Artists and works discussed in relation to my own project, looking at idea of performance, the spectacle and making functional or semi-functional apparatuses.
1) Visionaries 21 : The Music Machines by Bosch & Simons, 1989-2012.
Film stills.
Year: 1989-2012, 85 mins. Accessed from Artfilms Digital [https://www.artfilms-digital.com/item/visionaries-21-the-music-machines#]
"Inspired by the physicist Nikola Tesla's legendary experiments in 1896, Bosch & Simons have produced a large series of works based on vibration and resonance. They created installations in museums, at International Symposiums on Electronic Art, concert halls and international electronic music conferences around the world. They turn their extensive artistic research into complex, unpredictable systems and unstable balances, into pieces which are part physics experiments and part new-media installations."
The idea of creating an ongoing series of experimental works resonates with my own process of collecting, making, archiving, and repeating this process onwards towards exhibition. The merging of science and new media is being explored a lot through artists such as Pierre Huyghe and Hito Steyerl, but whilst these artists' works follow the more the digital/AI themes, Bosch & Simons create more tactile, analogue works, grounded in the idea of physical movement and sculptural sound generation. These objects are functional to a certain extent -- they do things/perform actions, but are also pretty useless within everyday use or as tools... apart from generating music. Their 'bodies' are extravagant and they create a spectacle. They have a purpose: to play music. My objects similarly have a purpose, performed in a way where they are purposely built a certain way to perform a basic action. The objective, which is to video a terrain, can be achieved in a more easier, conventional way, but that's not my intention. Specific, novel ways of building them and employing them instills intentional as well as new ideas in the work. They are there to be discussed, and direct conversation to what the works trying to say in the space.
2) Mad Max - Fury Road (Film, 2015)
Film stills, (above and below).
To be honest the movie's a let down but the set and props are really interesting in terms of their construction, material use and ideas of amalgamation --- or putting together fairly recognisable parts of machinery etc. to create these strange car and truck constructions for the film. The vehicles are kind of ridiculous articles, constructed from what seem to be -- with the clunky, cobbled-together objects. However, one thing here is that in accordance to the 'dystopian' fashioned set, the style of these vehicles don't seem that innovative or in my opinion -- they seem like pretty basic, quickly thought up objects that would easily 'fit' the aesthetic of the movie. Like in parts of the film there's even this really absurd character who is tied to the front of a truck and frantically plays an electric guitar whenever there's a 'chase/pursuit' scene - its like they're trying mix the sound track into the movie but it just ends up looking pretty funny. This is just how I'm responding via keeping my project in mind. I think the idea of creating this whole other world to try to essentially make a blockbuster -- and kind of failing -- is an interesting example of how something that's intended to be a serious representation becomes something absurd and pretty laughable. Unlike such productions' intentions for success, my own work is intentionally a failure -- hinting ridiculousness and a certain kind of non-success in its fabrication and execution. My work's a lot more honest in its presentation of what it does and how it operates - although often that is hard to tell through the various forms the objects take. l. But by 'honest' I mean that it owns what it makes and does, without trying to be something better or more appealing.
3) et al.,whilst attempting to engineer a telepathic device (2000) at abnormal mass delusions? Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, July 2003.
Article: 'about et al.'s abnormal mass delusions?' by Wystan Curnow, Art New Zealand.
Originally published in Art New Zealand 110 Autumn 2004 [https://www.art-newzealand.com/Issue110/etal.htm]
I am interested in how these objects are brought into exhibition mode and the way installation has been performed/executed. Also how the objects sit in the space - they have a function and a relationship to each other - they are 'addressing' each other as equals almost -- this makes me think about where the viewer's place is in the space, and to what extent would the work be an interactive piece as opposed to just observational -- would viewers be invited to be equal to the objects --- after all, they are just domestic, repurposed objects --- or would viewers be sidelined as the works' changed positions assert a new dominance/presence in the room.
Wystan Curnow, the writer of this article comments,"The grim, alienated materials and spaces that comprise et al.'s installations, the erasures, the blurring, fragmenting, of image, sound and textual content, speak of a comprehensive negativity." So this, to me becomes an attempt to not only give the objects a new life, but are also made into this space of flux and movements, an arrangement by the artist that reflects ideas of space, material, living and dead bodies co-merging and working together in the space. This makes me think about how my own works and making methods come together in a gallery space for exhibition. A lot of the time I just treat installs as testing grounds, and often it feels jarring to place my work in a white walled space. Whilst it is generated in the outdoors and at certain sites, I think the idea of my project coming to a 'rest' is more fitting than it becoming an artifact to be shown, and the gallery place is just where it happens to come to rest. Perhaps this is a better way to think about the cycle of my projects...otherwise frankly more testing is required to find out how the gallery can be useful to me in a way that feels appropriate to my work.
4) PAUL CULLEN Article: 'Paul Cullen,' by Rhondda Bosworth Originally published in Art New Zealand 20 Winter 1981
'Building Structures' 1979, mixed media. Art New Zealand
"Cullen's art is free from the pressures of fashion and commercialism. Although he does exhibit his sculptures in dealer galleries, they are the antithesis of salon art"
A bit like dada and fluxus performance and making objects, and things that could exist outside the gallery.
Also the idea of the post-performance -- the end result is exhibited, but not the process - or it is not performed in front of an exhibition audience. Perhaps unintentional audience are there, much like in my performances at specific sites, where the object then becomes an artifact in an exhibition space. "Transitory works, dismantled to mere materials" -- pulls the tensions of space, inside, because its so small, and outside the hut, as the relationship of site and the object, and the artist become a point of interest whilst observing the work eg. can the hut be moved? Does it belong there? Does it have a function? It it aesthetic, political, useful ect...interesting realm of connotations regarding site, housing structure and sculptural forms in the landscape.
"It's a matter of reducing the work to its very simplest possible state, eliminating all of the things that lead away from the guts of the work, the thing the work is really about. Anything that's there must build towards its over-all organization and meaning."
This is an idea that also came up in crits with Alvie McKree, who was talking about presentation and when too many things are in the space. Take away the things that don't address your key intentions or seem like access. Talk to your peers about the work in the space -- have a mini crit session. If unsure take one thing out of your installation. See what happens with the space. Come back to it after a while. This strategy might be worth testing out in midyear. Usually I don't pay as much as attention to install as I keep thinking that it can be the same as everything else - quick and intuition-led. But perhaps more attention to install will allow me to navigate where and how my objects come out the best in exhibition.
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