Enquiry: Testing your Boundaries Tutorials - LB
Tutorial documentation for Les Bicknell 04.02.19
Brainstorm of ideas and possibilities:
Poems in a bottle and throw them out to sea - don’t want to contribute to ocean pollution, would have to be biodegradable
Post to random address with a return address of course! - would need postage to be prepaid, what would they do with it? Is there an expectation of participation? How would you feel to have work thrust upon you? - would almost defo have a high failure/non-return rate.
Publish a book/pamphlet - group publication - was in process but has gone quiet. Now to explore my own personal publication. Researching poetry publications and recitals - not sure I’m ready for performance but we’ll see.
Skywriting - if only I had a plane?????? - other options: Drone? Banner? Drone with a banner? Sticker on the side of a plane!
Wrote poems in the toilet - illegal to vandalise property, could be down in chalk pen or something washable, they would only be seen for a short time and then wiped away.
Stickers - distribute - like the AC adverts around Dubai - again could be classed as vandalism. A lot of street artists have ‘tag’ stickers they use - see Fats and Katie Wilson etc.
Put them in pigeon holes - at my work and other peoples? Could I recruit friends to distribute pieces of work like stickers of postcards into their places of work?
Stand in a public place and recite without warning - performance piece - would anyone take notice? Does that matter? Would need to be documented so at least one guaranteed audience member.
Print on a massive banner and hang off the school - the house - neighbours house - a limited audience - school are up for use of some space though.
Postcards for purchase? - gifts. come back to the postage one above. Could place them in the community boards (was that one of Les’s ideas?), or in galleries and exhibitions around Dubai, would need a distraction - guerilla art.
Put it in the school newsletter - limited audience, not sure its the right boundary to test.
Embroidery on to clothes and wear it - or paint on to clothes (Ivanka Trump coat repercussions) or t-shirts and give them out. - labourers - free printed t-shirts - what does that say about me and my work, using my privilege?
Different words on t-shirts and move people about - make a video or a performance in a public place.
Submit a video for open calls - check craft council and art res programmes - a-n website. - from Elaine.
Possible collaboration with friend Ben - graphic design background - the boundary of working with others will be pushed!
Labour camps - reaction
Translate poetry into Hindi and distribute it in al Quoz
What does that contrast say - with regard to privilege?
The business card like the lucky-lucky girls - Tart cards - calling cards - stuck in windows of cars.
Implement on one stretch of road and then collect the next day and count, consider all collected as loved.
What would they say? - Pose a question... ‘we have collided. Is this art?’ ‘Bring your collisions to me, make me feel something’ ‘Are you able to break me? Let's collide and find out’ ‘You want me, my child wants uni tuition, call now’
A considered pause - I am a card stuck in your window.
What does it need to represent?
Human trafficking
Can we subvert that
Be funny
Without being illegal - defamation
The collision of ideals, lifestyles.
What emotional response do the cards envoke?
Guilt, lust, pity….
17th Jan 2019 - Tart card research and ‘pilgrimage’ to Tecom (now Barsha Heights):
Current drawing practice:
These are A4 graphite:
This is A3 graphite, being completed at work with an audience of pupils each session:
Nice little article written by a researcher:
https://wellcomecollection.org/articles/W6NvHSoAACYA0A72
These are fab and I'm envious that it has already been done like this, although I would not have come up with that idea:
https://www.wallpaper.com/art/sex-issue-type-tart-cards-0#pic_15033
These simply contain examples of 'Tart cards' from various locations:
https://dangerousminds.net/comments/london_calling_a_look_at_vintage_tart_cards_used_by_english_prostitutes
https://www.dissidentreality.com/galleries/tart-cards-prostitute-advertisement-cards/
Notes from the tutorial -
What do I want to gain from the opportunity
Don't make it fit if it doesn’t
Do things that are intriguing -
School news latter - the interest that that audience might have. Giving a visibility.
Use the class - a way in to thinking about challenging and changing
The dialogue is fascinating - enabling other people to see it or hear it - the value of art to evolve the thinking behind it. Give out a piece of work. People can come collect it, a give away of the pieces. Focus the audience into members of staff and the children etc on a daily.
What is success? Would it be the conversation with parents and guardians -
Free art - a political act - you don’t have a choice you have to take this. The conversations that people have.
Educational aspects - have the making projected - can it exist somewhere else? Project on to the windows me making the work. Project on to the windows - in the street the making - - on a street.
Recording the making - projecting it to be viewed - projecting the making on to the work being made. Very exciting - both there and not there - the thing that it is and the thing it will be.
Mark - really knows how to play - not getting arrested! There's a flow and a transgressive element to it - his interventions -
Battle drawing - tie hands opposite and draw a portrait -