the real world and other complications

So, what have I been up to since leaving Chelsea? This is a question that I ask myself everyday. Post-university life is hard, why did no one tell me this. I think that I have been too comfortable receiving a regular payments courtesy of the student loan company for too long! But its alright I’m starting to adjust now. I have been involved in a couple of projects since I left. I was meant to be in an exhibition pretty much straight after leaving called magpie, curated and organised by Sophie Colley and Jess Fisher, two fellow Chelsea graduates. But unfortunately due to personal reasons I had to pull out at the last minute. So I have been focusing on a video for the website Kent based Psychotherapy Company that I worked with on my degree show, and pursuing my own lines of exploration.
I’m starting to come to the conclusion that whilst ok within the microcosm of the art university, my current lines of work may not be totally suited to the real world, and I may need to adjust my practice. Whilst I think that my current practice is the best way for me personally to explore the concepts I am interested in, I am not sure if it the best way for the viewer to contribution or empathises with this exploration. I feel my work needs a more interactive, participatory element to it.
My personal belief is that the work I did back in January, where I gave a lecture on pub games is a strong line of practical enquiry. By linking games, a fun, past time activity, with a lecture, an educational device, I was able to explore the concept in a more comprehensive manner, whilst also sharing this exploration with the audience I was performing to. I also thought that taking on the role of lecturer was a strong move. Although I do not like performing in my own work, and prefer taking on a directorial role, I felt that I this case taking on the role of lecturer meant that I was able to have an air of authority, and able to maintain control over the piece, whilst not technically performing in the traditional sense. It was more like I was pretending to be a lecturer, which ties my performances into my previous participatory collaboration work with Natalie and NO. Taking on a mock professional role may be a better way of maintain performer/audience engagement, and keep the audience as a strong part of the piece as it is being performed.
So I think this is the route that I am going to following regarding my practice. I think it would be good to look more at doing participation pieces; this way my work links more closely to community art projects, which I am interested in getting involved in. I think my work has to be less eccentric and emphasis the element of it that offers something to the viewer, as a joint experience.

father on film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llsfgx3Y-Bw

the above is a link to the video for the chelsea degree show 2011 video, Filmed and edited by pundersonsgardens.com ...

notice my work at 2.09, complete with my father sitting on the sofa...

also (my personal favorite's) well worth noticing; Sophie Colley's pine forest at 0.07, Anika Manuel's paintings at 0.18, Gumit's golden snake-like sculpture at 0.35, Heena Patel's drawings at 0.54, Elham's paintings at 1.16, Rabia Aquel's drawings at 1.55, Natalie Bays' estate agents at 1.59, followed by Sophie Hanson's robot hands, Emily Rubner's blue paintings at 2.23 and Tim Ridley's 'Car Trouble, Oh Yeah' performance at 2.31. (a long list, but i really did love all the work at our summer show...)

Chelsea College of Art Degree Show 2011

So, its all over now, the private view has been and gone and currently I am spending my days sitting and invigilating the show. I was very pleased with how my piece turned out in the end. The responses to it were very good as well, I was pleased to walk into the room several times to see people settled in on the sofa for the long haul watching the videos from start to finish, and for people to commit to the hour long video was quite a feat.

The private view itself was not quite what I imagine. It was so stressful that I couldn’t enjoy it, as I wanted. We all got in for 8am for the VIP breakfast, which would have been fine, had Tesco’s not phoned Natalie at 7.55 to tell her that they wouldn’t deliver the alcohol for the private view. This meant that I missed an hour of the VIP breakfast running round trying to organise a solution, whilst Natalie spend the whole VIP Breakfast on the phone to Tesco’s and running to majestic to re-order. The bit the VIP Breakfast that I could attend was good, not many people came up to mine and Jakob’s space, being on the 2nd floor of A-Block, and a bit tucked away. I did have a very interesting conversation with the head of fine art at San Francesco Uni, and his colleague. Me and Natalie then had to spend the rest of the day, when other people got to go home, rest and get ready, organising the running of the private view, bars, maps, and so on…but then I guess if you decide to head up the fundraising team this is what you have to expect. I have never known anyone to work quite as hard for the good of other as Natalie, I think that the whole of our year have her to thank for the successful running of the show and so many other events … and I helped too… and we did get thanked in the end, which is always good!!

The show, as a whole, was amazing, and I don’t just say this because it was my year and degree show, the quality of work was really impressive.

Below are some particular favourites of mine:

Laura Marley’s videos and objects … Laura has a beautiful talent for making. She is very practical, and has a wonderful way with objects. Her practice seems to stem from her innate ability towards the home-made, (if you have every tasted her tea-bread you will know how wonderful she is at all things homely…) but her video and objects are more than this, they have a strong sense of purpose, and almost a needs to be used. The video display to the viewer, not the use for the object, but rather the object in use, the object being moved and played with in a way that shows a true respect for it.
http://www.lmarley.co.uk/

Jodie Gooch’s Photos … Jodie’s photos are beautiful, the quality of the print is amazing and the light she uses gives the photos a truly impressive feel. The size of them is impressive, but they have the subtly to be shown at any size, their strength doesn’t rely on the size of them, which so many large scale photos do…
http://showtime.arts.ac.uk/JodieGooch

Anika Manuel’s Paintings…. Anika’s paintings work towards a photo realistic style, but don’t quite make it there, which subverts the idea of the re-production of the found image. In this way I see a link to my own work, and the idea of the failure of re-presentation. I have known Anika’s work since I started at Chelsea, and her persistence to develop her own style and subject matter, in opposition to the dislike of painting at Chelsea, is really reflected in the strength of her practice and mirrors her love of painting.
http://www.anikamanuel.com/


Eleanor Rose-Fusaros’s videos… Ellie’s videos I think are hands-down the strongest video work in the show. They are absolutely beautifully shot, and the presentation of them on four screens above your head angled inwards, is impressive.
http://www.eleanorrosefusaro.com/

Rob Meads paintings… I know Rob’s work very well, having spent a year sharing a studio with him, and the paintings he has decided to show at the degree show are wonderful. Two are on aluminium, with just the small glimpse of the metal shining through. The other three are on MDF, which Rob has hacked away at. The result is a series of grooves and dents that the paint settles in and distorts the image. The level of sophistication in Robs painting technique really does demonstrate his research and interest in this medium.
http://robertmead.co.uk/

Sarch Randles bird house… when Sarah first said that she was going to make a bird house to show her pictures in I thought it was a wonderful idea, but was worried that it may come across are a bit gimmicky, and undermine her beautiful drawings. However she has really pulled it off, and it looks incredible. Having seen one of her shows recently in Hackney Wick and seeing how well her delicate drawings fit into a slightly retro environment I can really see the development towards the structure in which she showed the drawing in. The bird house came across not so much as a place to show a drawing, but an extension of the drawing itself, and the other drawings hung on the wall next to it in a saloon style are just as impressive, and show off Sarah amazing talent.
http://showtime.arts.ac.uk/SarahRandles

Jill Haraway’s installation… Jill’s installation has three lights placed on the floor shining across the floor, cutting across each other towards two boxes in the centre of the room. The first box is open on two ends, and has a mirror on the top and bottom of the inside of it. When you look at these mirrors they reflect each other and create what looks like a never-ending tunnel into the ground. The second box is in a rough wood and is closed, but through a small hole in the grain you can look in to see your eye reflected back at you. This installation has a playful element to it, and the light dances across the room. The minimalist nature of it shows a level of sophistication that suggests there is more to this piece than the artist is revealing to the viewer, like she is keeping something of it back for herself.

Tim Ridley’s performance … I am a great fan of Tim’s performances. They are always laugh-out-loud funny, but at the same time have a strong concept to them, and deal with pressing concerns that the artist explores in depth. This performance, ‘car trouble, oh yeah’ with it squeaky toys and pedal tractor is true to Tim’s humorous performance style, and the various mistakes, crashes and occasional clumsy ending only add to this humour.
http://www.timridley.co.uk/

Emily Rubner’s Paintings … Emily seems to let the paint do whatever the paint what to do in her work, but it is much more controlled than this, and Emily’s strong understanding of paint as a medium means that she can manipulate and influence the paint to produce the beautifully iridescent images that she creates. http://emilyrubner.co.uk/

Natalie Bays’ estate agent … Natalie’s work explores human interaction, by creating a controlled environment whereby, she as the artist, can act as host and the participant can indulge in the care and helpfulness of Natalie’s reception. In this piece she has set up an estate agent’s selling suite in the university to sell off part of the college as a luxury flat. This is not only, I believe, a comment on the dire financial situation of many universities, or a suggestion at a way to free up money for the university, but also a way of acting the ‘crooked’ host to the viewer, the host that is hospitable because they want something out of you. But I really encourage you to read more about this piece at http://becomingasomeone.blogspot.com/

Svetlana Khachatryan video … Svetlana is a wonderful photographer; she has a real talent for it. That is why when she said that she was doing a video for the degree show I was worried, even more so when she told me she had never done a video before. But the video she made was amazing and a true reflection of she skill. She films like she photographs, very striking images, with strong light source and shadows. The images are calm and quiet. The subversion of sound to image adds to the contradiction of feeling in this piece, and you can really relate to the dilemma that the artist feels towards are environment and is trying to express in this video.
http://www.mypaintedmind.blogspot.com/

Jess fisher’s video … Jess’s video’s are always funny, but at the same time a bit creepy and make you feel a little bit uncomfortable. In this one she talks from one screen, to another screen where dolls of her parents sit on a sofa. She talks to them about their divorce, and you are stuck in the middle. The feeling is similar to when you are out with a couple who then start having an argument that you are stuck in the middle of, where do you look, would do you do, do you say anything, do you take someone’s side, do you leave? This is what Jess’s video does to you.
http://showtime.arts.ac.uk/JessicaAnnFisher

James White’s cars… James white’s cars…what can I say…I was so shocked to hear that they had allowed him to do this. When I first heard about it as an idea, I thought, amazing idea, but a health and safety nightmare, they will never let him do it, but they did and thank god, because it was brilliant! He had two cars in the parade ground, chained together by their bumpers. They were remote controlled, and he turned them on, and pulled them away from each other. Because they had the same force neither went anywhere, they just stayed put, both wheels spinning and burning up. The playfulness James’ had with them was hilarious, like a child with two massive toys. He sometime let one get to close to the other, or one close to the crash barriers, but never quite. However they were a lot of crashes, and the car’s didn’t look too good for wear by the end of the week. The tension created by this piece was brilliant and the resulting videos are well worth watching… http://vimeo.com/26010708

'Play Session' 2011- video one

above is one of the video that was part of the video-based installation at the chelsea degree show 2011 (play session)

Getting there…

So, I think my degree show is finally set up and ready. With a lot of set back and complications, but its almost there. The carpet is down, the projector is up, and the sofa is re-covered. I just have to put up the window.
I struggled a lot with the positioning of the projection and the quality of the film, but in the end I have decided that neither of these things matter to the piece. It isn’t the quality of the image, or the positioning of it, it is more that there is just an image there on the wall, like a memory being projected into the space that the current viewers now occupy.
I also have found out that if you film in HD, and then edit on final cut, the export can make it worst than if you had filmed on a normal camera. I filmed on HD…however the more I think through these problems the more I think that the quality of the image isn’t important, the image is just there to show the performance as it happened, it doesn’t need to be clear or precise. It is about re-creation and the problems of re-presentation, so the problems that occur with the set up of the installation are something that have to be shown in it. The piece looks at the way that we can’t re-create things exactly as they were. It is just as much about the failure of recreation as it is about the re-presentation of a previous event. This has come across in other aspects of the piece, for example the shape of the room is not the same, so the carpet is different, I have left the marks and stains made on the coffee table over the last few weeks.
The important part of this piece is the subversion of reality. It is about how fantasy can undermine reality, but also how reality can underpin a fantasy, until it is deemed a reality as well. In the film the fantasy of the actors pretending to be children undermines the reality of the psychotherapist, whilst the reality of the psychotherapist blurs the fantasy of the actor, until there fantasy becomes a reality. The voice over of me reading the transcript of the film is to further undermine the reality of the piece. It questions the reality of the film, and turns that into an uncertain reality. The viewer doesn’t know if it is exactly what the people said in the film. The voice over is not lip-synced and further more, which the pixilation of the piece now, it is hard to see the movements of the actor mouth. The voice over adds a air of creepiness to an already uncertain situation, and gives the viewers a general sense of unease.

Degree show set up and video editing…

So, its that time already, 1 weeks left to edit, paint, set up…ahhhh…I am spending most of my time video editing, rendering, and building fake walls. I have been put in the plastic room at Chelsea with another video artist, Jakob Nielson. It is on the first floor of A block, so a bit tucked away, but I’m hoping that because I been given the task of making the degree show maps I can make sure that people know where it is.
There is a floor to ceiling window in the room, on the wall I want to project onto, so that needs to be covered with a fake wall. I also think I want to extend the wall between my half and Jakob half by like 4 feet, so there’s going to need to be a fake wall there.
I think it is important that the space where the set is, is an off-white colour, so as to mark it off as a recognizable staged area. Also the domestic-ness of my set means that it is necessary to continue this theme with the colour of the walls. I don’t think it would look right if the set was the same colour as the rest of the room.
So its going to be a long week of work.

the pressures of filming day!

So, it was filming day yesterday. I’ve had to cancel one date for filming already, because I had too many other things to do, what with fundraising, paid employment, and seminar presentations. So yesterday was the last date this month that Alyson could do. I felt terrible about cancelling last Friday; it means that Alyson and Sue came straight from work in the Medway area of Kent in the morning to London in the afternoon. I am very appreciative of them taking the time to help me with this.
The night before at 8pm the actor that I had hired decided that he wanted to do some other work instead, and couldn’t do the performance, even though I had booked him and was paying him, very professional!!!! He said in the e-mail, ‘Good luck with your project…’, this isn’t a project, this is my degree show!!!!! Oh well, at least I know what type of actors I won’t be using again. So at the last minute I had three lovely people fill in, the lovely Elham, Eleanor Fusaro and Nadine Kreter, I am forever grateful to them for helping me!!!!!
So, Alyson and Sue arrived at 3pm. I only had the room booked for yesterday, so I had to get in for 8.30, when college opens. I had two hours before seminar started to lay the carpet, put up the fake wall and arrange the furniture. Then it was three hours of seminar presentations, followed by a quick cuppa, a brilliant tutorial with Georgia Starr, and then they arrived.
So, Alyson and Sue arrived at about 3, and I went to meet them in the Tate, gave them a quick briefing, and took them to the room, ready for Eleanor arrive at 3.30. I staggered the performances; so that we had a bit of time to prepare everyone before hand, time for the performance, then a bit of time after to recover.
The room is set out the same as it will be for the video based installation I will show for the degree show. It is important that the set up that I arranged yesterday will be the same as the installation for the space in which I will show the film. The work looks at the idea of re-presentation, and recreation. The rebuilding of the set will hopefully represent the recreation of a situation and how it will never be the same, how little things will change. It’s the same as our memory and the theme that I work with, the idea that we can never remember exactly what our childhood was like. How it will also be effected by who we are, and the way we remember things.
With all three performance filmed, the task is now to watch them back and work out the soundtrack that I will play with them, I am thinking of playing a different sound over the top of the sound of the performances, but I am still unsure of what this will be.