Relic And Replica

A record of a residency.

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ANALOGUE

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DIGITIAL

Digital renders of The Bird ready for 3D printing, made using Autodesk’s 123D Catch.

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CAPTURING THE BIRD

(Up a shaky ladder with a selfie stick)

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HILLHOUSE VISIT

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But what, other than the surface, can be seen of an object?

Ernst Van De Wetering, Museum Objects: Experiencing the Properties of Things

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ST SAVIOURS

The first of the Replica workshops even better than I could have hoped.  Such beautiful drawings.  More photos of their mini exhibition to come.

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ST MIRRENS

Abstract architecture with St Mirrens Primary One′s turned up some amazing wee artists.  The ‘Rainbow Balcony’ (their term) was especially impressive. 

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An interesting (and beautiful) use of collaborative replication.

[Clement Valla, A Sequence of Lines Traced by 500 Individuals]

‘A Sequence of Lines Consecutively Traced by Five Hundred Individuals is an online drawing tool that lets users do just one thing - trace a line. Each new user only sees the latest line drawn, and can therefore only trace this latest imperfect copy. As the line is reproduced over and over, it changes and evolves - kinks, trembling motions and errors are exaggerated through the process. A Sequence of Lines Consecutively Traced by Five Hundred Individuals was first created as a tool to be used in conjunction with Amazon’s Mechanical Turk - an online labor market. Mechanical Turk workers were paid 2 cents to trace a line.‘

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rather than understanding objects as projectiles bearing the intentions of their makers, it is more productive to study the response to objects as they are displayed, exchanged, destroyed & circulated in order to determine what they mean to people

Sandra H Dudley, Museum Objects: Experiencing the Properties of Things

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GSA VISIT

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WEEK ONE

The first week seem as good a time as any to immerse myself in the history of the House for an Art Lover – examining it in both its original incarnation as a portfolio of drawings submitted by CRM and MMM to Alexander Koch’s ‘idea competition’ in 1901 and it’s physical reconstruction in 1996*.

Being interested in the connotations of term ‘replica’ and how the title affects the way we regard such objects or structures, an attempt at a direct comparison of the ‘authentic artefact’ and the reconstruction should be a good starting point for the project.  

To make this comparison I’ll be visiting a number of Mack sites around the city, especially those that have been directly referenced in the reconstruction such as The Hill House and Queens Cross Church.  Unfortunately, the original drawings held at the Hunterian are currently unavailable while the decant of art collections to their new home at Kelvinhall takes place, but I hope to view an edition of the portfolio reproduced in a contemporaneous period at GSA Archives in an attempt to come into contact with the ‘aura’ of a true artefact.

In addition to exploring the difference in aura between the relic and replica, tensions between notions of authenticity and accessibility are something I wish to peruse.  Contact with an original artefact or art work is unquestionably a more desirable encounter than that of a replica, but where access to such objects are unattainable, can the replication of them help deepen our engagement?  

Holtorf writes, ‘visitors (…) experience authenticity and aura in front of originals to exactly the same degree as they do in front of very good reproductions or copies - as long as they do not know them to be reproductions or copies.’ Propositions of this kind lead me to question whether it is it the idea of authenticity that bestows an ‘aura,’ or the object’s authentic materiality? Do we need to be misled or tricked into having a memorable interaction with a reproduction or is it possible to have a meaningful experience through alternative means?

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*Find more details about the original competition drawings and reconstruction here.

Photo credit: ‘House for an Art Lover (Haus eines Kunstfreundes) competition entry: the music room 1901′  

Hunterian Art Gallery Mackintosh collections, catalogue number GLAHA 41122.

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ABOUT

Carolyn Alexander has long been fascinated by the ways in which we interact with art works and objects, particularly in a museum or gallery context, where touch is often forbidden for the sake of preservation.  

After investigating tactual art and sensory crossovers during her BA in Visual Communication at the Glasgow School of Art, she undertook an MSc Museum Studies, specialising in Artefact & Material Culture.  This presented the opportunity to pursue her interests in an academic setting: investigating themes of authenticity, agency and materiality, and how they affect our relationships with objects. 

In addition to being a celebration of two of the city’s most innovative artists, House For an Art Lover is also an ambitious reconstruction, translating original drawings by Mackintosh and MacDonald into a physical structure nearly 100 years after its original conception.  

This translation of the intangible to the tangible, and of artefact to replica, will form the basis of Carolyn’s research as artist in residence at House for an Art Lover.   Rooted in the study of Material Culture and with a focus on the work of Mackintosh and MacDonald, she intends to investigate our relationship with objects deemed to have an ‘aura of heritage.’