TITLE :
The deconstruction and reconstruction on Studio 11 sculpture in which I will explore my process through the multiplicities of space and materiality with a critical, theoretical and contextual consideration.
NB. The paragraphs within this work found in italics are taken from my artists profile which is a descriptive piece of writing which was written with The Hand Held Publication in mind, a book which has been produced showcasing the work of the second year Fine art students.
Figure 1 :
Spectator Clementina Archadinho and Studio 11 structure made from found detritus.
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.
(Year 2, Dowley, 2012, p14)
I make process based sculptural structures using found detritus collected from the roadside on my everyday journeys. These materials are familiar and recognisable. To name a few they are plastic, rubber, electrical wire, tyres, broken wooden palettes and the residues of peoples labour. (Figures 2 & 3) I take these resources into my place of work, Studio 11, where I manipulate, assemble, stretch and place them in multiple combinations as a way of exploring the objects materiality and how this affects the space in which these combinations sit. In my Art I want to give a voice to that which is expendable; people, products and space. This intention has its historical roots in the theories of Karl Marx and Henri Lefebvre and resonates with the contemporary work of the activists in the Upcycling movement. It also follows certain principles of Modernist thinking.
Figures 2 & 3 : (Dowley, 2012)
Studio 11 structure and accumulated materials awaiting deconstruction and artefact reconstruction for Contextual Research Project in which I will explore my process through the multiplicities of space and materiality with a critical, theoretical and contextual consideration.
For my exploration into the artefact I have deconstructed the structure as seen in figure 1 and with additional materials, re constructed the objects daily to create an ever changing sculpture which I have named A38 and it reflects, for me, some of the issues in modern life to which I am drawn to explore. These include the relationship of material to space, the throw away society, transience and transformation. (Figures 4 & 5)
Figures 4 & 5 : (Dowley, 2012)
Some of the objects of the deconstruction of Studio11 structure transform into the beginnings of an interior reflection of what will become A38.
Some of the above issues have been explored by the theorist Henri Lefebvre who brought much of Marxist political discourse into the 20th century and used the basis of this political ideology to describe the environmental impact of capitalism on the the ever expanding urban landscape. Lefebvre believed that the space in which we live is dictated by capitalism in order that it can keep control and reproduce itself.
(Social) space is a(social) product. In the present mode of production it forms a global reality, a process that exhorts commodities, money and capital. The space thus produced also serves as a tool of thought and of action; that in addition to being a means of production it is also a means of control and hence of domination.(Lefebvre, 1999 p26)
Lefebvre’s observations can be seen and experienced in an urban sprawl of shopping centers, industrial areas and the vast network of transport highways. Like Lefebvre I see the road networks as a visible, spatial aspect of an alienated society.
Alienation is one of the corner stones of Marxist theory. In the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts written in 1844 Karl Marx described how in the capitalist mode of production workers are alienated from themselves and their rights to be self-governing. The worker exchanges his/her labour for a wage and in return produces a commodity which they have no relationship to but which is sold by the company to maximise profit for the owner and investors. Like the work he/ she produces, the workers themselves are a commodity, mostly low skilled and expendable, easily replaced and with little or no control over their working conditions.
In contrast, Marx suggests that human beings have a natural desire to work as a collective, for the good of the whole and on equal terms and this is what Marx referred to as unalienated Labour. Marx believed that to be alienated is to be separated from one's essential humanity which results in a lack of self-worth and sense of fulfillment. (Blundon, 2000)
Gilles Deleuze suggests that the recent process of globalization has taken this sense of alienation a stage further. Globalisation has evicted us from the world we thought we knew. (Buchanon and Lambert, 2008 p7). The road system is integral to this Globalisation. The A38 road between my home and Plymouth represents an artery pumping the blood of the capitalist economy. It connects workers to both their homes and to the economic system. But to these workers, the motorway systems, the spaces themselves becomes what Marc Auge refers to as exterior ‘non-places’, the only function seems to be to facilitate our passing through. They are, frictionless passageways designed as conduits. (Buchanon and Lambert, 2008 p 4 and 7). Daily thousands of lorries export and import products thousands of miles away from the workers who made them. The fresh produce with which we provision ourselves with is no longer grown by us.(Buchanon & Lambert 2008, p 17).
In A38, all the objects I use were born in the factory, the results of the alienated Labour that Marx describes and they have ended up discarded on the hard shoulder of the dual carriageway, this ‘non-place’.(Auge,1995 p79). Lefebvre suggests that, a communist revolution must not only change the relationship of the proletariat to the means of production, but also create a new spatilaisation. (O’Ruairc, 2003). In this work I am attempting to give these objects a new spatilaisation not just in the one-off building of a structure but in my intention to rebuild the sculpture again and again, constantly re-evaluating both the space and the objects, constantly giving them life and refocusing the attention of the viewer.
I hope this re-evaluation, this revival can help to draw us away from the numbness of non-places and into, as Michel de Certeau might describe a more alive relationship with our immediate interior ‘space’ where one has the liberty to experiment and try new things, to explore the potential of our humanness by reflecting aspects of the outside in and vice versa. (Figures 6 & 7: )
Figures 6 & 7 : (Dowley, 2012)
A38 metamorphoses into an ever changing exploration. The objects found in non places create new imaginary narratives that flow between the multifaceted aspects of space and time.
From the sourcing of my material to the finished product I am interested in what is marginalized, the places we find things, the things that we find and the spaces in which we put them. In A38 I highlight the space that is usually unseen, unnoticed and unvalued. I have placed and connected a mixture of heavy, light and crushed discarded objects in the Studio 11 space creating a fragmented, open, soaring structure. Is it the high tipped, floor to ceiling crescendo of inert 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? (Figures 7 and 8)
Figures 7 and 8 : (Dowley, 2012)
Situated meters in front of A 38 , in the usually unnoticed, unseen space above the evolving A38, hangs as if suspended in an imaginary interior sky, a chrome toy spitfire directing its small pink plastic propeller toward a small roll of looped parcel string that it could never pass through, if it were real.
One work that has influenced me is Spartacus Chetwynd’s, The Folding House, 2010. I saw this in the BAS7 exhibition and was very inspired by its towering presence, the look and the concept of the piece. I loved the fact that as a folding house, despite its size, it could be taken down and reassembled anywhere, this caught my imagination. In answer to my question above, the work soared up into the top of the room and succeeded in drawing my attention to that place where I never normally would look and although the piece dominated the room it did so in a gentle and magnanimous way.
Chetwynd’s use of reclaimed materials, old wood, window frames, doors, scaffolding boards and colourful material throws, which made it inviting and familiar resonated with me. In the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture 1909, Boccioni stated in his demand for artistic change, 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... (Boccioni sited by Krauss, 1977 p 291)
The use of everyday materials has its artistic roots in Modernist thought which included the intention to bring about a greater democracy to the Art process. It also included opening up the work more to the viewer's imagination and interpretation as well as expanding the artistic possibilities of the materials. It was a move away from elitism and a requirement for virtuosity and technique and towards the inclusion of the audience as a participant. If a spectator thinks he or she could create the work themselves a Modernist response may be, "great, well go ahead and do it, you too are an artist.”
Ben Highmore questions art work that takes from the everyday, is it an act of salvation to save the mundane from the negligence that surrounds it. (Highmore, 2002 p24). This is the question I am constantly asking myself as a contemporary artist. Vitriolic responses to contemporary artworks happen frequently. I would like to think that using everyday objects, ones that have been used and cast out as rubbish in an artwork is an act of salvation, however it could be that some people are just insulted and cannot understand why this should be called art. Perhaps for some people being confronted with objects that belong in the void reflects back a void, the one I am trying to highlight with a potential for salvation.
Figure 9 : (Dowley, 2012)
A potential for salvation?
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.
(Figures 9 and 10)
Figure 10 : (Dowley, 2012)
In A38 tyres, plastic, reclaimed timber are used like paint on canvas to confront the negligence that surrounds the everyday.
Lefebvre acknowledged that, the more economically developed a country is, the more gets thrown away and the faster it gets thrown away. (Lefebvre cited by Johnson, 2008 p 31). In the 2002 non-fiction book by German chemist, Michael Brian Grant and architect William McDonnell Cradle to Cradle, Remaking the Way We Make Things, the authors call for a radical change in the design industry and a move away from our cradle to grave mentality to the attitude that the title suggests, the cradle to cradle mentality which promotes a principle of designing objects to be reused, repaired or recycled.
This ‘Zero Waste’ principle is the central focus of the Upcycling movement. The maxim of this movement is, "one man's trash is another man's treasure." Upcycling is the process of taking rubbish, reusing it and giving it a greater value. It has also inspired activists and artists such as Jason Rogones and Rachel Whiteread who use discarded packing materials and Jessica Stockholder who concentrates on scavenging for domestic items.
In Spartacus Chetwynd’s Folding House she uses discarded everyday materials. However, unlike Chetwynd my sculpture is abstract, it invites the viewer to find new meanings in familiar objects placed in unexpected spatial relationships. Some of these objects hold a symbolic meaning for me and like Jessica Stockholder I bring elements of Cubism into the work in terms of how I organise the objects in space. I bring swathes of colour into the work through the use of large pieces of coloured plastic. The colours are of course dictated not by my own choice but by what's available on the side of the road to upcycle. This random aspect of the sourcing of the materials is both exciting and challenging, it is as if it is being co-created by the environment.
In Kurt Schwitter’s opinion, 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...(Schwitters cited by J.Elderfield,1985 p 32). In A38 familiar found objects transcend their status as waste and take on a new importance as they are evaluated against each other in the art work as can be seen in figure 10. My status as an artist gives me the freedom to relate to these objects in a completely different way than the factory workers that made them and to value them for their intrinsic worth rather than as expendable commodities. One only has to scratch the surface and inherent within any object is a massive archive of information. An abandoned tyre was once an assembly line produced functional object whose value was in whether it worked. We value it if it does the job and discard it if it doesn't. The process of the tyres production is as Marx would describe it unfulfilled alienated labour and in my hands the tyre becomes part of an art work, the process and result of which, represents fulfilled un-alienated labour which is almost the definition of freedom. (Collins, 2012 p18-20)
New narratives evolve
and take precedent
and somewhere from 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.
Figure 12 : (Dowley, 2012)
Figure 12 : (Dowley, 2012)
Found object sculptures can be made at relatively no cost and therefore make this kind of sculpture accessible and not reliant on income or funding. This is an important consideration for me and among other things allows me to remove or add new objects to the work on a daily basis which is a unique aspect of it. I wanted my work to reflect my daily changing landscape. Most people consider a stretch of motorway to be unchanging but it is the constant adding and removal of rubbish from its hard shoulders that draws my attention.
Conventionally, unlike music or theatre Art tends to have been produced as a finite product, a painting only ever changing its location or a sculpture, which is static. More recently, contemporary Artists have been creating work, which is intended to be temporary, destroyed after its’ exhibition life is over and not meant to have a future as an artefact. These works comment on a disposable society in which things get used and then disposed of, shredded, burnt or buried. My piece, A 38 explores the essence of the art object in a different way. The piece is not meant as an artefact or for construction and destruction but instead to survive in a constantly changing form.
A38 is a critique of the disposable society in that it at once shows the waste of consumerism but also implies new possibilities, in the words of Lefebvre, it begins by establishing dialectical links, reciprocities and implications rather than an unrelated hierarchy. (Johnston 2008 p 27) During my week of deconstructing and reconstructing the piece I was approached many times by my peers who began to tell me how elements of the work reminded them of their own histories by recounting stories from their childhood. They were attracted to come and sit inside it and some even wanted to bring in their own objects to add to the piece. It was as if people wanted to make it partly theirs. I think this feeling was encouraged by the fact that the structure kept changing and therefore proclaimed itself open to new possibilities.
Although there is a slightly cynical side to my work, as the impetus of this work was about giving a voice to ‘silence, the minority, marginalized, discarded, voiceless leftovers of lives, my life, ruled by consumption and alienation’, (Dowley, 2012) as I worked with the piece I began to transform my attitude into a more positive one. I saw the potential of the Art to encourage its audience to question the role of commodities in their own lives and ask themselves the question ‘’Are no longer functioning objects rubbish or resource?"
In Henri Lefebvre’s 1961 essay Clearing the Ground he states, a social group is characterised just as much by what it rejects as by what it consumes and assimilates.(Johnstone, 2008 p 26). In many societies objects simply change their function, everything is seen as a resource. Not only does this Zero Waste approach help create a more sustainable society but it also gives us each the opportunity and responsibility to be a creator and to ask with perhaps childlike excitement; ‘once the tyre has blown, what are we going to turn it into?
Reference list / bibliography
Auge, M., (1995) Non-Places Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity. UK :
Verso
[Accessed on 16th April, 16.37].
Buchanon., And Lambert., (ed). (2005) Deleuze and Space. GB: Edinburgh University Press
Collins, P., (2012). Great critics and their ideas: Art Review Magazine, 57, pp.18-20.
Dowley, D., 2012. Time, Space, Movement. Sculpture. Plymouth: Plymouth College of Art, Studio 11.
Dowley, D., 2012. A38. Sculpture. Plymouth: Plymouth College of Art, Studio 11.
Elderfield, J. (1995). Kurt Schwitters. London : Thames and Hudson
Highmore, B., (ed). (2002) The Everyday Life Reader. USA & Canada : Routledge
Johnstone,S., (ed). (2008) The Everyday Documents of Contemporary Art. Slovenia : White Chapel Ventures Ltd
Krauss, E., (1977). Passages in Modern Sculpture. USA : Viking Press
Lefebvre, H., (1991). Translated by N-Smith, D. The Production of Space. UK. Blackwell.
[Accessed on 16th April 17.53]
Year 2 (2012). Hand Held : A Portable Compact Translation. Plymouth.
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