Freize magazine interview...

This project was inspired by the 20th anniversary issue of Frieze magazine, discussing how art had changed in the past 20 years. In the back of the magazine is an interview with itself, looking at it's own 20 years as a magazine by answering questions about it's current state and opinons. Having just turned twenty myself (November 12th 2011) I thought it could be useful to answer the same questions myself:

How old are you?

Twenty.

What images keep you company in the space where you work?

In the flat; photos of family and friends, art books/sketchbooks, Arctic monkeys poster, club nights and university advertisements, inspiration for work.
At my family home; family and friend photos, my own previous work, CDs and DVDs, gig and theatre tickets, television, two radios.

What was the first piece of art that really mattered to you?
Roy Lichtenstein - Whaam!, Leonid Afremov - Today I Forgot My Umbrella, and Giambologna's marble 'Statue Hercules Killing the Centaur' in Florence.

 

What is your favourite title of an artwork?

'An Oak Tree'.

What do you wish you knew?

What is art? What I want to do in life? My  grand parents. Freize's answer 'The answers to the questions I don't have the  answers to.'

What's your favourite journeys?

Pulling into Liverpool Street Station. Anywhere by plane. Late night car journeys to the airport. Train journey into Edinburgh. London Euston to Birmingham New Street. The road less taken. Home.

What should change?

Rudeness. People giving me disapproving looks when I say I'm taking a degree in Art. People giving me disapproving looks when I say I'm taking a degree at BCU. Ungrateful people. The weather.

What should stay the same?

My Life. My family. My friends. Unexpected acts of kindness. University fees. 

What could you imagine doing if you didn't do what you do?
Training to be a maths teacher. Travel the world. Interior Designer. 

what music are  you listening to?

Arctic Monkeys. The Vaccines. Friendly Fires. Radio 1. Metronomy. Lena Del Ray.

What are you reading?

Frieze magazine. ID. Elle. Art in Theory. Lecture notes. Everything by Nick Hornby.

What do you like the look of?

City skylines - day and night. Natural landscapes on a clear day. Graphic novels. Clothes that I want. My room when tidied. Finished work. The BCU logo. Rain on a car/train window. Looking down on clouds. Tacky Christmas jumpers.

Other practical work...

Along with the work that I had shown in my tutorials I have been producing/recording other work as well. One of the ideas I had early on was the recording of construction happening in my environment to show it's creation into a static object that would later become just another building in my vision when walking/driving//taking a journey to what ever destination. Like a humans existence a building has a lifespan, birth, a purpose and a death.

 Something that caught my eye recently was the construction of the new BIAD (Birmingham Institute of Art and Design) building for several reasons; it is part of my university, it is on my journey into town and to my own university building, it is in sight of my current accommodation, the construction has disturbed my normal route into town and a lot of my flatmates use the current BIAD building as part of their course. All of these components make, what will soon be just another building for me to walk by, impossible to ignore. At the moment the university have put a webcam on the side of the Millennium Point Building, located next to the construction site which will soon have a bridge joining the two buildings together. What I liked about this set up is that you can see the development of the building happening everyday but also that in the top right hand corner you can see my accommodation, the same setting that the film of the trains has been taken from and the photographs of the living room and bedroom have been taken in.

Like my photographs of my bedroom and living everyday I have been recording, in screen shots, the construction of the new BIAD building. Like my previous photos, the more I take the more it becomes a series showing the movement and the build up of the creation of this building, however unlike my previous photos showing the existence of a presence in that room these images look like the growth of a living object, like a plant it builds, moves and is active. I have noticed that when the scene becomes dark the light tends to bounce off surrounding objects obstructing the view of the construction, but these reflections of light add to a beauty to the images and emphasise the idea that they it is something that can't be controlled, as though even when the workers have gone home and the construction has stopped for the night the building is not sleeping but in fact coming alive.

Once I have a large collection of these images I could see if they work best as a series to go alongside my other series, or to experiment with the idea of overlapping and editing the images like Grazia Toderi to make a more appealing an hypnotising image. This would fit into the direction my project seems to be going into at the moment which is making an everyday moment or moments become special by highlighting it's insignificance and focusing on it's existence.

On Kawara...

Another artist my tutor suggested was On Kawara. When looking up his work most of what you find is dates written painted onto a plain canvas. When reading an article by The Gaudian I found that these dates are significant in relation to the day they were painted. All are started an completed on the day that is written on the them, All are Sunday and all of course are in his life time. In total On Kawara has completed over 2000 of these paintings in relation to his where abouts and location.

In the early days, having started this idea in the 60's, each painting is accompanied by a newspaper clipping from that day, however he stopped this for an unknown reason. One theory is that he may have felt that the clipping gave too much away or implied something else. 

Something else On Kawara would do would be to sent out telegrams to people he knew simply saying 'I am still alive'. This would be a physical piece of factual information stating the time and date that it was sent as a form of his existence. Along with these were postcards with his own stamp saying 'I got up at...' and the time that he got up that day. 

None of these works appear to be very personal, all in a uniform font with minimal information. Fact based. However they are all in relation to where On Kawara was at that very moment at that time, not only does he include the date but also his location by changing the format or language of his paintings to the country he is in. The postcards all have images of his location and the telegrams would say where they have been sent from. 

Individually On Kawara works make no sense or are easily dismissed, but together you have a record of some ones life. In effect I see the 'today' series as a living artwork, it may not jump out at you or come alive as such, but it has only been around for as long as On Kawara and when he dies it will finally finish. Nothing could be more appropriate to look at along side my project than a series of works recording some ones existence which is exactly what On Kawara's works do. One of the questions in The Guardians article was 'Can you prove that you were alive?' which is exactly what I intend on exploring.

'On Kawara creates his own memorial every day, in the eloquent silences of his works. He exists, and his art is the proof of it.'

Micheal Craig-Martin...

During my tutorial my tutor mentioned Michael Craig-Martin, saying that some of my sketches reminded her him from the style but also that they were of inanimate objects. Along with these style drawings something that Craig-Martin is famous for is his piece called 'The Oak Tree'. The works appears to be a glass of water in a glass shelf with a piece of text. However the artist, Michael Craig-Martin, tells you that it is an oak tree. The idea is along the same as Marcel Duchamps in that Craig-Martin is highlighting the power of the artist, in that they can take any item and call it art. Here Craig-Martin had presented a glass filled with water and told us it is an oak tree, he even provides the questions and answers behind the piece to  prove that it is in fact an oak tree. This explanation gives a significance and new meaning to this everyday item which coincides with what my sketches and photos of my everyday life do when I have a series of them.

Whilst researching Craig-Martin I found out that his parents sent him to a catholic school where stained glass windows were brought to his attention as a focus on religious imagery. I can't help but notice the similarities between Craig-Martins work and that of a stained glass window. This could be something to consider in my own work. By making a stained glass window you are automatically making that scene has some form of significance and value. So far my tutor has mentioned the idea that by drawing attention to the mundane and everyday items in my sketches I am given them a form of value and so making those forgettable scenarios that  happen everyday special. If I were to then turn those scenes I have collected into a form of stained glass window, whether that be the literal or to make a painting (like Craig-Martins) or anything that  is easily recognisable as being related to the religious art form, then it would give the work and context even more significance. People viewing the work would question the worth of these items or scenes, giving me, the artist, the power to determine that this is worthy of art.

Tutorial...

In my latest tutorial (Tuesday 8th November) I showed my tutor the actual footage from my camera (which I unfortunately can't upload onto here at the moment, probably need to figure out formatting etc). But the footage I showed to my tutor hadn't been completely edited. I wanted the  footage from outside my living room window to be snipped into clips where the trains go past but with no gaps in between. I did this as I wasn't sure if the gaps in the film would work, especially as I had about 9 hours worth of footage I thought it would be good to focus on what the film was about. However when I showed what I had produced to my tutor so far what drew her into in was the pauses in between, in those moments nothing changes in the scene, everything is still until a train goes past and disturbs it all, catching your attention.

It was watching this that made my tutor question whether cutting down the footage was such a good idea. I collected my footage in 40 minute segments (as that's all that my camera can capture at one time). My tutor suggested to perhaps play all the 40 minute segments at one time on different screens to see the comparisons of the days. Another possibility would be to play it as one continuous 8/9 hour film played in the background of whatever chosen setting. I could also experiment with how the film could be displayed; projection, screen, audio, no audio? Only by trying these options can I find out what works best, which includes continuing editing the footage down to just trains so I can compare it to what else I try.

I have also continued to take photographs of my room and living room day and night. The more I take the more interesting it becomes. As a series the differences between the images become more obvious and so provide the evidence of some one having existed in that space. The more images I collect the more this will become apparent. Like Grazia Toderi's Orbite Rosse (Red Orbits) see the differences make the whole collection come alive. The decision again is how to be displayed, as a series, a film, stopmotion, overlapping? Only time will tell, but for now I will keep on collecting. It is an on going project but it can stop and show a moment in time.

Bedroom.

Living Room.

The final thing I showed to my tutor was a collection of sketches I had produced over the previous days. Each are an image from my own perspective. Drawings of meaningless things that I wouldn't normally notice but are always there, always a part of my day and most importantly, leave a trace of my day.

I unintentionally drew each in a different style, perhaps this reflects my mood or my patience at the time. I like that it adds a question to the simplicity of the context. I initially decided to make these drawings as a way of showing my view on my existence as a change from recording from an outsiders perspective. Now I can only imagine them being shown along side my images of my room and living room, as they are so clearly different angles of the same room. 

Ellie Harrison...

Ellie Harrison Curated an exhibtion called Day To Day Data it 'exhibited newly commissioned work by twenty artists, encompassing a wide breadth of working practice and presenting an extensive survey of imaginative methods of data visualisation, through different media.' 
On the Artdoxa website there is video footage of Ellie Harrison's installation for Day To Day Data:

 

The website described this video/installation as a 'Film showing a photographic mock-up documenting the installation of the Daily Data Display Wall at Angel Row Gallery in Nottingham in 2005. The appearance of the Daily Data Display Wall changed every day of the exhibition according to data collected about my life the previous day and emailed to the gallery each morning. The Daily Data Logger character appeared on the monitor in the centre of the installation to explain to the audience which aspects of the data each of the 20 different objects represented.'

Harrison's dedication to collecting the data is what makes this installation so interesting, the detail of information is so elaborate that you get to learn a lot about it's author, even though it's tedious, meaningless information that could easily be forgotten in some ones day, it is what makes that person. Which is what makes this approach perfect for my project.

Grazia Toderi...

Like George Shaw I had seen Grazia Toderi's work before at the Walsall Art Gallery on 19th October last year in the Metropolis Exhibition. Like Shaw's work it was interesting to see what I thought of the peice before researching further; 'Have to stand back to take in the whole image - real or not real?', 'Overlapping of different images to create a different landscape', 'The ovals and scene remind me of aeroplane windows at night'. 

My tutor told me that the piece was a recording of the festival in Venice 'La Benniale', overlapped and moving slowly so you just see this haze of pinks and purples that make this beautiful picture. When you look closer you see how it is actually an image of a city from a far off distance, as the light moves the place comes alive and hypnotising. I could edit my footage to change the colour or overlap it to create a new image like Toderi.

George Shaw...

After I looked up George Shaw I realised I had seen  his work before at the Frieze Art Fair in 2010. I had even made a point of selecting his work to put into my sketch book due to it's relation to my project then. I had added notes "All the images look deserted and unattractive, cold and lonely. Scenes similar to what you imagine a homeless person living in - Only the houses look like they have been lived in and have been left alone.'  

It was interesting reading what my initial impression of his work was before reading up what the pieces were actually about. Like Edgar Martins exhibition the houses look like they have been abandoned. When reading up on George Shaw I found that he chose these images from the Coventry council estate he grew up in. I like the idea of these derelict places being made somewhere of importance and gaining sentimental value through Shaw's paintings.

All of his paintings are impressively realistic to the point where you have to look twice to check if it is in fact a photograph. This fascination with the process of his painting technique adds to the curiosity with the image itself. What would normally be a scene that you could walk by everyday without a second glance or may even call ugly has been turned into an image that you can't look away from. You look at every  detail and these undesirable locations become beautiful.

It could be interesting to take images from my film and turn them into paintings, drawings or prints like George Shaw. It could be done in his way of photorealism to make the use the exact same image but turn it into something beautiful, or in a style that is more obviously hand made to add an emotion/mood.