible …visible. I woke up the next morning still thinking about the beetle later on that day I found out it was Allen Ginsberg’s birthday, it was Ginsberg’s five am poem who had started me on my pathway to making connections. The encounter with Stag beetle was my spiritual validation of my past, present and my future paths to walk.

Og Mandino – The Praying Hands

“Contrary to what people say, using the first person in films tends to be a sign of humility: ‘All I have to offer is myself.’” —Chris Marker

My work for my assessment consists of the various periods of ides that were created in my studio space over the past year from the mind map for my dissertation which contains the key themes of producing socially engaged art and web 2.0 sites. Plus the ideas of my then degree project of walking and how it linked with my 5am project and the Allen Ginsberg poem that it was inspired from. The space contains images of me experimenting with the three screen format and artists who I referenced who also use similar techniques. Also the walls display posters of the films 12 years a slave and the butler, movies that highlighted the aspects of intersectionailtiy.

The yellow tape of the space represents the 10 week period of Hambling incident where in that cycle the studio space became a “scene of a crime” in the way that my original ideas been derailed by having the weight this experience placed upon me. The three tapelines represent the three boundaries that I had to overcome in my last few months,

The tapelines capture that something has been halted and the key of clue to understanding lies within the space which turns the space into a floating signifier.

The desk contains a laptop of the film no to £650 the flyer to the fine art auction, which features Hambling’s image as the main piece, the letter from Ipswich and Suffolk council for racial Equality (ISCRE) to the provost Richard Lister and the book Pedagogy of the oppressed by Paulo Freire.

The Mind map connects with all the themes mention because the experience connected with the themes that I was looking at for my dissertation and when reflecting back on the experience some of the theme connects with the spaces between walking.

Part of the space is unpainted because of keeping the original aspect of the space and to juxtapose the rest of the room. As like in a Brecht plays it makes the frame works visible and making frameworks visible has been the consistent theme of project 5am.

For the degree show I will display the mind map, which defines my 7-year journey of understanding my 5am experience. The notion of the third space has been the glue that has connected all the ideas that I have linked to my project. This has made me wonder if the true aspect of art making takes place in this domain and not the result of being in the domain. Philosopher Graham Harman who wrote about the third space in The Third Table for documenta 13 talks about the fourth space as being a result of capturing the moment of being in the third space. So if the third space represents process and fourth space objects in my opinion the mystery of art lies within the “third space” which produces a feedback loop with the fourth space. My concerns its that art environments can be caught up to much in the fourth space because of the financial aspects which can lead incidents like I experienced and not focusing beneath the surface. I cannot describe my artwork for my assessment because for me the real art has been produced from people’s reactions. Then the art feels activated and alive from action. I have seen the magic of people opinions changing via time and reflection via repeated bouts of dialogue raising the social capital the environment. Seeing people in a different light from their response of lack of response. My work since March 4th has always been about creating a better future environment by inviting others to take control of their own frameworks. This is the main reason why I will have work up at the degree show because I has seen enough signs in the majortiy of the group that they understand or try to understand how serious these last few weeks have been and I totally respect them for that.

If there’s any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it’s almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.”
― Julie Delpy

In early April I was recommended by one of my lectures to take part in a debate about end racism which was hosted by the London based group The Red Room. The timing of this event was powerful because of the situation I was in at the time. After 4 weeks I felt very alienated by the initial incident and the first video I created had cause chaos, fragmentation and friction within my group which alienated me even more. I was told that there was going to be a debate organized by the uni about this topic but there was no confirmed date so it was good to know that there would be a platform in the near future to raise the issue. By the time the event had taken place in May the dynamics had changed radically. After finding out that the university debate would be under the title of “are there any limits to freedom of speech” that showed me that I needed outside voice to highlight the problems that the uni was failing to tackle. It was over that period in April that after starting to slowly understand the writings of critical pedagogy I started to see how the neoliberalism aspects art commodity and objects had filtered into education allow situations like I had experienced to happen. In my opinion I felt that the artist reputation was a major factor in her comments not being challenged during and after the talk especially at the time of the auction where her work was the headline piece. With this understanding I had found a certain sense of peace with what had happened. With this in new found knowledge I wanted to give people a chance to own their experience the past few weeks by putting an ethical weight on the whole process on sale of the painting which was for the upcoming degree show. By making a gesture of no taking the £650 which for me symbolized “commodity over student well-being” it would show that students can think for themselves and were not docile to react to acts of inequity. I created a pdf stating my reasons for boycotting the money as well as creating a petition to find out how many signatures I would get back. As well as send sending the petition out to the students I posted it out on social media sites to get as many outside voices to show the University that this issue should be treated seriously.

The garden of freedom, a group that helps campaigns by writing articles to support their causes showed me the power of the strength in weak ties. They responded to the petition by writing an article about the situation. It was from this article that I had found someone for the first time in 5 week who as well supported me took action. This was the catalyst for others to take action by sharing the article and signing the petition. Within days of the article being published the provost had contacted me to meet up about my concerns.

By the time of The R word event taking place the article had gone viral had reached the mainstream papers. This was a problem because A: they were reporting about an event that had taken place two months ago and since then I had seen from the effect of the garden of freedom article and numerous bouts of dialogue with group member who were seeing a different point people’s views and B: They were only focusing mainly on the artist comments and not the bigger picture. By doing this the papers missed the point but at the same time it was understandable because the nature of the beast of the mainstream media is to go for the eye catching headline. The R Word event was set u in the concept of artist Louis Weaver’s the Long Table format which encourages an open democratic forum for discussion and debate. Invited specialists were asked to start the discussion around 3 key questions.

The format reminded of the essence of what critical pedagogy is a space for equality.

The 2nd question focused on the no to £650 video, which raised a lot of anger when shown. It reminded me of how I felt ten weeks ago.

The event show me a different side of Ipswich that I had never seen before and side that felt very disconnected for the views of the university.

The Red Room: The R Word Ipswich logos

The Third Space

I believe if there’s any kind of God it wouldn’t be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there’s any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it’s almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.”
― Julie Delpy

TEDxBandra – Fenella Kelly – Entering the Third Space