Currents, situation-specific installation, space and polythene sheeting,
“Mirabel Studio Opening Event”, Manchester, December 2009.

During my MA studies in 2009 I moved my practice to the new Mirabel Studios Complex in Manchester. At the end of 2009 to mark our successful first season the resident artists organised our first Open Studio event.

“Mirabel Studios opened in August 2009 and has quickly become a hub of Manchester’s emerging artists, with graduates and Masters Students from the regions Art Schools including MMU, University of Salford, Liverpool John Moores and University of Huddersfield. The Open studio will take place in artist’s spaces and empty units throughout the maze-like building.”

In what at the time was one of these large empty units, which was also the main thoroughfare, I created Currents. Large polythene dust sheets were attached either side of an existing overhead electrical conduit creating a long narrow walkway as the only option when travelling through the space. The simple act of people walking through this caused the polythene to breathe and ripple as an effect of both the currents of air displaced by this passage and the currents of static electricity created by their movements. The claustrophobic nature of the space within echoed the “maze-like” nature of the building and the hazy light which filtered through the polythene had an unnerving effect on the observer, much like seeing a shadow through a shower curtain.

To be continued...

'The Fifth Column', situation-specificinstallation,  space expanded polystyrene and paint,
“Where the Garment Gapes”, The Triangle Shopping Centre, 2009.
 
The Fifth Column has become a definitive piece in the catalogue of my work; as it was probably one of the turning points at which the consideration of the exhibition space became as important as what is being exhibited therein.

“Here in a crack in the metropolis scrawlings, traces, objects, photographs, film and sound can be experienced. ‘The garment gapes and hints at what is hidden underneath. Between the contradictions are the gaps, reappearing and disappearing meaning, creating a texture of interpretation, a tissue of sensation.' This is a show of new work by artists from the MSoA Fine Art MA.”  (exhibiton catalogue text, 2009).

In The Fifth Column I for the first time approached the gallery space as a whole and responded with a piece designed to activate and stimulate it into a new and whole experience. Within the exhibition space there already existed, what purported to be “architectural” columns. However on closer examination I realised that they were indeed hollow, mere architectural facades. This fascinated me; the idea that something like the architecture of a space, which is supposed to be there for a reason and controls the way that people operate in a space, was not what it appeared to be. In response to this I came up with the idea of replicating another column and adding it to the space, but this one had to be more than just another facade, this one had to address the inconsistencies of the existing space and highlight them for the observer’s consideration.

This idea was achieved in two ways; the first one which was by the simple omission of the pieces exact nature from the exhibition guide.  The pieces name, my name and the materials used were listed but not the pieces form, dimensions or location, thus leaving the observer free to question exactly what I had added to the gallery. The second way was by the expedient of moving the column to a new location within the gallery on a regular basis; thus questioning the permanence of architecture and constantly changing the exhibition and the visitor’s experience of it.
it.

To be continued...

'Tension.’ situation-specific installation, found materials (cling-film and space),
The Holden Gallery, Manchester School of Art, 2009.

'Arch' was my first situation-specific installation; it was created when I was first beginning to consider ‘space’ as a medium in its own right. The space in question was actually a painting studio at Manchester School of Art and the two pieces of wood were off cuts left in during some renovation work. Coming across the space, empty, apart form these two pieces of wood, was enough to start me thinking about possible ways in intervene with the space in such a way as to increase the spectator’s apprehension of spaces.  And so Arch and a whole new way of thinking for me was born.

Once this idea of affecting a space and how people use it was born for me, I began to take more time to consider how people utilise spaces but without really being aware of them. My site-specific installations/interventions are often ways to make anonymous spaces speak for themselves in that, as far as possible I employ pre-existing features of a space which I then define, enhance or exaggerate.

‘Tension’, although it includes the addition of a ‘foreign’ material, the cling-film, is a good example of how I attempt to make a space speak, or in this case shout, by disrupting people’s daily usage of it. The Holden Gallery, although being an active and popular art gallery, is also a central space and busy thoroughfare around which many university departments and offices are arranged. Navigating the space are many desire lines connecting the shortest routes from As to Bs; to dislocate and inconvenience these journeys, especially by making an intervention from the most flimsy, transparent and disposable material I could access, would make people both re-evaluate the gallery and its raison-d’etre. The art gallery that people normally walk straight through without a thought, now has a wall across it, a wall which is also a piece of art. A wall made from such a material that, although, in itself, has no intrinsic value and could be swept aside with one finger, must be respected owning to its status as art.

To be continued..

'The Constant Library',  Volume XXII: "The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard"

"The idea for 'The Constant Library' follows on from a recent conversation considering which books had, and continue to have, the greatest affect my life in a variety of different ways. These are the books I can't live without and whenever possible I have a copy of with me wherever I travel in the world; my 'Constant Library."

It's taken a while for me to decide about this entry into The Constant Library; I've been considering for a while about including 'The Poetics of Space' but somehow it always seemed like a volume that was too esoteric and specialised for inclusion. However, as I design my new installation and revisit previous ones it now seems appropriate for inclusion. I had not read it when I created my first installations, so I can't say that it was influential in their conception. Once I did encounter it, and Bachelard's consideration of spaces, particularly Nests, Shells and Corners, I realised that my approach was strongly aligned to his thinking and that has given me even greater confidence in this area of my work.

'Arch.’ situation-specific installation, found materials (planks of wood and space),
Manchester School of Art 2009
 
Situation-specific installation.

Very soon now work from the Self-Isolation Residency will be going out to form an exhibition about the isolation of the artist, myself. Although a large part of this exhibition will be formed by my new paintings I am also working on a new Situation-specific installation to run alongside them. This piece is also being created to talk about the experience of isolation and ‘enclosure’; the working title for the piece.

Before I go into more detail about the actual new piece, I feel that I should probably begin here by explaining exactly what I mean by situation-specific installation and how it differs from site-specific installation, or at least from what site-specific installation has become. To begin with I am going to quote directly from the website tate.org.uk:

“The term site-specific refers to works of art designed specifically for a particular location and that has an interrelationship with the location.”

So far so good. But here’s where things get interesting:

“As a site-specific work of art is designed for a specific location, if it is removed from that location it loses all or a substantial part of its meaning.”

Now here in lies the problem with a great deal of what is referred to as site-specific installation, when such an installation has been successful in its original incarnation  artists have a tendency to pick it up and exhibit in other locations not really caring that a great deal of the original meaning was left behind. For me this displays sloppy, lazy and usually commercial thinking on the behalf of the “artist” in question. And it was because of this that I formulated the term Situation-specific as an alternative. The basic premise of the Tate definition of the site-specific holds true, “works of art designed specifically for a particular location and that has an interrelationship with the location”, but with a real enthesis on the latter section, “, if it is removed from that location it loses all or a substantial part of its meaning.”

But the word ‘situation’ also speaks about something great than just location in a way that the word ‘site’ never can. It speaks about timing, it speaks about emotion and feeling; this for me is why it is so vital that my situation-specific works are repeated, even if I return to exhibit in a gallery in which I have previously exhibited. Although the space may be the same I am not, I have changed, my ‘situation’ is different.

To be continued...

A Critical Mass of Memories: (Personal) Topographies.

topography /təˈpɒɡrəfi/
GEOGRAPHY 1. the arrangement of the natural and artificial physical features of an area. "the topography of the island"
ANATOMY•BIOLOGY 2. the distribution of parts or features on the surface of or within an organ or organism.
Definitions from Oxford Languages.
 
I live inside a box inside a box inside a box inside a box inside a box inside a box. The edges are sometimes distinct but often they’re blurred. Sometimes it’s easy to feel the boundaries, be they enfolding with care or with confinement. We seek refuge from the storm, or we yearn to escape to it. Sometimes its easy to slide through the barriers, to creep through doorways or even to peer through windows. Sometimes we can even tear the walls down or watch in dismay as they crumble or dissolve.

As we pass from box to box, we are assume that each box has its own, particular, features, its own, distinct, topography. But are these distinctions quite so particular? Are there not similarities in texture, nuance and colour? Are the topographies of the microcosm and the macrocosm really so very different? By describing one can we describe them all?

To be continued...