frameworks: the internet as exhibition space, personal suitcase, etc (online collage?)

notes: experimenting with purely online art - fully mobile art in that it can be accessed anywhere - it doesn't have to be viewed in one specific place, transported. i have the freedom to have my art travel

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So my feedback from previous assessment focussed on ill-fitting presentation/exhibition of work - not giving a great idea to those not predisposed to my work, working themes, etc. I have discussed video/sound framework possibilities with tutors, but I don't feel video and sound alone is quite the right format for pieces. I was thinking about this and I realised there are elements of my non-digital work which are lacking in my digital work, but when displaying analogue creations in analogue space, there is also something lacking - there's a disconnect, because I haven't been acknowledging the importance of the internet in my work, the current running through all my work - that most of the time, I am making work to display online, on my blog or portfolio or wherever. That has been a consistent component of my art-making. I think this is the key to finding the perfect method of display.

So after coming to this conclusion, I thought about what I actually wanted to make, specifically, online, and how I might be able to exhibit. When I am making work traditionally, I collage and paint and scribble in books. It's very tactile and messy and mixed media. Digital formats such as blogs make this difficult as they are formed as neat, rectangular things. I could make collages in an image programme, I thought, but it lacks that tactile, jumbled together feeling that traditional collage and painting has. I don't want images as much as I want pages. Pages which can incorporate different components whilst having them be visibly separate at the same time.

I realised I'd actually stumbled upon some sites which pretty much facilitate exactly the kind of online collaging I'm looking for: newhive.com and to.be

So here I am gleefully experimenting with digital collaging and this kind of perfect full-page display!

newhive.com/mothcub

options bibliography

books:

• Baker, M (2006). Documentary in the Digital Age. Amsterdam;London: Focal.
• Basquiat, J (1997). King for a Decade. Japan: Korinsha Press. 
• Chapman, J (2007). Documentary in Practice : Filmmakers and Production Choices. UK: Polity.
• Logan, P (2011). Humphrey Jennings and British documentary Film a re-assessment. UK: Ashgate.

film and television:

• Bitches and Beauty Queens, 2012. Film. UK: Channel 4.
• Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, 2010 - 2014. TV Series. UK: Channel 4.

websites:

• arvidabystrom.tumblr.com. Available: http://arvidabystrom.tumblr.com/. Last accessed 29th Jan 2014.
• http://www.vice.com/en_uk/tag/Arvida+Bystr%C3%B6m. Available: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/tag/Arvida+Bystr%C3%B6m. Last accessed 29th Jan 2014.
• J☹E SKILT☹N. Available: http://joewebs.tumblr.com/. Last accessed 29th Jan 2014.

initial references: 

• The 2008 Group Exhibition, 'Archive Fever: The Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art', at the International Centre for Photography in New York, curated by Okwui Enwezor
• Individual Artists exhibiting, including e.g.: Felix Gonzales-Torres, 'Untitled (Death by Gun)' (1990), Fazal Sheikh's Series, 'The Victor Weeps: Afghanistan' (1997) and Christian Boltanski's, 'Reserve-Detective lll', (1987) 
• 'Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression' - a text by Jaques Derrida
• Tacita Dean's recent exhibition at Frith Street Gallery, JG and c/o Jolyon
• Marcel Duchamp's museum in a suitcase 'Boite-en-valise'
• Consideration of suggested 'headings', the Object as Archive, Architecture as Archive, the Fictional Archive, the Archive as Memorial, the Archive as Witness, the Word as Archive, the Archive as Repository for Waste.
• Ways of re-presenting an existing archive.
• Jane and Louise Wilson's recent exhibition at Paradise Row Gallery, 'False Negatives and False Positives'
• The 'Fae Richards Photo Archive' a collaborative work between artist, Zoe Leonard and Filmmaker Cheryl Dunye. (1993-96)
• Jamie Shovelin's work, 'Naomi V Jelish', (2004)
• The Jewish Museum, Berlin, designed by Daniel Libeskind (2000) 
• 'At Memory's Edge: After Images of the Holocaust in Contemporary Art and Architecture', Yale University Press (2000) and 'The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning', Yale University Press (1993), both books by Professor James Young.
• 'Walter Benjamin's Archive: Images Texts and Signs' by Walter Benjamin, Published by Verso (2007) 
• Daniel Silver's Current Exhibition (until November 3rd) 'Dig', at the Odeon Site, Grafton Way WC1, commissioned by Artangel

options summary

Initially/instinctively I felt the urge to explore on my own what the theme of document/archive meant, and could mean, to me. My role subsequently became a role of primarily research - providing context and reflection against which the result of our collaboration could sit.

I reflected on and explored my own reactions and ideas concerning the theme, thinking about its relevance to my own work and blogs. The concept of documenting has been of great interest to me for a while and there’s so many ways it can manifest itself. In my work in the past I have focused on such intriguing forms of modern documenting and archiving as social media platforms and blogs. I’ve looked at artists using Facebook as a medium (e.g. Ian Aleksander Adams, Beach Sloth, and Moon Temple), and artists like Arvida Bystrom, Maisie Cousins, and Joe Skilton, who all use photography and digital compositions which incorporate and often make fun of digital worlds full of awkward interaction, idealised teendom, and tacky graphics.

I have found a plethora of artistic and cultural examples of works that explore the theme in various ways, such as Michael Landy’s “Break Down”, Tracey Emin’s “Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995” and “My Bed”, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s frantic, diary-like paintings, and various Channel 4 documentaries which act as odd windows into the lives of people the documentaries encourage us to simultaneously feel sorry for and laugh at.

At the beginning of brainstorming, the larger group came up with lots of ideas ranging from interactive crowd archiving projects to photo-documenting projects (I really liked the idea of photographing people’s bedrooms). Our smaller group discussed the possibilities of making a documentary about a small English town, which would feature residents talking about what they appreciated about the area. It was clear this idea was about the people, and that reminded me again of diaries - such a great mode of documented expression. I took to my own exploration of the theme by making photographic zines - mini diaries made in a short space of time - time capsules on paper. This was my own physical and photo-based manifestation of what our documentary might be - not necessarily traditional, perhaps a small trinket, a time capsule of someone’s thoughts at one time and one place.

I would have liked to have a more active role in the making of the work as well as the decision making and progression therein. I think the circumstances felt somewhat constricting for all of us and had I the chance to redo this unit I would definitely aim to take on more of involved, propelling, leadership role.

I think I learned plenty about the incredible potential in diving into the topic as my research progressed and focusing on the theme helped me to understand more about my existing creative practice, which I hope will gain greater clarity as a result.

x

After this assessment I know I have to really focus on framework and presentation. I'm excited about the DAS presentation and essay because already I feel like I am learning a lot about my motivations, so hopefully all of this will allow me a greater clarity of purpose.

It's also a really good point that I should try using the internet directly as an exhibition space. I'm definitely used to framing my work online and there's no need to fight that to feel present in the college exhibition space.

So more video, more fun, more experiments, more connections w/artists and ideas, and solidifying of overall intention to lead the work.

water damage

Another aspect of devolving into pure shapes and texture is presented here - I decided to revisit an old idea which I briefly experimented with during stage 1: water damaged print outs. So here I'm taking well established, complex pictures and physically breaking them down. The first time I did this it was a symbol of the fragility of life itself, a sort of sentimental fear manifested in the water, but this time I felt more celebratory. I cut the pages into separate images after a series of progressing alterations, and instead of just being images, they became trinkets - like some old picture you find in a dead woman's bedroom, crumpled and ruined after years lost behind a piece of furniture. Something that could've been in a locket or photo frame once, or just something carried around in a pocket, not treated well but deeply loved regardless. 

To me these pictures have that "beauty of use". 

shapes & textures

After spending so much of my time painting the formulaic children's cartoon characters in pink, I realised one of the most important things about them was their texture, shape, colour. I picked pink because it was a colour I hated as a child because I was supposed to like it, and I felt that now I could appreciate it whilst retaining all my anger and frustration against the idea that anyone "should" like a colour based on their sex. I guess it was in part an exercise in forgiving the colour, and an exercise in recognising the ways in which my personality and interests have been shaped against my will in trying to combat forceful ideas concerning "how one should be", etc.

But my main focus, I believe, was to relive childhood in a way, now that I have shed so much of the discomfort of childhood, adolescence, and new adulthood - a way of re-doing childhood with all the knowledge and comfort and understanding that I have now (and some of the skill, I suppose, because the "little babies" never looked authentically like young children's drawings, more like a stylised ideal of a child character).

Following from the themes embedded in that, I now find myself desperate to just make shapes (which is often the advice I give to people asking "how to art" but I'm not sure it's easy to grasp). I want new colours and shapes and to be lead mostly by pure spontaneous emotional/kinetic decision. In the "little babies" I found a catalyst for unthinking art, which I found incredibly satisfying. I had a formula - they babies were one simple shape that I copied again and again, each one a variation on the same character. One anonymous person on my tumblr even came and told me how bored they were with my "immature" paintings.

The pictures below are the beginnings of a progression in both the "unthinking" element and the "child" element. They allow me to make paintings for the feeling more than the look, and the look is more visceral as a result.

oddish zine (in progress)