Friday, June 29, 2007

... some more images

... actually that is for now the last one.

and now I won't pester you anymore...
would be great to get some feedback on my two other posts... I know I am asking for a lot at the moment...biggi

Project for E17 Art Trail - September 1-9

Hi Jon and Lisa,
I just wrote a really long message and lost it alllllll, which is very very annoying. Although I saved it I can't seem to access the text anymore. What a shame.
I actually wanted firstly say sorry Jon, that I am not responding to your posts recently. Always find your texts so interesting that I want to take my time over them and then never seem to get the time. So please be patient with me.
Secondly I wanted to ask you both if you are interested in working with me on a project which is due in September. It involves those and similar images and sound/voice clips. This will be hopefully displayed in a DIY store in Walthamstow. The sound/voice will be necessary to draw people out of their shopping mode and into the world of art - realising that the sound/voice is something unusual. I will talk to you or send you an email about this. Lisa I would love to have your input as a sound art specialist and want to borrow your lovely voice. Jon I would love to ask you to write a text for me... But of course I am very happy and would feel honoured if we actually work properly as a collaboration ... anyway we will chat more about this. The other text I had written was more into detail - but am now too fed up to repeat... will post some more images. xxxxxx



how is every one .

hi im back , sorry i have been out of the loop but i have been checking from distance how all of you getting on .
when shall we all get toghether im living on the 22 july for 2 months to italy , people can visit if they would like .
let also organize a get toghether here and remmember wenesday is best for biggi. x x franko

Thursday, June 28, 2007

fallen dreams

hello all,
Lisa, a huge thank you for coming out to stevenage and helping me with the nerves and video; your smile and warmth meant everything. I said that the piece is a work in progess and so it is.
The images are taken by me as stills around the installation, there is dvd footage but i have yet to discover how i copy to my machine and onto the blog (but then again maybe not as my rant is once again about consumerism etc


the performance starts (spoken by somebody else)

The year is 2060
The date 6th June
The planet is trying to recover from the ruin

Performance
I awake, climb out from my coverings There is a fire in the copper)still working on this as next time i light the fire
I cough and splutter from the pollutants smothering
I rant whilst I continue to build my shelter, beat the copper, have a wash...

I shout
I scream
What made them buy that throw away dream?
What was the meaning of their consumerist daydreaming?
Whilst cruising the internet for all of their jollies
Spending on borrowed lolly
Ramp up the heat
Block out the sun
As we stand here on the edge of the new evolution

I Move to fire and beat out the copper with hammer
Why do I wait for the sky to perspire?
My throat is parched
It feels on fire
When the drops do fall from the clouds above
Polluted they are from the consumerist lust
They poison the planet with all of their chemicals
Us bloody Homo Sapiens think we know it all

I move to the willow wall
That was the reason where it all went wrong
We did not listen to the warning about the pollution
Our governments were too busy
Building the weapons of mass destruction
Paid for by corruption
To fight the battle
This makes my mind rattle

I move to the buckets
Was that the solution
Never mind now
It is too late
For it happened
I’m too tired now
I’m feeling week
In the mirror I see my furrowed brow
Inside I feel humble and meek
i move back to the shelter
All of the troubles
Was it worth it?
I shout
I scream
I’ll go to sleep



there is a lot more work to do on this, feedback would be useful. I aim to recall a visit to stevenage for all and artsadmin etal in september.

I'll be away for most of july on a get away from it all... no computer, have mobile phone heading to north wales on the canal system. (at least i can pee overboard)

big hugs for now

Jon

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Philosopy vs Psychology in Art

Hi all,
I have a question that is pestering me since years.

Why seems Philosophy more valid than Psychology in the Art practice?
(the answer that both are valid in the same way doesn't seem to hold up. And please don't suggest to work in the field of psychology - because that is escapism and doesn't satisfy me)

Psychology has always intrigued me more and interested me more than Philosophy. Always when I referenced Psychology I got a slap on my hand that I needed more Philosophy to back my practice up. History has been a very important aspect to my work as well - so why does Philosophy seem to occupy the throne in the reputable world of art making???

:-/ Biggi

Biggi's challenge

Hi all,
here are the questions I am currently fighting with in regards to my practice and the images I have posted earlier.

1. Am I using people as a decoy to deal with my own shit?

My subject matter seems universal. Everyone is fighting with anxieties on basic levels. I find it boring to only put myself through it - for others to watch - it's too easy to detach yourself as a viewer and deal with it in a theoretical way. I think it is interesting because we think we know everything about ourselves but are then sometimes surprised how we react under "unusual" conditions. Maybe I want to draw us out of our own securities [Tino Seghal - ICA piece] and give us a space to explore ourselves in a secure environment. [Roman Ondak - Tate Modern piece]. I think that I don't have to answer the question why I do that kind of work to others but not myself - because I do work that puts myself into the spotlight as well [Eat Art Party] while others are the catalysts of both their and my experience. I guess it is a kind of experimential space. My intention is that no-one is forced to participate - although I don't want to give too much leaway for everyone to be able to avoid it. I don't want to make comfortable work - I want to challenge.

2. Is there a moralistic stance to it?

No, because I am not judging anyone. I am not asking anybody else to judge. Maybe my work is more about the encouragement to accept that no-one is perfect and there are things we can't predict. Neither do I help people to overcome their particular fears, nor is my work a therapy option. I am using set-ups that are based on my personal experiences on a very basic level - so I assume the work is not really about my personal shit but the relatively universal shit. It works for some people - for others it doesn't, depending on a lot of factors.

3. What do I do that work for and why?

We are living in a fast society where we rarely get any time for reflection - if we have that window we often don't take the chance but occupy ourselves with other matters. I guess I am trying to open a time window for personal experience and for reflection. Art is for reflection - you enter a space - to have an experience - not an every day experience. You expose yourself to whatever you encounter. It seems my work has to live in an environment where people are ready to experience something less ordinary - or better an "experience out of context". It will already narrow the participants down to those more willing to participate. I want the visitors to take away an experience which is hopefully thought provoking. A painter can do this too - I am choosing a different medium.

/////////

Now to everyone who read these questions and answers - please feel free to dig into those and ask further questions - give suggestions - or challenge me. I want to get ready for my MA applications in Winter - so need to squeeze my brain and need to explore some valid essentials to my work.

Thank you all.
xxxxxxxx

Thursday, June 14, 2007

official invite and the last try.

A Stevenage gathering

Hello people,

open studios and stevenage.
still happening?
23/24th june is the weekend.

fairlands farm,
fairlands way,
stevenage,
SG11NU is the address.

to all of you, rachel had mentioned camping over. this is a possibility although we have to be quiet about it so if your interested in this please call me on my mobile 07747 897429 you never know we could document something for the live art development agency....

directions for people on foot can be found under the comments on a stevenage gathering.

Please let me know or oganise between yourselves what is happening. franko had suggested i believe in february that this was my choice of a day out I posted on the blog over various months.

franko, good luck with moving your work across to italy sorry you can not make the open studios, the research material has given me food for thought, could you ring me regarding a possible visit to your place in july/august.

121 boys and girls

jaccobs and will where are you? please ring me . x x franko

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Speech experiment and Mirror piece (during my Island residency in May)
I would like to just discuss the reason behind my work. Franko had asked me some questions in regards to my practice. I would like to put some answers on the blog to be challenged by you. Some of the answers don't have enough umpf but that's the reason why I want to put them on here.
It becomes now very clear that my work is based on participatory performances - possibly one 2 one at a later stage. I realised that my work is always going back to being a kind of installation, where people go in and are encountered with an experience.
One work I was during that residency was the Mirror piece: people were invited to sit in front of a mirror and stare at themselves for five minutes - without moving the head. Behind the mirror was a camera situated. Participants were shown the camera so they were fully aware that they were being filmed.

The video was then edited which showed the sitters 2mins each staring into the camera and blending out when they were told that the mins are over. The video has no sound. It was projected during an exhibition against the blank white wall in a naturally lit space so it looked quite faint on the wall.




The other piece I experimented with was the Speech piece:
Participants were not briefed about the nature of the piece. Each person was individually lead into the space by the artist, onto the platform and into the spot light (a camera woman was filming the event). "How would you like to
be called?" The artist asked the participant, who was then introduced to the audience by their chosen name. The artist then turned to the participant on the platform and explained loudly that he/she would have to answer five questions, could though refuse to answer at any stage - but would have to provide in the end answers to five questions. After having answered five questions, the participant was then lead down from the stage to a chair to sit down within the audience and take on the role of the interrogator. The next participant who had been waiting outside was then lead in and up to the platform into the spotlight to go through the same ritual.
These were the two pieces I was working on and now I am at a stage where I need to crack down to the nitty gritty bit. They both were successful in their way they were set up and in regards to the wanted impact. Although both pieces had very simple set-ups they were to some extend irritating and challenging for some more than others.
I will post the questions separately later on today or tomorrow to give the work some space.
Would be great to get some feedback on your thougths - would have been of course great if you guys would have had the chance to experience them yourselves.
:-)
Biggi

Labels:

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

art circles in london and abroad...

Friday, June 08, 2007

Mr Will

Will could you please post your email on the blog, there is a project I would like to discuss with you, thanks...

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

A Stevenage gathering

Hello people,

katherine your words are always so thoughtful, reading your posts make me feel like i'm there in the room with you. You mentioned open studios and stevenage. yes this is still happening.

23/24th june is the weekend. fairlands farm, fairlands way, stevenage, SG11NU is the address.

to all of you, rachel had mentioned camping over. this is a possibility although we have to be quiet about it so if your interested in this please call me on my mobile 07747 897429

you never know we could document something for the live art development agency....

other than that you can get me by e-mail or phone as got my head down over the next couple of weeks on community projects making an 8ftx8ft recycled chess set to go on exhibtion in our town gallery in July, working with 14/15 yrs from one of our local schools. the set is based on myths fantasy and legends.

in a strange way I'm really looking froward to this project as it's a chance to get all 3 dimensional again with a load of recycled material, plaster and papier mache.

hope to hear from some of you soon.

hugs jon

PS on the note of my bladder, still pissing for england and waiting for more appointments to come through, a word of advice... don't touch any of my painted works the water may have been recycled :o) things are improving as now on tablets to help overcome the flow problem so starting to try and travel again.

Monday, June 04, 2007



Hello

My apologies for being a little on the quiet side recently….I guess I just felt like being quiet and still for a while. I have been reading though, and it is good to feel pulled in by the blog and excited just reading…

There are things I wanted to throw into the pot, but I will come back to these shortly.

I thought I would post a couple of images…somehow they seem to hold an affinity to how I feel at the moment….from the performance at EEC at the beginning of May.

Life feels out of sync at the moment…”mind the gap between your thoughts and reality” someone used to say this to me frequently…I don’t want to though. I am unsettled at work. I was given a really positive initial reaction to reducing my hours at work, in order to be able to be at Wysing for at least two days a week….now it seems this might not be the case…I am looking elsewhere, so it feels a little unsettling…the person I sit next to at work keeps saying that everyone goes through times at work when they’re not so happy….I don’t want to sit in an office feeling like everything that excites me is outside the door…I refuse to accept that this is it…I want my life to be beautiful, and I know it can be, it is at times…and it is about searching for that, knowing not to accept something that isn’t that…

The performance at EEC was a really positive experience. I felt really anxious, but I think, if I’m honest, it’s the first time that I have looked back and felt so excited by a piece of work that is live…..because it is not known, it has thrown up ideas and images that were unexpected….because in the images I have, I am surprised and engaged…for me, they are really beautiful…not in a familiar sense, but because they are like an unexpected by-product….less definite, less defined and immediate…

And maybe because there is a sense of balance…

I keep coming back to this word defiant when I am scribbling down notes. I want that in my work. Defiance…in fact I am not even certain I know what that means…but I want the work to be unashamed, unreserved and not held back…

A quiet physicality that expands one’s thinking….I come back to that thought that thinking through the work is better for me, that the work would emerge if I give it time…

It was really interesting to read about being anxious and not feeling confident to invite people to work…Biggi, I guess in a way I can relate to your post, but also to the responses posted later…but I also can’t help thinking that the anxiety, and the doubt and the (sometimes) sense of inadequacy is drawn into the work…( I use the word inadequacy, more of something from me, rather than something you have said, and certainly not something I have thought about you or your work!)…

Franko, confidence was something that came up in those few days around EEC when I saw you….do you think it is about strategy? I think it is true to say that sometimes I feel like a genius at work…not because it’s big or clever, but because the genuine excitement and, well engagement, (yes, I do overuse that word), makes me feel like I do have this relationship with the work that means confidence is totally and utterly irrelevant, it isn’t in the slightest way a conscious thought, because the work is just there and it’s just you and the work. I suppose it is putting it out there, trying to engage someone else in this precious relationship that feels more conscious, and therefore more difficult too…..but I am still not sure it is such a conscious feeling….and then the other side of the scale is feeling like an utter failure….which I think comes less from the work, and more from me…and it difficult to articulate what one means by such a weighty word, other than a sense of losing oneself and that relationship to the work….(an, yes, rejections don’t seem to help…)

I want my work to be quiet and intimate and subtle. And I want my relationship with it, which is all these things to also be present for other people….but go beyond what I can be with it…

So, in one sense I don’t have a particularly constructive response to your post Biggi….other than that to believe in the work for yourself is so very important, which I guess is not something you need to be told in the slightest, but other than that I do not know what else to say…hmm, suddenly writing this here actually makes it less easy to get out any words…but I would be interested to speak to you more in person about it.


When I do not write on the blog for a while I forget how precious it is…how much it opens up one way in which I engage with you as a group of people, as a way of thinking about my own work, and how life is more generally….

….and as clichéd as it is, life feels that bit closer than it did at three o’clock this afternoon when I was sat looking at bank accounts at work this afternoon, for coming back to what is important in my life, and being able to share and throw it out there….



It would be lovely to meet up with everyone soon. It was mentioned a meeting in Stevenage near Jon? Is this still on? Dates….? I’m definitely up for it, looking forward to it…

With love

Katherine.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

good news ..

HELLO EVERY ONE I FINDED A SMALL GALLERY THAT AS AGREED TO GIVE US A LITLE SHOW [ EVERY BODY FROM THIS AND LAST YEAR MENTORING GROUP WILL BE IN ..]
LEST TALK ABOUT IT . THIS IS SCEDULED FROM MID DECEMBER TILL END OF JANNUARY 2008./
THE GALLERY IS CALLED WHITECROSS GALLERY IN EC1 .
please dont contact the gallery yet is as to be done troug me ..
x x x