when surface was depth

Further experiment on the decoupage.

I'm figuring out that I'm not simply interested in the shine from the day-glo paper onto the white surface, and have begun to combine this  transient quality with the heavy application of intrusive, brightly coloured paint.

a good friend once gave me a book entitled "the 90's, when surface was depth" and now I feel sad that I can't use that title here.

It's scary for me, to make something so aesthetically motivated. It's been such a long time since I really thought about the way I want things to look (rather than the way they should function or behave) that the construction of this work has felt really frustrating and alien.

I think I've reached a point with it though where I don't mind other people looking at it.

So I suppose it's a success.

Work in progress

Messing around in the studio. 

It's really nice to work with day-glow again. 

Exhibition Soundtracks

Here are some snippets from my contribution to the current show

Improvisations with Comic and Tragic Consequences 

by Claire Barclay in TheGallery Bournemouth.

These soundtracks document the thoughts and opinions emerging at a two day long workshop that happened back in May 2013, where nonsense, play and the commodification of creative production were topical. 


(best with headphones)

Listen: Nonsense

Listen: Useless Outcomes

Listen: play

The Things We Tell Ourselves

This year I participated in Paradox Fabric, a conference of international postgraduate research students working in a variety of art disciplines. the aim of the conference was for each student to develop and share their research in a new environment. 

With this in mind, I arrived at the conference with the idea that I would talk to the participants about what it is that drives them to pursue a career in art. The work that came out of it was a soundtrack for the one day exhibition event at Caja Granada. Visitors to the exhibition could listen to the soundtrack through headphones and were encouraged to carry the mp3 player around with them as they walked among the artwork. 

The soundtrack is called the things we tell ourselves

Links: 

Paradox Fabric official website

Facebook P-fabric

Also, from my university AUB, see Martin Coyne's work here 

Tomorrow: Elmgreen & Dragset Review

Walking into a stranger’s flat uninvited and unacknowledged whilst they are showering isn’t something I’ve ever done, but if I did I imagine that I would experience a particular mix of feelings: trepidation, excitement, foreboding, invulnerability…. I could go on but generally all of my ideas are linked to voyeuristic hedonism. The idea of being a fly on the wall, of course, will always have its allure.

But could this experience be simulated? What Dragnet and Evergreen have come up with at the V&A is at once fascinating and ridiculous. They have managed to distil the essence of the world famous 19th century museum in all its imperial spectacle for a 21^st century eye. Behold: the interior workings of the illusive inhabitant have been captured for you! There is even a narrative built in for you to follow! You can examine it to your hearts content safe in the knowledge that he will never escape the shower (something I find frankly sinister, or is it just me who imagines the worst?).

There’s a lot of safety in make believe.

And this seems to be what the kids in London are looking for nowadays. Just check out how popular Punch Drunk’s new immersive theatre production is where the audience and the actors share the same stage, or look at the Jeremy Dellar work at the British Pavilion in Venice where part of the experience was to stop mid-way and have a cup of tea served up to you…. the evidence suggests that despite all our efforts to be earnest and face up to reality us Brits are happy to be preoccupied by fantasy; we’re simply becoming more extreme in the way we explore/ express it.

It’s a great show, and it is on until January. I suggest you go and see it, because it is nice to be reminded in how many different ways we can escape reality. 

the ego and the id

 MA show August 2013

audio excerpt: What the audience heard

denouement

Thanks to everyone who made it