54 days into 2010 already….
That is what I woke up feeling with acute gravity as I tried to emancipate myself from a brain fogged with illness this morning…
…..that and suddenly through the fog…. it’s time to regroup (and refocus).
The day to day experiments/ sketches I’ve been doing at home & work may ‘keep my hand in’ but they aren’t deliberately working towards anything specific (beyond survival). So I’ve decided to pull some threads together and begin a proper Project, with a proposal… and deadlines…. Here goes…
Working title: After the Ark
Deadline: May 24th 2010
Proposal
Since graduating in 2008 my work has been predominantly concerned with something disorientating or uncanny in the contemporary condition (Woodward, 2003). Before now, & with the Specula & Other Stories series of miniature paintings, the work addressed this in terms of a disturbance fermented through, and as a result of, the saturation of imagery in commodity culture. The work was culled from media imagery and referenced Baudrillard’s concept of the “Hyperreal”.
However, even before graduating the work had begun to prescribe, and adhere to, it’s own confined system of rules…
On reflection, this may have been an inevitable consequence of working towards the degree show i.e. the overbearing sense of needing to ‘consolidate’ or ‘conclude’ with a consistent body of work. But I feel what I was interested in, & trying to evoke, was stifled & diluted by this… Maybe even lost entirely. The paintings became an end in themselves, an enclosed, complete circuit. The entire visual & conceptual experience became contained in that miniaturized space.
…Since 2008 I have had the opportunity to develop & showcase new work(in exhibitions such as Through the Looking Glass…. & The Spaces Between etc and through residencies including BLOOM) but my critical awareness – & ability to see, and keep in mind, the larger aims and context – has been fairly nonexistent, so hopefully this proposal will give me the impetus & structure to make things happen….
Research
While my practical and technical research is a constant, and ongoing process through sketches, models, photographs etc, the theoretical impetus has been quite vague and satelliting around many different aspects of a ‘contemporary uncanny’. The research I propose to conduct, therefore, for this project is twofold;
Secondary Research – Revisiting the writing of Baudrillard, Guy Debord, Lyotard and Vidler regarding the disorientating effects of the specularization of society. But, from this, finding sources (literary, artistic etc) which refer to the end of time and reality.
What I’m increasingly interested in (especially after reading Man in the High Tower, The Road and Brave New World) is the notion of false mythologies, and looking at the present time as if through the perspective of a museum display or anthropological study e.g. the coke logo being seen as an embodiment of sacredness, or the reverence given to “original American artifacts” cf Phillip K Dick’s reinvisioning of history in Man in the High Castle. But I also don’t want to be too discriminating… In the past I have tried to contain my research to a neat segment of issues. With this project, I would like to take on board as many, various, and variable, influences as possible (which rather more aptly reflects the concerns of the project).
Primary Research – As the 12 week deadline allows very little time for experimentation (when balanced alongside full time employment and other responsibilities such as studio/exhibition proposals etc), I am going to allow 2 weeks for sketching and preliminary work (drawings, models, photos, etc) which will be loose, fast and unresolved. In 2 weeks time (the 11th of March) I will have an interim appraisal and plan towards some more resolved pieces (which can take longer).
Practical Work – Similarly to the research, it is my intention to work initially through a mishmash of 2D and 3D media; sketches, collage, found objects/ constructions (and drawing from these) but also if it seems appropriate to bring in any other media, I will do so. Hopefully this will encourage a fast, dynamic way of working through concepts…and by the end of the fortnight I will have accumulated a plethora of artifacts, pieces, sketches and ideas. I am going to begin working from a dream I had (mentioned in the January 1st Blog entry) about a dysfunctional (or mutilated?) Ark… and from here pursue this personal, distorted vision of a post apocalyptic future…
