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rEFLECTION ON PRES OF FINAL

As I can remember I was quite into alot of the feedback but the exact deatils in part allude me.

particularly around the failure or contradiction in the filling in of the holes, also it made me consider the aspect of just ‘ getting under the surface’ in relation to the digging which I had not really considered.

Re the traps the naiviety of them was brought up, which I think is of pARTICULAR interest, or it lead me to consider the ramifications from viewing them from/with that perspective and a range of others.

Final

The final ended up being the hypothetical traps and the two videos of me digging.

I think the hypothetical nature of the trap designs is good, or atleast very funny, the drawings in themselves operate as in my opinion a good (for lack of a better term) work of art, the elements of childishness, pure violence, the trap as insurrection alll are quite interesting and adequately expressed in these images. As well as showing the duaL or multiple experiences of the space in my photos, other’s photos that I have found and the intervention of the trap.

The digging videos also operate as an adequate final, I think as a simple intervention into the space it is successful, it implies preparation for the trap but could easily operate by itself, maybe even the strangeness of doing that action, mirrors the strangeness of the environment I wanted to convey, the aesthetics of this video with the close lighting on me also alludes or furthers this strangeness of suburbia.

ssedwedd

A series of images of Andreas Slominski’s traps

Which relate to my recent spurned interest in ,making traps as the endpoint for my practice in engaging with the oval. Yet these traps seem to be a lot more purpose orientated in their design if not in use in gallery then I think I would be intending to make.

These ended up being supremely inspiring for the later works I would pursue, also in turn specifically designing hypothetical traps, for the oval. both in images and just in hypothetical designs.

These are interesting as they seem to be focused on capturing some sort of surburban animal, or something of the like, they have a seemingly very specific intent, and a particular cleanness, also their size makes them not really able to catch humans. I think what is interesting though is the situation of these traps within the gallery space in playing with what a trap signifies or what it can function in metaphorical/conceptual relation to. The size makes them more like museum curiosities or something. Thought the critical aspect of this is the trap as insurrectionary or reflecting on the gallery as trap maybe or even the job of being an artist a bad, but in a weird way an aesthetically nice trap.

ssedwedd

But already we are reaching the critical zone where the repressed make their return, a return that is completely excessive. An ever- compacting mass of crimes, strange acts, deeds of “violence” and “apparently unmotivated” destructions all attack the everyday life of biopolitical democracies – in a general manner, “violence” is what the Spectacle calls anything against which it intends to use force, anything it wants to be able to manifest all of its arbitrariness against; this category has no validity except within the context of the mode of marketable unmasking, without validity itself, which always deifies the means as compared to the end, the act itself here being what is detrimental to its immanent signification.

Theory of the Bloom, Tiqqun (via ssedwedd)

This is how I begun to consider my traps, as that of the violent of the uncontrollable, the complete excess. Yet maybe these opperate in a more child like excessive manner, in that they exist as drawings more reminiscent of bad plans for road runner cartoons, than as serious plans for insurrection, though alternatively I guess when making traps design must start somewhere. The consideration of anything against the spectacle (see capitalism, etc) as being classed violent, while brushing over it’s own violence is interesting, though I equally find a relishing in this non approved violence to be simply fun, or as an interesting position to be creating from especially with an element of idiotic/ironic humor.

traps cont

more consideration of traps.

i think the specificity of the trap is interesting, or also the consideration of a trap as an inherently insurrectionary action, utalising ones cunning in order to re situate their position of power or abilities. the inherent insurrectionary nature of this falls into my interest in radical politics. this insurrectionary consideration of the trap comes from discussion in the book version of the seminars on ‘speculative aesthetics’.

I think then specifically the way such an intervention into the site would restructure it. and ones experience of it. Theoretically the trap and the restructuring of the site as creating an environment against the empire (see capitalism, the spectacle, bio power) utilising mindless violence as an excessive action. Then also the idiocy of the traps the futility of that action but simultenously the need for the futile or any mode of disruptive behaviour for survival. I also think how they highlight how multiple people have expierenced the space is interesting in photo and trap combinations with the found images as well as the found images with my own, this implication of experiences is interesting and how the traps engage with this is funny as a superimposition or just an imposition into others experiences.

The hypothetical nature of the traps as just existing as designs is quite funny, in terms of how planning something quite awful and gruesome can come off as something quite childish, I think that is interesting. aLso through asustained interest in event scores/fluxus works I think the implied performance in the works is quite good. Or These works remaining plans that anyone could use is an interesting consideration in regards to the insurrectionary nature, or even for example bomb making as a further continuation all of which can be easily accessed online.

I quite like them, But that they are hypothetical renders them pretty pathetic failing to adequately engage with what I am talkking about, but I think that the failure is in someways more interesting than a sucess would be, or at least equally, also this puts me in the clear.

diggin cont

It emerges in many art practices, in Walter De Maria’s meaningless work, it lists digging a hole, but specifically lists covering it again, or also in Art Yard,” an event in which steam shovels would dig a large hole.. in 1960. Claus Oldenberg’s Placid Civic Monument (1967) of hiring gravediggers to dig a 6-foot-wide by 3-foot-deep hole behind the met, and then fill it it. also in japan in Sekine’s Phase—Mother Earth, 1968 the hole is used though much cleaner and as a realisation of a specific sculptural intent as opposed to the ephemeral nature of demaria and oldenberg’s holes. Below oldenberg

oLDENBERG’S work calls similarities to what I have been intending to do with the hole, even the allusion to death calls a similar weirdness to the digging at night that I was partaking in, the act of filling it in at the end also is a similarity, though here it reinforces the notion of burial, which I had not thought about in relation to my own work. Though I think the location while seemingly very similar the intent or reason for our respective choices diverges greatly, re central park is representative of nature, while the oval I chose is not and does not have any great importance placed upon it unlike central park. Though finding this work influenced how I considered my own.

below Sekine

This work differs in an obvious way, in focusing in muy opinion more on the sculptural elements of the digging process as well as the preciseness of the operation that had taken place here. Though I still found it interestinf as a precoursor, in the non trap engagement as an engagement with site and space, interfering in the landscape.

All these hole works, in relation to my own work, make me like my work more due to the ubiquity of the action I was engaged in, I think that the nothingness of the action reinforces the intent or what I thought of the space. I also like the way such a simple action can be used in differing situations to reflect on different conceptual concerns. I like that the action is both ubiquitous in a quotidian sense and also in the art world as an action that has been done so many times.

In relation to y it has been done so many times by different artists, I think it’s because of the direct relation to the earth and being able to do so in such a simple act, I also think there are layers of meaning tied up in the simple action. Tht of the grave of death, of the garden of life, and also of getting below the surface of uncovering the hidden or the situation underground of the earth itself

Digging

The act of digging, is one that emerged out of my interest in the trap making well I think it did. I am still not entirely sure about the origin, but in relation relation to the sight, I think I was also quite interested in the possibility of the digging as a simplistic intervention into the site itself, it creating a direct engagement with site. Simultaneously as a practice for trapping the digging of traps, the engagement was interesting in itself.

The act of doing this at jnight itself engages with multiple facets of the site that I was intrigued in, re the obliqueness or the creepiness, the not really knowing and the weirdness of suburbia in general, as well as the feeling that one is being watched, particularly doing this act in the middle of the oval. also the aesthetic qualities of both videos pertain to this kind of strangeness, or the closeness of the weird feeling in the amutuerish nature of the documentation, it engages beyond documentation in the aesthetics, while the aesthetics simultenously refer to the document as BEING a document.

The refilling and jumping on the holes again can be considered through the trap planning as testing the capacity of digging, how far one would want to go, and like a milita covering your tracks/preperations.

Alternatively the filling it functions as destruction of initial transgression of the act of digging or interfering with the space. it ob;litertates it of the intial purpose, admittedly i DID not want to in anyway get caught for digging the hole, so it makes sense I covered it up. But I also think this functions as a metaphor of transgression, the inevitable failure or capitualation back, yes the return back to the original condition, but it is nonetheless a return. On the other hand, the remainders tell of the transgression, maybe that is weirdly radical in itself.

When concieving this work, I realised how many digging pieces there have been overtime,

document two of a different action of digging

The video final project, one of two video documentations for the action of digging

Other traps, these also extended into the joking interest of emotional traps, such as the identity politics one for myself, causing me to leave the oval, and the soccer ball hatred one for the football playing children. I think I found these particularly funny or the horrific that is not violent is equally interesting, if one thinks of a trap as something to ensnare ones actions, or dictate that they act in a specific way, this also ties into a foccualtidian understanding of power as dispersed and occurring w in relationships, as ways of getting another to act.

SometrapsIhavedesigned!

theses are a collection of images of traps that I have designed....

There is something particularly nice about the confrontation between the ways the space have been experienced in the combination of found images and the traps. That being for the children and the cricketers the space is that of joy, of relaxation, yet for me it isnt the space is too confusing//insideous. Or it’s like me forcing my perception of the space onto unsuspecting victims,

Trap œ

The making of traps was inspired by a benedict singleton essay about the trickster, and the start of traps. I became slightly obsessed with the idea of making traps, or digging holes as to main/trap people (football players I guess). Something of this obsession lead to me considering what I was doing, for the project and while I am not intending to actually make huge dug traps in the oval, or at least w in class that would cause some problems.

To follow this through I began to look for photos of people in the park, as well as taking photos of myself and a friend in the park at night. To place the traps within a visual place, as well as designing some on grid paper.

The development of a project is a somewhat daunting processsssssssss, I am still quite unsure of what to produce. Orr the study has not produced anything blatant to me outside of a complete interest in nothingness as a state of being/attribute of a location,.

WHY OVAL?

The oval itself due to the lack of people I have seen using it, I tried to think of what became more of a real purpose for it’s existence.

Initially my thoughts were that it functioned as a representative of nature in within suburbia, the desire for the natural, or the need for a representation of that with in human built spaces. (I will simply admit here that the concept of nature relies on something to oppose it to re the city or civilisation, effectively that nature only exists as a construct.) But the empty space of the oval is not really that, it does not even represent the construct that is nature, while there are a few trees around the edge of a large emptiness/absence. If anything the large lawned area to me functions as an immense version of the front lawn of suburban Australian houses, a sustained absence. Though the nothingness of the space is maybe what I think the reason of the oval really is. That is as a representative or/and desired absence in suburbia, in the oval functions as the inverse of tightly packed suburban houses.

The consideration of nothingness, has lead me further to think about nothingness and then further it’s relationship to revolutionary praxis/theory such as agamben/tiqqun/the invisible committee’s use/understanding of the whatever subjectivity

the sign recorded..., via contact mic, and then in turn how it acted as a large resonant plate picking up multiple sounds including drills from the work site, helicopters and traffic. This was also particularly interesting as a reflective/interiority that mirrors the space.

LARGELY UNUSED BBALL HALF COURT

One of the few ppl I have seen at the oval in my trips there.

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