closing it down...

This is the first time I've had a chance to sit down since I finished up with the performance side of this show, I've been that busy. Over the next couple of weeks I'll be editing down all the footage of my readings, so will post when they're online. In the meantime though, I'm having a closing party in Kelly's Garden tonight, so if you happen to be in the 'hood come past and warm your toes by the fire and your cocles with tasty mulled wine!!

the final week

Last week was very productive, read some things and built more...

I'll post the full list of readings later in the week, but for now you can see the progress in images.

the fire that burns

back in the garden

more rain and inclement weather

Here's a note from the Bureau of Meteorology. I'm really hoping tomorrow is a much nicer day, I'm very keen to get this work underway! Although I did get a bit of reading in, The New Situationists by Claire Doherty.

A low pressure system slowly moved northwards to the east of the state yesterday
and this morning which has brought rain statewide, heavier about the east and
southeast, with heavy highland snowfalls. Rain eased overnight, which then
tended to showers during this morning and cleared the central north and
northwest. Gale force southerly winds developed to the west of the low, with
gusts up to 124 km/h on Mt Wellington and 113 km/h at Maatsuyker Island during
yesterday, though gales have contracted to the east coast overnight, with gusts
up to 109 km/h at Eddystone and 85 km/h on Mt Wellington. Swells have decayed
from heavy to moderate south to southwesterly about the west, south and
southeast, and low westerly swell about the north. A moderate southerly swell is
gradually extending up the east coast.

more rain with gale-force conditions

My first two days with the work Establishing Situations have been grim, cold and wet. Today especially has been an extreme weather event kind of day: since 9am this morning there has been 7mm of rain, with wind gusts up to 70km/h and averaging around 40km/h. The temperature at the moment is 9.2 degrees with an apparent temperature of -0.5 degrees. It's really not the best weather for outdoor performative actions. I did take some video this morning so will upload that soon. In the menatime follow this link to see images of the ongoing installation.

Raining on the first day

My first day in Kelly's Garden for Establishing Situations with the minor technical difficulty of keeping electronic goods dry. I eventually succeeded and continued for a few more hours. After the rain stopped I was able to get out the power tools and added to the structure. To finish the day I read from Donald Judd's Specific Objects and Robert Morris' Notes on Sculpture I-III.

abstract for thesis report

I delivered a thesis report a couple of weeks ago and now that I've absorbed the feedback, I thought it was a good idea to put it online. This report will form the basis for the plan of the overall thesis. 

MIND THE GAP: A spatial enquiry into social and political space

This research project will re-examine the relationship between viewer and art object with regard to the social construction of space in a political context. It will focus on the creation of spaces and objects within a gallery environment that elicit a physical and psychological response. The intent is to investigate and question familiar notions of how the art object functions in relation to a social construction of space.

My work for this project references the art of the late-modernist period and utilizes a Minimal aesthetic, characterized by a human scale, non-representational objects and monochromatic surfaces. However the self-constructed, homebuilder nature of these works sets the project’s aesthetic apart from that of the Minimalist’s. The architectural aspect of this work also aims to create an environment that makes the viewer more aware of the space they inhabit.

Primary to my understanding of the construction of social space has been a reading of the philosopher Henri Lefebvre; his triad of perceived - conceived - lived spaces has formed the main context for my research into spatial experience. Geographer Doreen Massey’s writing on the interrelation between space and the political has also been integral as a new way of understanding the link between space, time, human movement and the construction of spatial relations.

My proposition is that the combination of Lefebvre’s three spatial arenas allows the contemporary artist to address known spatial conventions and so contribute to what the French political philosopher Jacques Rancière calls ‘the distribution of the sensible’. 

Via a cross-disciplinary, at times interactive approach my project questions the known conventions of social space and examines the ‘implicit laws’ of the gallery as a mediated arena for the construction of an experimental spatial practice. In activating this exchange, this investigation allows the viewer a ‘way in’ to an otherwise separate and privileged area articulated by and through its own customs and language.

Flying by the Seat of Your Pants: the process of making in a time-starved environment

Following a residency at Poimena Gallery in Launceston at the start of the year, my paper will address the symposium’s theme area of prior knowledge/new experience.  As part of the residency I was required to work with college age students from the Launceston Church Grammar School’s art department in order to ‘kick-start’ their thinking for the coming year and also produce a solo show during the time there.

My paper will outline the process of engagement by the students, running in conjunction with my own working methodologies, to produce a finished and resolved work in under two weeks.  Using the school grounds and Poimena Gallery as subjects for the project, my aim was to situate the work spatially in an environment familiar to the students so as to engage them in an understanding of their habitual movements.  By drawing mental maps of the school grounds that highlighted the spaces they spent most time, my work was planned to be a contour map of the use of the school’s environment.  The result of the project was a work containing three elements: an architectural intervention devised before the residency, a sculptural work made from my interpretation of the student’s mental maps and the students own work from the project.  My paper will conclude with an assessment of the successes and failures of working within a tight timeframe to produce an artwork incorporating data from a specific social group within their social environment.



websites and all that

So now my blog has moved from wordpress to this fantastic new site, I'm feeling all excited and like I could actually start to write on a regular basis.

At the moment I'm starting to formulate an abstract for a seminar at the end of May where I'll discuss two projects I have recently finished in regards to the creation and mediation of space. The ideas of Foucault, Bachelard and Doreen Massey are particularily petinent to the paper I will present.