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Apport

Spiritualists believe in an apport, the paranormal transference of an article from one place to another, or an appearance of an article from an unknown source that is often associated with poltergeist activity or spiritualistic séances.

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To read.

-Jaques Derrida - Archive Fever -the archive as a public entity, is nevertheless the repository of the private and personal, including even intimate details.

Notes:

-Semantics of the archive, of memory and memorial, conservation and of inscription which put into reserve store, accumulate, capitalize, stock a quasi infinity of layers of archival strata that are at once superimposed, overprinted, enveloped in each other. To read this requires a geological or archeological excavation on substrates or under the surface, old or new skin.

-a memorial and as a reminder 

-arca latin is the cupboard, the coffin, the prison cell, cistern or resevoir

-recordings as substrates, impressions, repressions

-Death drive makes us archive 

-not a question of the past but a responsibility for tomorrow and a promise for the future 

- a messianic quality 

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http://amaliaulman.eu/

Amalia Ulman. Went to see her exhibition in Pekcham, she seemed kinda cool, then watched an interview with her being interviewed about her research practices and wasn’t so sure. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifbRYL6By4k

I think I would have liked it if her work was parody and thats how it is received but the interesting thing is she is actually real, she doesn’t seem to be offering a critique she kept claiming she ‘just did it for aesthetics’. Cant work out if she’s a smart girl playing dumb or a dumb girl playing smart. So I guess thats good, I like it. 

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http://saltmagazine.tumblr.com/post/25852701066/jala-wahid

Went to see Jala Wahid when I first arrived in London. She put on a performance at the serpentine mash up of Lana Del Rey and Kurdish music with an incredible dancer. Discovered she has a feminist magazine run with a group of artists and inspired by their lecturer Chantal Faust one of their lecturers and artist who I like. Nole me tagere, seemed to be a lot to do with sensuality and a desire for the haptic. 

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Thinking around art making an impact I came to bees again. Bees have a kind of personal symbolism for me which I spoke about in a previous blog post. Reminds me of Beuys’ belief that materials and substances have a strong personal significance and alchemical, theraputic, magical function. 

A pressing environmental issue + personal narrative - hoping to work on these ideas more

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Practice based around the environment and social change

Recently I’ve been interested in an art platform started by Yanis Varoufakis the ex greek finance minister and  his wife Danae Statou who have set up this organisation aimed at raising public awareness about environmental and socio-political issues. They work on amazing projects around the world, Turkey to Greece to Australia, with videos, social projects, installations and so on. They describe themselves as trying to break down the polarisation between nature and humanity. 

http://www.vital-space.org/art-projects

These kind of movements in art towards enacting change have been of interest to me recently. I had a theory tutorial with Marsha Bradfield who is organising an exhibition around democracy, which involves a series of public workshops around these issues at Wimbledon Arts Space. She alerted me to a movement called Userological turn, a post-object art, a term used to describe work that has a use and value in the world. Some other recommendations she gave me were looking into The Artist Placement Group, run by Barbera Strevini in the 60s, aiming to place artists in the world, in contexts outside the art world like industry or government. She also alerted me to the Art Util movement started by Tania Bugura. An initiative to focus on these kinds of projects. 

Here was their manifesto 

The criteria of Arte Util state that initiatives should: 1- Propose new uses for art within society 2- Challenge the field within which it operates (civic, legislative, pedagogical, scientific, economic, etc) 3- Be ‘timing specific’, responding to current urgencies 4- Be implemented and function in real situations 5- Replace authors with initiators and spectators with users 6- Have practical, beneficial outcomes for its users 7- Pursue sustainability whilst adapting to changing conditions 8- Re-establish aesthetics as a system of transformation

I’ve been thinking a lot about the kind of work we produce at art school, how it actually effects the world. I have been wondering weather it is really enough  to produce ironic, subversive art, pisstakes of Kim Kardashian or Donald Trump and the sick worlds they represent.  A majority of our audience is middle class left wing anyway, sipping on their socialist champagne. It feels as thought we are all applauding each other for our views indulging each other in pretending we’re actually making a change while we face a state of emergency with global crisis like climate change and the refugee crisis. 

In Walter Benjamins essay on the ‘Concept of History’  he declares “the state of emergency in which we live is not the exception but the rule”

his words of inspiration “brush history against the grain”, “blast open the continuum”, and “leap into the open air”

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Personal archive from my phone. Archives like traces, shadows, skeleton of object. Historical/fictive. Conserve and distort. 

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Inverted sun print of Swisse Army Knife

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Terracotta Vessels and Slabs

Making hive with Terracotta clay.

Cylindrical structures.

Like the deep red of the terracotta – keep like this and the rawness wetness earthy. Present it raw?/leather hard? For exhibition. Changing aspect of exhibition. Watch them dry out. Times effects on work.

Referencing – scrolls, containers, packages (folds)

Fingerprints – impressions, touch, hold, carry.

Texture w impression of the fabric –

Terracotta –

‘baked earth’

utilitarian uses

ancient sculpting material – vast amount of archeological findings made from terracotta

Terracotta roof

Temples in Bengal

I like how these turned out, I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted when starting this project. I knew I wanted to make something referencing the hive out of ceramics. I like the organic form. They look handmade, not industrial. They look touched. Didn’t know if this was what I wanted at first thought I would have a rigid system to make identical vessels. They seem more personal now. They are indefinable, objects, lacking in function but they are representing a kind of precious container. Something strong but also fragile. They look like they have a life, history and meaning. A piece of artefact. Something kept, something handled something stowed.

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My friend Steves work, he what we call “outsider artist”. He has been homeless for 20 years and lives in the forest with a community. He paints everyday and sleeps under his canvas, he lets the rain and weather wash away his paintings and continues to develop them.

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Artist talk with Mauricio Cervantes and Damian Flores

Damien talks about using raw earth, natural materials, making art sustainably and with others. The first artist had involved children in the designing of the works, which were huge prints of the Mexican gods of that region. This seems like a good way to work not only protecting the environment but teaching other people to use what we’ve got creatively and allowing direct engagement in your ideas not just the witnessing of these concepts.

I think I will try make art sustainably. I also like this idea because it relates to some of the themes I’m thinking about in terms of materials having a life and a history. Make new out of old.

I thought I would maybe begin with really accessible materials found objects etc, and then I wanted to make some of my own sculptures and I was trying to think of what to use instead of clay and I thought I’ll just make play dough. I also like the idea of this because it alludes to the idea of reuse/consumption (you could eat the dough after) and it is a very visceral material, its fleshy and bodily and organic but its also this because it something you can put inside your body. So thinking about things we keep and things we hold. I’ve always had an interest in hair, thinking of the ancient tradition of the way lovers exchange and keep locks of each others hair. Hair and dough. That’s whats next.

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The organisation/systems of biological and ecological world continue to wonder me. Today I read that flowers contain a pattern or map/ instructions in ultraviolet that only the bees can see, directing them to the nectar. Bees have poor visual acuity but up close have strong vision. The codependence of bees and flowers is fascinating. Flowers have not always been coloured according to ancient fossils, they have evolved that way to attract pollinators, different flowers attract birds and bees.

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Gallery assistant at White Cube, reloading the stove. Keeping the gallery cosy. I like her white gloves. She watches people come in and out the gallery and every now and then she puts her gloves on and rekindles the stove. 

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Some notes Londonography gallery tour

Jerwood Space – Jerwood Drawing Prize

-Malgorzata Dawidex’s mind maps.

White Cube, Bermondsey

design by Casper Mueller Kneer.

Got a terrible review in the Guardian. Too comparable to other better sculptors eg Serra and Whiteread

I liked the display/ use of space. Creation of ‘chambers for each work’ became quite architectural. Did love the oxidised rusty blocks, like Serra, beautiful and luminescent. That colour is wonderful. Because it doesn’t look manmade or even artist made, this natural process must involve a surrender of agency.

Also liked the big brutalist concrete one that the Jonathan Jones suggested be attached onto the national theatre, I disagree that it is lacking in sensuality, the detail of the wood in which the concrete has been cast is delicate and tactile, a piece of detail that contrasts nicely.  

Virginia Overtons exhibition was really great too. Site –responsive, using reclaimed materials. There was a working wood burner in the exhibition, with stacks of wood against the wall being used for constant refuelling. Makes for a cosy gallery space. Funny touch, also reference to finite resources?

 Tate Modern (Turbine Hall, Tanks)

Philipe Parrenos installation ‘Anywhen’ consisting of constructed evolving space created with different sound, light and film elements. Constant configuration of environment. Apparently he is changing the audio each day with different recordings.  Mesmirising. I liked it when the screen went blank and the moving speakers became shadows, like puppets in a theatre the whole space changed again. PP describes ‘building a library of scenes and events’ Parreno has miked-up the building and the area between Tate Modern and the river. Sounds from outside make up the exhibitions audio element along with Nina Contis voice and a mix of Parreno’s own writing and fragments of James Joyce. Apparently there is an aspect of the exhibition which contains live yeast, I missed this but sounds interesting an indication of the collision between the biological and the technological that apparently is a theme in much of what his work.

Cecilia Brunson Projects – Willy de Castro from paintings to objects, works from 1950s artist from San Paulo. They are beautiful little compositions, exploring the boundaries of painting. The thin vertical, painted blocks with two colours were my favourite. I like the simplicity of medium and presentation the invitation for interaction from the viewer- the requirement to see it from different angles. I love the colours too. The deep crimson, earthy red and the blue. The painting with script were also quite interesting. They seemed to be a way of referencing colours. Top ridge, Bridge in the middle and river, asking the viewer to associate these positions on the canvas with the image/pigment of the word. The space was beautiful. Loads of natural light, very intimate feel too. The presentation was nice, with the delicate glass boxes and frames, complimentary of the delicacy of the works.

Vitrine – liked this one. Funny topic – photographs of the kitch attempt at transformation of post soviet era buildings.