From the lecture:
This session was insightful but challenging. I went into the meeting with a lot of questions about who my audience is and what I want to do with my art…
From the lecture I made a few notes that captured my attention. I have not elaborated or added my own opinion to them yet as I need some more time. I will therefore add to this post at a later stage. Here are the things that stood out to me and I will have a closer look at them as time allows:
Exhibition of Stephen Willats called: ‘Questions about ourselves’ 1970’s.
- Open ended process.
- Operating as his own institution.
- Embodying it so that people can acquire a language.
Hannah Arendt 1958:
- contemplating action vs labor vs work vs production.
- Labor is different from work because it is lasting.
Some questions we need to ask:
- What am I doing?
- Who is it for?
- What is it related to?
- Function?
- What is your position?
The (historically) the order was: Artist – artwork – audience
Now things are more participatory and the order is: Producer – project – participant (the artist/[producer becomes a participant along with the audience). A good example of this is the work of Marina Abramovic who is a performance and conceptual artist.
Something to read: Clare Bishop 2011: Participation and spectacle: Where are we now?
Term: Relational aesthetics is a term coined by curator Nicolas Bourriaud 1996/8
An Artist collective called Group Material 1979 – 1996 with Joseph Kosuth – about dialogue.
The social turn – collaboration and its discontents – Clare Bishop.
From the videos in the lecture:
Julie Mehretu – 2017 Harlem church: I need to embed the painting with DNA so that I can respond from a deeper place. We are dealing with things we don’t have language for. She collaborates with music.
All of the above speaks to me!
Anicka Yi 2023 – Vulnerability and deterioration. Fragile. As humans we resist impermanence. We cannot discount how we are influenced by it all: AI, synthetic, organic. Biopolitics of our senses – smells forms identity.
Discussion in a small group with Lisa and Sissel:
There were two more videos. The last video called Screen Generation by Aaajiao was a bit strange and disturbing in some ways – however during our small group discussion I told Sissel and Lisa that perhaps the fact that I find that video so disturbing is because it represents the opposite of my personal values and of what I want my work to say. The video was about a lack of connection and a lack of belonging. It was clinical and cold. Perhaps this type of art can actually collaborate with my art and then reinforce my voice. What am I NOT? Just a thought.
Out discussion revolved around practicalities and where we would like to see our work. Sissel talked about her gallery space and that she could perhaps put a QR code at the location where her work was done. I thought that was great.
I talked about the fact that I wanted my work to be interactive with the audience and that I would like it to be a sensory experience. Perhaps smell and sound and taste and even movement can be incorporated to make the audience take part. I like seeing my work as a project and a process rather than an artwork. I like the idea that the audience can participate in the work.
One idea was that I could perhaps have an exhibition of my work in an empty house (echoing the HOME theme that I started with and ‘Body as a Home’). A home with a few rooms could serve as a great space. I would place work that has to do with the same ‘sense’ (ie smell, sound, taste, see, move, feel) in the same room – grouped by theme and sensory experience. I could for instance have a few headphones in the room that has my art that relates to sound and out hearing sense. In the room that has to do with smell I could have various candles I could make myself, infused with the aroma of the memory that relates to the paintings in that space. This still needs some thought but the idea is there – an interactive sensory experience together with the work. There is actually a cottage at the gate of the Jonkerhoek Nature reserve that can be rented. Jonkershoek nature reserve is where a lot of my running takes place and hence a lot of my inspiration. It is set in the most beautiful valley surrounded by the mountain range that is a constant source of inspiration to me an only 5km away from my house.
Sissel also told me about an exhibition where you had to mark your height on the wall of a gallery and as you looked around you could see all the people that took part in the same exercise. She said it made her feel like she was part of something bigger and that she was part of something. Then Lisa suggested that I could let people (who came to the exhibition) write down their current ruminating thoughts/worries/fears (anonymously) and that they can then hang it on a ‘tree’ of some sorts. This could serve as research for me but also as a kind of release for the people who participate. They will be able to look at what other people wrote and this in itself could be a positive experience…
Some food for thought…
Hayley:
We don’t have to answer all the questions. It is more about the questions that come from the work. The work is not the answer but by doing the work we are engaging with the problem/question in a positive way.
If we can describe our work well, we create a way in for others in a efficient way (we articulate efficiently).
I will continue to think about these questions and answer them here in the future:
- How do you want your audience to read/experience your work?
- Should it be shown in an intimate or public setting?
- Is the work connected to a broader social, political, economical, technological state of being?
- How should it be presented or documented?
- What are the risks?
- Which 3 sites could link to the context/theory of material of your practice?
- How can you present your work in a new and exciting way?
- What material interface connects best with your ideas and ongoing concerns within your practice?
- How can your work be disseminated to a broader and more varied audience?
These are great questions and I will aim to answer them as this unit progress.