ARTEFACT (1st thoughts and feedback)

ARTEFACT 

1st Short, rough draft of thoughts and tutorial feed back. The question I want answering  is “am I on the right track if it isn't an essay?”

“I find stuff, anything, everything and what this stuff has in common is that nobody wants it. 

It’s the left over leftovers, discarded objects not fit for a bin because if they were I wouldn't find them.

I especially covet objects from arterial economic highways along which I travel. Objects that have been altered by random acts of violence or abuse like the wheels of commerce rolling over drinks cans and animals, the space and life punched out, extinguished, flattened, ripped and torn.

This work is about giving a voice to silence, the minority, marginalized, discarded, voiceless leftovers of lives, my life, ruled by consumption and alienation.”

In the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture, Boccioni said ;

“ Destroy the literary and traditional ‘dignity’ of marble and bronze sculptures. Refuse to accept the exclusive nature of a single material in the construction of a sculptural whole. Insist that even 20 different types of materials can be used in a single work of art in order to achieve plastic movement. To mention a few examples; glass, wood, cardboard, iron, cement, hair, leather, cloth, mirrors, electric lights, etc.” (Krauss, 1977: pg. 291) original quote is taken from the Manifesto find the original quote)

I am going to look at the ‘spatial character of the sculptural task,’ (Krauss. 1977 :  pg.3.) the effects of materiality and randomness in the de construction of the Studio 11 structure and the re construction of the de constructed objects and materials with my focus on the idea of what makes a work of art. 

Inert heavy, light and crushed found discarded objects are placed and connected in space creating a fragmented, open, soaring structure. Is it the high tipped, floor to ceiling crescendo of inert heavy matter, fixed, balancing, lightly in space that attracts the curious gaze or is it the once un noticed everyday space it occupies. Without the material intervention does the spatial remain unseen and is this union created by the artist a God like act of creation and ultimately a potential starting point for change.

In Kurt Schwitters mind ‘a work of art comes into being through artistic evaluation of its elements. To artistically “evaluate” one element against the next is to unveil their basic spiritual content, because art itself is “a primordial concept, exalted as the godhead, inexplicable as life.” 

Environments metamorphose into  immense, dense, explosive minutiae of details as I move in my car through space, sitting quite still and yet moving at great speed. 

Space is a product of “interrelations from the immensity of the global down to the intimacy of the tiny” (Massey. 2005 : pg 9)

Found objects transcend, new narratives evolve and take precedent and somewhere in this gut level quagmire a glimmer of hope is born, a new life, elevated and projected up into an altered  reflection of the quagmire from which it came.

Dichotomies persist. I love the world its warm and beautiful and I’m so glad to be here, healthy, happy, loved and safe but I also hate the world, its ugly and full of pain and I long to escape and be free of the burdens of life.

What qualities am I looking for when these materials catch my eye? Narratives of past existence and future possibilities. They project their life into my visual mind because they stand out alone in juxtaposition to the environment.They enable me to create large sculptures for relatively no cost - plastic, rubber, wood, wire, felt, paint, popcorn all reflect aspects of modernity and  contemporary life. Objects that I associate with a consumptive, bored, over worked, un happy, throwaway, alienated society. 

Trillions of rubber tyres are being used and replaced every moment of everyday. Infinitesimal quantities of plastic bags and wrapping material are escaping landfill destinies. Discarded, tired, useless tyres, bereft of wheels, smooth, worn shredded and ripped wind propelled carriers become objects of Art and dumping runways are replaced with  exhibition rooms and quizzical glances.

Miro said,

“I understand that an Artist is someone who, in the midst of others silence, uses his/her own voice to say something and who makes sure that what he/she says is not useless, but is something useful to humankind.” (Miro exhibition information, Tate Modern, London)

What you see in this piece of work is a reflection of my day to day existence, this observation and my usefulness to humankind is that I clear the streets of debris and make comment on the very real need for larger bins. 

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Other ideas to look into?

As the component parts are detached and undone does the space also disappear. Does the space go back to what it was?

Explore the business of randomness. Is it truly random or are there others factors at work. I will take the work down and this will involve a systematic process, working from the top down. Maybe I can look into re-building the structure against gravity using the prop of the  wall for support - work from above to below? 

The materiality of the object informing its own composition and communication.

Duality   - Spatial v Material

Functional object (Past) - Its value is in whether it worked, did the job.

Functional Object (Present) - An object whose function is about commentary. Now its value is simply for itself and its relationship to its environment.

Marx - worker/ alienated labour/ object made for consumption, profit.

Artist - un alienated labour. An art work made for emotional need, comment on social disease.

We value it if it does the job and discard it if it doesn't. This relationship is consumer/ object. There is no value in the object outside of its function. Ths can be applied to the capitalist attitude towards human beings.. 
Similarly  just as the factory worker has no  personal relationship to the finished object (unlike the craftsman/ artist)

because of its mass produced nature and because of the middle process. 

Similarly the class system has created the middle classes to be the human equivalent of that process and it keeps the owning classes in an in human separateness from the people who produce their wealth.

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Tutorial - 15/03/2012

1. From my text - I am going to look at the ‘spatial character of the sculptural task,’ (Krauss. 1977 :  pg.3.) you could say Massey says.......
2. Whats missing is your voice in between these quotes

You have to show the reader not that you have found the quotes but that you have digested and understood them.

3.We want the citation but not the quote.

4. Students, when writing dissertations tend to use quote after quote, we don’t want quote after quote after quote. We want the citation so instead of saying - Space is a product of “interrelations from the immensity of the global down to the intimacy of the tiny”(Massey. 2005 : pg 9)

you would say in response to that I’m doing this. 

The sign post is to write to us as if we know less that you do so that these statements that you are making make sense to us because they seem to be quite jumpy.

So what you need to do in your own words is to infill those differences and in quite a simple way actually to link these deep ideas with your own voice. 

Me - So its like bringing the quote and my ideas and fusing them together.

That demonstrates that it is implicit to your understanding.

Its evident but we just need you to write it, its a way of writing, with this in mind. Think about the tone.....

I think its a matter of copying and pasting. With the sentence “I find stuff, anything, everything and what this stuff has in common is that nobody wants it. 

Have this in front of -Trillions of rubber tyres are being used and replaced every moment of everyday. 

Use it to back up what you have said. All the material here is useful just got to be more structured.

Me - Theres about 700 words here.

Yes you’ll need to do about 2500.

Me - so is this going to be an essay?

No you are writing to the artefact. Its a piece of writing which is written at depth but it writes to your artefact. 

Remember the external examiner has no idea what you are talking about and this is your way of telling anyone but us - this is what I did, this is how I did it and why I did it, this is what the theory is, where the work sits in the field of work your making.

Perec is a great source to use. There is a book called Restless Cities, The very first essay in it is called Detritus. 

Do you understand what Flotsam and Jetsam are? These are other terms you could look into. Flotsam is stuff that falls off boats and Jetsam is stuff has been jettisoned off of boats. A lot of people collect it. 

There are 2million rubber ducks that have fallen off a boat in the Segasso sea which is a sea within a sea. 2 million pieces of flotsam bobbing about, as an artist you would be interested in collecting those ducks.

D- I spent an afternoon this weekend collecting rubbish off of the beach, brightly coloured plastic things, a half eaten football top and one strap of a pair of braces. I was talking about the studio 11 sculpture while I was playing with these objects and thought about incorporating them in the next stage. They were worn and altered by the sea and were ugly and beautiful all at the same time. 

Yes the sea has transformed these things again into something else. 

D- And it will become something else again when they come into Studio 11.

All those other stories have been written into it. This is something we have been looking at - The Boat Project Hundreds of pieces of wood have been donated to create this piece of work, 1200 stories. 

So everything you find has a story. Everything has a narrative.

You have to keep it tight because you only have 2500 words.

Look at Perec, Restless Cities  (?) an essay called Detritus.

Flotsam and Jetsam floating ducks.

Boat Project by THe Lone Twins for Cultural Olympiad