Dear blog, what a difference six days can make. You know something’s awry when you’re connecting with the philosophical strapline of a bank advert (?) “because it’s good to be normal again”. (Or something to that effect) For the first time since practising my art, I experienced that which I’d only ever witnessed in current Morriseyness of fellow students: art crash and burn. Let us call it CRAP, (Creative Rupture of Arty Practice). I was hit by CRAP rapidly; in all honesty, I did not see it coming.
Having worked in a steadfast manner since day one of the course, I have always successfully juggled studio practice with external projects. For example, undertaking a uni exhibition (The Opium Room) in my second year, or being commissioned to film a documentary for Dundee City Council, 2005, or setting up a collaborative exhibition, Scrap, at Intermedia, Glasgow, 2005. I have always been resilient to CRAP. Until now, I thought that CRAP was essentially a scaremongering tactic like SARS or Pinnochio; I did not think the Big Bad Degree Show could get me. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I was forced to lie in bed doing nothing but eat chocolate and watch Urban Dance Idol at the weekend. It was dreadful. Luckily though, show only lasted half an hour. Also lucky, it only took me a day to beat the CRAP out.
When it hits you, art stress is uncanny, not like any other type of maladie. It is not even that I felt panicked about time or unfinished work; I feel in control of this. It’s more like serious exhaustion, perhaps akin to being the poltergeist when it comes out of the TV; all pale and stretched.
Since CRAP, I have mostly been taking it easy since it really would be a shame to die for art. I have also been suffering from a bad back from jumping up and down on a trampoline and lifting heavy goods. Twisted siatica aside, (like someone mercilessly jabbing at your nerves with a rusty palette knife), if I could give any advice it would be to speak to fellow students. Everyone is going through the same, just at different levels. (Also, don’t jump on trampoline without first bending knees and pulling object close to chest).
So, I have mentally and physically defeated the CRAP and am back on form. Moreover, I am very glad it was not bird flu.
Ok, back to the art before a big bout of SH:ITE hits me. Stylistic Hindrance: Inverted Towards Enlightenment (period only)Here is my PRACTICE BREAKDOWN (oh, the irony)
Degree Show:
My space will be a multimedia installation incorporating animation, video alongside a hybrid interaction of wooden-plaster structures and drawings. I will also curate three sonic visual performances on the opening evening only, 19th May, including Derek Lodge (recent Word Processor show at DCA) and a Greek David Lynch fiddle player. I have recently completed all six of my video pieces, which is fantastic since I am extremely happy with how the each piece has transpired. They have also taught me more about my only process, which can’t be a bad thing. I think they stand strongly both as individual pieces, and I can envisage that the dialogue between them once together on site will hopefully create the intended sonic visual schismic. Hurrah.
Videos
One aspect of my practice involves using my body through video performance as an expression of the conceptual process. This may be through jumping up and down on a trampoline in a forest for six hours, (Trampoline, 2006) or digging into cement with a child’s shovel(Diggin U, 2006) or even masticating and spitting out cakes. (French Fancies, 2004.) This direct physicality is then transformed through my fascination with the editing process, which I feel is an extension of my painting and collaging techniques; a compulsion to arrange and animate objects within three-dimensional space. Besides the visual editing, I also place great emphasis on audio since my technique brings along with it the discourse of the DJ and VJ’s appropriation across genres, and ability to evoke fragmented sonic realities.
Video Perfomance- examples
Trampoline
Inspired by our obsession with spiritual practices and self-help literature, Trampoline confronts our perseverance of life’s grind in hope of being rewarded with jouissance.
The real time action suddenly freezes into perfect still or hyper-speed of the fall. This is representative of those treasured surprise occurrences that intercept life with elated joy and direct the viewer with meaning to live and watch on. It attempts to unlock our subconscious memory by engendering the strange surreal; it is here fixed meaning may be effaced and multiplitious identity reigns.
Rapunzel
A cross-cultural interpretation of the child Ladybird classic, my version is enshrouded in dark humour, eradicating romantic ideas of “happy ever after”. True to my distinct interdisciplinary style, sophisticated layering, editing and splicing of outmoded stop frame animation is combined with documentary interviewing techniques to blur the confines of the video-art genre. I challenge anyone who claims video editing isn’t as highly skilled or time consuming as oil painting.
Fruit Loops
Using found rotten fruit, four shorts; Apple Pile Grow, Accumulation, Midsommer Schism and Tray Play ; each focuses on the nature-tech interface and hints at cultural identity in the context of urgent ecological breakdown.
That’s all folks, the plaster blobs are calling me.
