The Self-Isolation Residency 6th may 2020: Day 38

Exploring Sculpture No.4: 'Autograph', found objects, 2009,
Antony Clarkson

Although I have now started on the new work for my self-isolation residency tonight I will be returning to my occasional series exploring my sculpture to give the blog some extra texture and context. 'Autograph' is another piece of my kinetic sculpture, again utilising a clock as its 'heart'. I say heart because I do to some extent like to think of these kinetic sculptures as pseudo-lifeforms; as I referenced previously in my post about 'Spirituality Levels' and its Frankensteinian make up.  These kinetic-sculptures are all life forms in the spirit of the Great Victorian Age of discovery and invention; they hark back to Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula, and Jules Verne; all very inspirational authors to me and to many others today as the source of the 'steam punk' genre.

When I purchased the clock that I used to create 'Spirituality Levels' I was already thinking about the project that would eventually become 'Autograph'. I had for quite sometime been theorising about building a piece of kinetic sculpture around a clock where a 'prosthetic' extension added to the hour hand of the clock would press against the ground to drive the 'creature' forward. 'Autograph' was actually a great deal more that 'a piece' of kinetic sculpture', it was actually the final outcome of a project that went through several manifestations and also several names. The series began with the simple idea outlined above to 'push the clock along with its hands under the working title of the 'Wheelchairs series'. Over a period of experimentation this evolved into 'Marking Time', the forth evolution of the 'Wheelchairs series', these were clocks which could not only move themselves but through the addition of charcoal to the 'prosthetic' hands could mark their progress leaving a snail trail of charcoal lines behind them. As clocks are prosthetic devices for man, allowing us to keep track of time; so the extensions to the hands of the clock give it life, firstly by allowing it to move and secondly by allowing it's movements to be tracked as the object 'draws' its way forward.

The final incarnation of this project became 'Autograph', the piece had by this time derived a certain element of 'celebrity' within exhibitions and the culmination of this for me was to allow 'Autograph' some autonomy, to go out at future exhibitions where it would create 'autographed' photographs of itself signing them as it progressed through the exhibit space. A performance by a creature, acknowledging its audience of observers and leaving a tangible 'trace' for them to take away as a souvenir.