Sunday, 16 May 2010
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Week one
I'm currently in the theatre putting up the set, which is looking great, and a lot bigger than I had imagined. I have hollowed out the tops of eight trees, I will post some pics of what's up on here this evening. Heather has been sending me across clips of sound which are fantastically tingly. Will be making short updates on the progress of the build/get in/tech as it progresses. Tanks survived their two van trips, as i clung to a birdcage we also had to carry in the front, all the way to the theatre, my hands were indented with the stress. But thanks to the lovely Rich and Ben they arrived untarnished. I have already had a tropical fish collector offer to buy them from me, the same guy who built my frame, everyone loves a big tank apparently. More from me soon.
Friday, 16 April 2010
time in the space
I havent found the time to blog for a bit and though I should write up the week I spent trying stuff out in the theatre a couple of weeks back. We spent the week trying to solve some of the more fiddly parts of the show; so how well the old projectors work, and getting to grips with having to carefully feed them the film. We erected the boat mast and roped it up, and looked the motor mechanism that will be attached to it. We suspended a record player in the air, and lastly played with projection on the gauze.
It felt really fantastic to actually be doing, and working with the stuff and trying things out. Sounds like an obvious thing to say but so much of it has been in my head for a while now to realise the tone and images that I had hoped to make, even on a really rough level was great. I was most suprised with the projection and unexpected depth that we got when casting it onto the gauze, as some stood behind it, it gave the effect almost of being underwater.
As the make draws nearer, i'm sure I will have lots more use for this talking space, whilst at the moment it feels a bit like the really calm bit before the chaos...
It felt really fantastic to actually be doing, and working with the stuff and trying things out. Sounds like an obvious thing to say but so much of it has been in my head for a while now to realise the tone and images that I had hoped to make, even on a really rough level was great. I was most suprised with the projection and unexpected depth that we got when casting it onto the gauze, as some stood behind it, it gave the effect almost of being underwater.
As the make draws nearer, i'm sure I will have lots more use for this talking space, whilst at the moment it feels a bit like the really calm bit before the chaos...
Monday, 22 March 2010
Saturday, 20 March 2010
The Shadow
After a bit of a rant on my last post, I feel I should be more positive, and to get excited about what I have going on, instead of letting myself become bogged down with negatives. It is not productive and it doesn't make me feel any better.
I started this piece of writing, about shadows and my interest in them, about 4 weeks ago, and didn’t get round to posting it, or finishing it. So this is just me revisiting something I left alone which is often quite a useful exercise...
I am interested in shape shifting, an image that appears to mean one thing, continues to change and becomes another entirely.
I am interested in uncertainty.
Shadow: the effect of light on an object, shadow as a mythical or demonised other, shadow as a reflection of the self. A shadow indeterminate. A shadow that is not tangible, a magical shadow that can disappear entirely. A shadow like a murky spot on the brain at the edge of peripheral sight. A shape shifter.
Throughout the performance the female changes from her natural self, to shadow version of herself, at times to a large monstrous shadow and sometimes she is so faint an outline she is barely present. When communicating with the male character we never see her face.
The Shadow for me represents both the male and female characters and is a symbol of other but also of the self. Throughout art history shadows have been a representation of both these opposing readings, a realistic mirror of one’s self, but also as an other, a faceless stranger and often something demonic. The ambiguity of the shadow is interesting. For me a shadow is often an uncomfortable reminder of your present self and I think the Shadow in Silica represents both this and a less literal shadow (not created by light) but a real faceless other, that changes and alters throughout.
he shadow in the show can be read as a reflection of the man. It is the visual manifestation of his changing perceptions of the world; it is a symptom of his memory erosion, a loosing of the whole sense of someone and of himself. It at times symbolises a demonic and unbeatable presence in his mind at other times it appears helpless like a child. At times it is confusing as to whether this shadow is the woman, or his own reflection, I think she appears as part of him, he recognises her as part of his own self.
I am interested in this notion of facelessness as I am interested in the reality of eventually not recognising one’s own face and forgetting the faces of those we love that have died. I believe that there is no form of `recording' a realistic representation of a person, though film, through photographs or the recorded voice, as there is always an integral quality of that person missing. A smile in a photograph can make me in turn smile as I try to recall a departed loved ones laugh or voice, but we are left short. Even in a film of that person, you cannot feel the warmth of them, the smell of their surroundings, the true texture of their voice.
Voices are also central to the piece. The reason the two performers communicate (or appear to communicate) only through live and recorded voice (never live and live or recorded and recorded) is to illustrate a lack of communication but also the failure of technology to record and replicate experiences accurately. As the memory of a person fades it becomes physically more difficult to have a memorable conversation with them. And with memory we can recall conversations in our minds, but there is always this unattainablity of the wholeness of an experience that we are faced with.
I think I am trying to explore with the Shadow is that this ideal of a whole does not exist. We are not concrete; we are altered by everything we experience over time. This notion of whole is perhaps something the brain helps us to believe, a survival instinct so that we feel safe and comfortable in our skins: I truly know that person, I feel like myself when I am by the sea.
Once we undergo big changes in our lives, for example we loose someone close to us, we start to search for ways to hold onto our relationship to them, ways to keep them present and whole in order to still recognise and understand our own place in the world. I don't cope well with change, because it reminds me actually how fluid everything is, how nothing is fixed, even our feelings about ourselves. This can be both terrifying and invigorating.
In reality we are we many different versions of ourselves, I am not now who I was just one year ago and I will continue to shape shift, and adapt to time. Like the shadow the body is a site onto which many readings can be written, a body that can be weak, small and other times strong, one that will eventually disappear entirely.
The shadow does not represent a constrained image but perhaps a free more magical imitation of ourselves, one with endless interpretations. So going back to the piece, the shadow is not male or female, it is never exclusively one or the other, but an image of change and of uncertainty.
I started this piece of writing, about shadows and my interest in them, about 4 weeks ago, and didn’t get round to posting it, or finishing it. So this is just me revisiting something I left alone which is often quite a useful exercise...
I am interested in shape shifting, an image that appears to mean one thing, continues to change and becomes another entirely.
I am interested in uncertainty.
Shadow: the effect of light on an object, shadow as a mythical or demonised other, shadow as a reflection of the self. A shadow indeterminate. A shadow that is not tangible, a magical shadow that can disappear entirely. A shadow like a murky spot on the brain at the edge of peripheral sight. A shape shifter.
Throughout the performance the female changes from her natural self, to shadow version of herself, at times to a large monstrous shadow and sometimes she is so faint an outline she is barely present. When communicating with the male character we never see her face.
The Shadow for me represents both the male and female characters and is a symbol of other but also of the self. Throughout art history shadows have been a representation of both these opposing readings, a realistic mirror of one’s self, but also as an other, a faceless stranger and often something demonic. The ambiguity of the shadow is interesting. For me a shadow is often an uncomfortable reminder of your present self and I think the Shadow in Silica represents both this and a less literal shadow (not created by light) but a real faceless other, that changes and alters throughout.
he shadow in the show can be read as a reflection of the man. It is the visual manifestation of his changing perceptions of the world; it is a symptom of his memory erosion, a loosing of the whole sense of someone and of himself. It at times symbolises a demonic and unbeatable presence in his mind at other times it appears helpless like a child. At times it is confusing as to whether this shadow is the woman, or his own reflection, I think she appears as part of him, he recognises her as part of his own self.
I am interested in this notion of facelessness as I am interested in the reality of eventually not recognising one’s own face and forgetting the faces of those we love that have died. I believe that there is no form of `recording' a realistic representation of a person, though film, through photographs or the recorded voice, as there is always an integral quality of that person missing. A smile in a photograph can make me in turn smile as I try to recall a departed loved ones laugh or voice, but we are left short. Even in a film of that person, you cannot feel the warmth of them, the smell of their surroundings, the true texture of their voice.
Voices are also central to the piece. The reason the two performers communicate (or appear to communicate) only through live and recorded voice (never live and live or recorded and recorded) is to illustrate a lack of communication but also the failure of technology to record and replicate experiences accurately. As the memory of a person fades it becomes physically more difficult to have a memorable conversation with them. And with memory we can recall conversations in our minds, but there is always this unattainablity of the wholeness of an experience that we are faced with.
I think I am trying to explore with the Shadow is that this ideal of a whole does not exist. We are not concrete; we are altered by everything we experience over time. This notion of whole is perhaps something the brain helps us to believe, a survival instinct so that we feel safe and comfortable in our skins: I truly know that person, I feel like myself when I am by the sea.
Once we undergo big changes in our lives, for example we loose someone close to us, we start to search for ways to hold onto our relationship to them, ways to keep them present and whole in order to still recognise and understand our own place in the world. I don't cope well with change, because it reminds me actually how fluid everything is, how nothing is fixed, even our feelings about ourselves. This can be both terrifying and invigorating.
In reality we are we many different versions of ourselves, I am not now who I was just one year ago and I will continue to shape shift, and adapt to time. Like the shadow the body is a site onto which many readings can be written, a body that can be weak, small and other times strong, one that will eventually disappear entirely.
The shadow does not represent a constrained image but perhaps a free more magical imitation of ourselves, one with endless interpretations. So going back to the piece, the shadow is not male or female, it is never exclusively one or the other, but an image of change and of uncertainty.
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
not a real job.
Trying to keep your head above water when your main income comes from your practice is something that was always going to be difficult. And when your partner also works in the same industry and both are in the same annoying period of the year where bills are coming in and the car needs an MOT and work doesn’t fully kick off for either of you for a few months, getting by is near impossible.
Why not temp? Yes why not? And I will have to, but I started to think about the amount of time I would loose from developing my work if I had a second job and it would at least half my productivity. I can barely keep on top of emails, funding applications and then of course the making now, It terrifies me that because of money my practice is going to suffer.
Most people reach a certain age (if they have no savings or do not come from a moneyed family) and realise that this is one of most poorly paid industries out there and out of necessity compromise their practice and do something more formulated that pays better.. Or pays full stop. For artists in my financial position there is a realisation that I may not ever be able to afford a home, children or even a pet, I have to make a choice... and it is a big risk. I worked almost continuously last year and still struggled. So how does it get any easier? maybe it doesn't, perhaps I just get used to it.
I believe passionately that art is valuable, crucial and present. It is not just someting necessary to my own survival, but vital in society whether as something political, expressive, beautiful or entertaining. But unfortunately it is not valued enough, not even by those who create it. We work in an industry that thrives off the "volunteer", the "training" and the "apprenticeship" and it is crippling. No wonder young people struggle to get into the industry when this acceptance and trend of unsubsidised work exists. Do enough work for free and you will get a paid position, unfortunately those who already get paid for their work are applying for those same jobs, so what hope have the volunteers got. A friend of mine, a talented artist, has worked in unpaid or barely paid positions in galleries and art publications for it must be three years now... none of them leading to jobs or recognition. He has recently set up his own publication and already has new commissions.
So perhaps this is the answer, to make your own opportunities... which I actually on the most part agree with. I do not expect anyone to hand me amazing opportunities, I work hard for what I want, but I need the time (an increasingly the space) to do it, and I do not come from rich parents who can support me in these years of my early career, and I know plenty others in the same position.
The system needs shaking up. What if all the yearly bonus's of the artistic directors of all the corporate theatres in the country went into one big pot and funded young artists in the early stages of their careers. Not providing them with a huge salary but a salary all the same, just enough so that perhaps they only work the one job for a little while and have the extra money to go to watch work and meet people and talk about art and the time to fully realise their ideas. Perhaps there would be more diversity in the arts or perhaps it would still be the same people applying for that pot, and equally as competitive, either way i'd like something to change.
Why not temp? Yes why not? And I will have to, but I started to think about the amount of time I would loose from developing my work if I had a second job and it would at least half my productivity. I can barely keep on top of emails, funding applications and then of course the making now, It terrifies me that because of money my practice is going to suffer.
Most people reach a certain age (if they have no savings or do not come from a moneyed family) and realise that this is one of most poorly paid industries out there and out of necessity compromise their practice and do something more formulated that pays better.. Or pays full stop. For artists in my financial position there is a realisation that I may not ever be able to afford a home, children or even a pet, I have to make a choice... and it is a big risk. I worked almost continuously last year and still struggled. So how does it get any easier? maybe it doesn't, perhaps I just get used to it.
I believe passionately that art is valuable, crucial and present. It is not just someting necessary to my own survival, but vital in society whether as something political, expressive, beautiful or entertaining. But unfortunately it is not valued enough, not even by those who create it. We work in an industry that thrives off the "volunteer", the "training" and the "apprenticeship" and it is crippling. No wonder young people struggle to get into the industry when this acceptance and trend of unsubsidised work exists. Do enough work for free and you will get a paid position, unfortunately those who already get paid for their work are applying for those same jobs, so what hope have the volunteers got. A friend of mine, a talented artist, has worked in unpaid or barely paid positions in galleries and art publications for it must be three years now... none of them leading to jobs or recognition. He has recently set up his own publication and already has new commissions.
So perhaps this is the answer, to make your own opportunities... which I actually on the most part agree with. I do not expect anyone to hand me amazing opportunities, I work hard for what I want, but I need the time (an increasingly the space) to do it, and I do not come from rich parents who can support me in these years of my early career, and I know plenty others in the same position.
The system needs shaking up. What if all the yearly bonus's of the artistic directors of all the corporate theatres in the country went into one big pot and funded young artists in the early stages of their careers. Not providing them with a huge salary but a salary all the same, just enough so that perhaps they only work the one job for a little while and have the extra money to go to watch work and meet people and talk about art and the time to fully realise their ideas. Perhaps there would be more diversity in the arts or perhaps it would still be the same people applying for that pot, and equally as competitive, either way i'd like something to change.
Monday, 22 February 2010
practical things
I haven't blogged on this for a bit, mainly because I hit a bit of a stalemate point in the project... waiting for film to be developed to make sure the projector part of the show will work and ringing up countless manufacturers for quotes on tanks... and a 4 times failed arrival of a tree brochure. So that has been what i've been up to these last few weeks (amongst other thrilling side projects). I did start writing a piece about the use of shadow in the work, which has predictably turned into a bit of an essay, so am planning to post that if I ever get round to finishing it.
I have had some fun researching shadow imagery and recently purchased three classic 1920's horror films: Murnau's Nosferatu and Phantom, and Robert Wiene's Das Cabinet des Dr Calgari. Weird and stunnigly lit, well worth a watch. I have also completed the recording for the Shadow text in the piece, which excitingly has all been sent off to be pressed to vinyl (to white label, check me out!). I have also resdiscovered my addiction to ebay and am now a proud owner of 5 super 8 projectors (each with their own character faults) as well as an old cartoon film entitled `papoose on the loose' which came with one of them. Sadly it snapped in the projector, but when I get round to salvaging it I'm sure it will be a joyous watch! Sadly this week, Jerry had to pull out of the project but has found me a delightful man to come on board in his place, who I am very much looking forward to working with. So things are plodding along, hopefully the next month will be less waiting for the postman and more making making making... but I can safely say (touch wood) it is all is going in the right direction.
I have had some fun researching shadow imagery and recently purchased three classic 1920's horror films: Murnau's Nosferatu and Phantom, and Robert Wiene's Das Cabinet des Dr Calgari. Weird and stunnigly lit, well worth a watch. I have also completed the recording for the Shadow text in the piece, which excitingly has all been sent off to be pressed to vinyl (to white label, check me out!). I have also resdiscovered my addiction to ebay and am now a proud owner of 5 super 8 projectors (each with their own character faults) as well as an old cartoon film entitled `papoose on the loose' which came with one of them. Sadly it snapped in the projector, but when I get round to salvaging it I'm sure it will be a joyous watch! Sadly this week, Jerry had to pull out of the project but has found me a delightful man to come on board in his place, who I am very much looking forward to working with. So things are plodding along, hopefully the next month will be less waiting for the postman and more making making making... but I can safely say (touch wood) it is all is going in the right direction.
Saturday, 30 January 2010
In and out, rolling and peaking, peaking and crawling. Do they have a specific time pattern? Like a sigh, like how we breathe, in and out, peaking then exhaling, only to peak again.
Is this what it’s like? A slow steady crawl, to a topping out and a gradual unravelling, crashing to my face leaving a thin film of water that finally seeps into the ground.
Sometimes we leave things behind.
The pattern of a wave, reminds me I am living, of the short time I am living, like a breath in and out.
It can touch me. Or, I can submerge my whole body in to its gut, into its breathing, living body and it carries my weight, back and forward, in and out.
It would swallow me, if it could, if it so desires.
But it doesn’t for the moment. Instead it rocks me to sleep. And it deposits my steady, resting body on the sand, on a bed of sand. And it watches over me and in my dreams I hear it breathing, in and out.
My head sinks down slowly, as I softly, slip from its limp salty fingers. and it is ok, down and down.
You see ,inside it I can gurgle all my secrets. Don’t you have something you can’t say out loud, or that you can’t admit to yourself or anyone else, that is... counterproductive.
The murky water doesn’t speak a word, it simply breaths it’s knowing breath and carries it for me, like algae, like air bubbles.
I wait, but at any moment I can inhale. I can.
And I feel my eyes crease a little as I smile, one, two, in and out.
I take the water in my mouth, and it fills my throat and quickly slides down into my lungs, filling me.
We’re the same, breathing the same way, crawling and peaking.
In and in.
I drift into a seabed sleep, not sure if I will wake, but completely careless. Full and bloated.
Then I open my eyes and I am 12 years old, holding my breath in the bath. Beside me in a puddle lies a dead woodlouse. I wonder of its small, shrivelled body. It disgusts me and I don’t like looking at it. The water is tepid and I want to leave but it’s cold outside the tub. My time left here is short, my hands shrivelled, like the woodlouse.
Is this what it’s like? A slow steady crawl, to a topping out and a gradual unravelling, crashing to my face leaving a thin film of water that finally seeps into the ground.
Sometimes we leave things behind.
The pattern of a wave, reminds me I am living, of the short time I am living, like a breath in and out.
It can touch me. Or, I can submerge my whole body in to its gut, into its breathing, living body and it carries my weight, back and forward, in and out.
It would swallow me, if it could, if it so desires.
But it doesn’t for the moment. Instead it rocks me to sleep. And it deposits my steady, resting body on the sand, on a bed of sand. And it watches over me and in my dreams I hear it breathing, in and out.
My head sinks down slowly, as I softly, slip from its limp salty fingers. and it is ok, down and down.
You see ,inside it I can gurgle all my secrets. Don’t you have something you can’t say out loud, or that you can’t admit to yourself or anyone else, that is... counterproductive.
The murky water doesn’t speak a word, it simply breaths it’s knowing breath and carries it for me, like algae, like air bubbles.
I wait, but at any moment I can inhale. I can.
And I feel my eyes crease a little as I smile, one, two, in and out.
I take the water in my mouth, and it fills my throat and quickly slides down into my lungs, filling me.
We’re the same, breathing the same way, crawling and peaking.
In and in.
I drift into a seabed sleep, not sure if I will wake, but completely careless. Full and bloated.
Then I open my eyes and I am 12 years old, holding my breath in the bath. Beside me in a puddle lies a dead woodlouse. I wonder of its small, shrivelled body. It disgusts me and I don’t like looking at it. The water is tepid and I want to leave but it’s cold outside the tub. My time left here is short, my hands shrivelled, like the woodlouse.
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Friday, 15 January 2010
Working out the essential
What is essential is quite a useful question in life really. The past few days I have been trying to analyse what is essential to the work and if there are elements that are lingering that don’t add to the work (yet) or stand out as anomalies. It has become clear to me that parts of the original piece have remained in this incarnation simply because I am a hoarder and terrible at throwing things out, in all aspects of my life.
So looking a design and script with hundreds of scrawlings over it and looking at my house covered in bits of the show, books and too many note books, it is definitely time to ask myself this question. What can the work exist without?
The show is built in layers, or in waves (I shall explain this in more detail later on). When discussing the piece there seems to be a lot, and I am hoping not too much. There is a need to fish out anything that might crowd or confuse it.
All the materials of the show are organic, they are `made’ yes in that I have chosen their positions and dimensions but each remain as they exist in `real’ time: the trees are still trees outside the theatre, as is the water, the mast, the projectors. The only thing that is obviously `made’, at present, are the Jellyfish; they are more like puppets or fancy lights. I had neglected to see this and it was pointed out to me recently. I had been neglecting finishing their design, for no specific reason, I just wasn’t excited by doing so; perhaps this was because at the moment they are just not working.
My aim is that the piece will be powerful on a subconscious, subliminal level. My desire is that not that each fragment of the work pieces comfortably together forming a structure, narractive and political message for the audience to behold. What I want to create is an experience that sits uncomfortably at the bottom of the gut, or causes a slight pulsing pain in the eye. My hope is that it is experiential in a cloudy sort of way, like the effect particular notes in music can have on you. I want it to linger and ring in the audiences ears for a while after.
I am not implying that there are no clear themes in the work, because I think that themes of erosion and memory impairment are quite obvious, my hope is that the form in which they are presented is not presumptuous and expecting of the audience. Unlike my past work which has dealt closely with an immediate delicate and present relationship between performer and audience, this piece I think asks of them to be in the space and let the elements almost flow over them, reading in it what they will, zoning out if they choose. It is more about choice of engagement. My hope is that the memory or replaying of the work is most powerful and significant, that the politic becomes prominent after, upon reflection.
Below is something I have recently written, part of a larger piece I am developing called `When I die at sea’ and I it sort of illustrates what I am trying to explain:
`I drift into a seabed sleep, not sure if I will wake, but completely careless. Full and bloated. Floating. Airless.
Then I awake, and I am 12 years old, holding my breath in the bath. Beside me in a little pool of water lies a dead woodlouse, and I wonder of its small, shrivelled body. It disgusts me and I don’t like looking at it. The water is tepid, I want to leave but it’s cold outside the tub. My time left here is short, my hands shrivelled, like the woodlouse.’
The woodlouse is an image that leaves me with a strange unsettling feeling which I find quite difficult to explain. It seems to signify some distant other; of the dark, the uncertain. Perhaps in it I see my own face, my future self, old and shrivelled.
This image is perhaps quite an obvious one, in the sense that it is a dead animal, but there are many other natural sculptural objects that unsettle me. These organic objects are perhaps more successful signifiers in art, less manipulative than `made’ objects. Below is a picture of a tree in the woods behind my house that has this same, unsettling effect on me. It makes me think of a tumour.
I recently saw a sculpture by Lucy Skaer, at the Tate Britain as part of the turner prize nominee’s exhibition. She displayed a borrowed a whale skull through a constructed wall in the corner of the gallery. The wall had specific gaps (or view finders) in which you could observe the skull, controlling ad limiting your perspective. You were able to view it as a split image from a distant or in detailed small parts from up close. This was my favourite piece in the exhibition; I was strangely drawn and repelled to this sculpture at the same time. The way it was framed (to me) made the piece less about the ore and grand scale of this dead creature, but more about the detail and texture and realness of it. It became less historical to me and more present in the context of the gallery space. It left a curious and lasting impression on me and I have since pondered on it.
I want to go back to thinking about the `made’ aspects of a show. Is this appropriate in a piece that wants to discuss the real, the beautiful, surreal and brutal in nature?
There are places in the text where I haven’t written any notes I think means one of two things: either it’s so essential, it stands alone as a single and powerful element, or it has become set, background and something pretty I just couldn’t throw out. Throw out, is too harsh, I think I just need to file better. Somewhere I can go back to, but less clutter.
The jelly fish had become this, a pretty picture with not to carefully a thought through meaning. To work out if they are essential, or what about them, the qualities of them is more essential I took the extract of text they appear in and circled the parts I thought of importance, what I really want to explore in this section, what they represent, if anything.
I came up with the following words:
Wood, sand, bone, graveyard, ancient, devouring, digested, death, plastic (x2)
Face, hands, hair, eyes (also appear more than once.)
These words are very organic, natural, old, almost degraded, there is a sense of erosion, of aging of the body. The natural world here is something monstrous and consuming and very real, existing for eons, absorbing us with little importance to what it takes, my grandfathers eyes or no more poignancy to the natural world than a plastic bag or a beer can. Nature is not cruel; it just reminds us of how small we are, that we too are just another living thing.
So I think that the material used to make the jellyfish is important. The plastic bags that so closely resemble a living organism. Plastic bags that make me think about the environment, of waste and pollution, of the clinical, of hospital beds, a material that is hard to get rid of, that doesn’t easily degrade. I think I am interested in the displacement of an object/material from its normal reading. I want to make the plastic a thing of interest that appears living, a material so like a jellyfish. I am interested in ink as a material also for the same reasons. It makes me think of a leaking, an oozing, of dark deep sea creatures. I want to explore these kind of everyday materials that when framed a certain way can come to life and take the mind somewhere else.
So looking a design and script with hundreds of scrawlings over it and looking at my house covered in bits of the show, books and too many note books, it is definitely time to ask myself this question. What can the work exist without?
The show is built in layers, or in waves (I shall explain this in more detail later on). When discussing the piece there seems to be a lot, and I am hoping not too much. There is a need to fish out anything that might crowd or confuse it.
All the materials of the show are organic, they are `made’ yes in that I have chosen their positions and dimensions but each remain as they exist in `real’ time: the trees are still trees outside the theatre, as is the water, the mast, the projectors. The only thing that is obviously `made’, at present, are the Jellyfish; they are more like puppets or fancy lights. I had neglected to see this and it was pointed out to me recently. I had been neglecting finishing their design, for no specific reason, I just wasn’t excited by doing so; perhaps this was because at the moment they are just not working.
My aim is that the piece will be powerful on a subconscious, subliminal level. My desire is that not that each fragment of the work pieces comfortably together forming a structure, narractive and political message for the audience to behold. What I want to create is an experience that sits uncomfortably at the bottom of the gut, or causes a slight pulsing pain in the eye. My hope is that it is experiential in a cloudy sort of way, like the effect particular notes in music can have on you. I want it to linger and ring in the audiences ears for a while after.
I am not implying that there are no clear themes in the work, because I think that themes of erosion and memory impairment are quite obvious, my hope is that the form in which they are presented is not presumptuous and expecting of the audience. Unlike my past work which has dealt closely with an immediate delicate and present relationship between performer and audience, this piece I think asks of them to be in the space and let the elements almost flow over them, reading in it what they will, zoning out if they choose. It is more about choice of engagement. My hope is that the memory or replaying of the work is most powerful and significant, that the politic becomes prominent after, upon reflection.
Below is something I have recently written, part of a larger piece I am developing called `When I die at sea’ and I it sort of illustrates what I am trying to explain:
`I drift into a seabed sleep, not sure if I will wake, but completely careless. Full and bloated. Floating. Airless.
Then I awake, and I am 12 years old, holding my breath in the bath. Beside me in a little pool of water lies a dead woodlouse, and I wonder of its small, shrivelled body. It disgusts me and I don’t like looking at it. The water is tepid, I want to leave but it’s cold outside the tub. My time left here is short, my hands shrivelled, like the woodlouse.’
The woodlouse is an image that leaves me with a strange unsettling feeling which I find quite difficult to explain. It seems to signify some distant other; of the dark, the uncertain. Perhaps in it I see my own face, my future self, old and shrivelled.
This image is perhaps quite an obvious one, in the sense that it is a dead animal, but there are many other natural sculptural objects that unsettle me. These organic objects are perhaps more successful signifiers in art, less manipulative than `made’ objects. Below is a picture of a tree in the woods behind my house that has this same, unsettling effect on me. It makes me think of a tumour.
I recently saw a sculpture by Lucy Skaer, at the Tate Britain as part of the turner prize nominee’s exhibition. She displayed a borrowed a whale skull through a constructed wall in the corner of the gallery. The wall had specific gaps (or view finders) in which you could observe the skull, controlling ad limiting your perspective. You were able to view it as a split image from a distant or in detailed small parts from up close. This was my favourite piece in the exhibition; I was strangely drawn and repelled to this sculpture at the same time. The way it was framed (to me) made the piece less about the ore and grand scale of this dead creature, but more about the detail and texture and realness of it. It became less historical to me and more present in the context of the gallery space. It left a curious and lasting impression on me and I have since pondered on it.
I want to go back to thinking about the `made’ aspects of a show. Is this appropriate in a piece that wants to discuss the real, the beautiful, surreal and brutal in nature?
There are places in the text where I haven’t written any notes I think means one of two things: either it’s so essential, it stands alone as a single and powerful element, or it has become set, background and something pretty I just couldn’t throw out. Throw out, is too harsh, I think I just need to file better. Somewhere I can go back to, but less clutter.
The jelly fish had become this, a pretty picture with not to carefully a thought through meaning. To work out if they are essential, or what about them, the qualities of them is more essential I took the extract of text they appear in and circled the parts I thought of importance, what I really want to explore in this section, what they represent, if anything.
I came up with the following words:
Wood, sand, bone, graveyard, ancient, devouring, digested, death, plastic (x2)
Face, hands, hair, eyes (also appear more than once.)
These words are very organic, natural, old, almost degraded, there is a sense of erosion, of aging of the body. The natural world here is something monstrous and consuming and very real, existing for eons, absorbing us with little importance to what it takes, my grandfathers eyes or no more poignancy to the natural world than a plastic bag or a beer can. Nature is not cruel; it just reminds us of how small we are, that we too are just another living thing.
So I think that the material used to make the jellyfish is important. The plastic bags that so closely resemble a living organism. Plastic bags that make me think about the environment, of waste and pollution, of the clinical, of hospital beds, a material that is hard to get rid of, that doesn’t easily degrade. I think I am interested in the displacement of an object/material from its normal reading. I want to make the plastic a thing of interest that appears living, a material so like a jellyfish. I am interested in ink as a material also for the same reasons. It makes me think of a leaking, an oozing, of dark deep sea creatures. I want to explore these kind of everyday materials that when framed a certain way can come to life and take the mind somewhere else.
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