Mon, 10 December 2018 - Enquiry: Testing your Boundaries begins - LB

Enquiry: Testing your Boundaries begins - LB

Les Bicknell - Testing your boundaries is intense

The work - where will it go, who would i want to see it

might start making new work that fits a different context - exhibiting work in a different context - out of the gallery - my thoughts - a publication or video or online

Reflective journal - document as it will probably fail but it will document the emails, site, installation etc to support thinking

group work - they are there for support - meeting to share, discuss, and respond, giving feedback - we are our own team - not exhibiting with them but supporting each other

The task is December to March - minimum of twice in contact with the group - 

Group 1 - TB, RT, JO, RF, JV

Group 2 - PN, KVW, MC, MZ, EC

Support - tutorials, seminars

Submit - the work, 

reflective writing - 750-1250 words focussed on the information and research around - the site is chosen, its situation, the audience, the decision-making process, the public engagement, a reflection on benefits and disadvantages for your practice - bibliography and Harvard referencing - evaluation of the task

10-12-2018 - intro

7-1-2019 - context

14-01-2019 self organised meeting

21-01-2019 - deadline to send images and text for tutorials to LB

4-02-2018 - tutorial with LB

11-02-2018 - self organised meeting

11-3-2018 - the journal - present the work

25 - 03- 2019 - student presentations

Testing boundaries - 

connections - who do you know?

1 - you - who do you have access to? - friends, family, extended network, what networks are you connected to ? what do they do? Where do they work/play? - curators, project spaces - odd places - opticians, libraries, place you walk past - 

2 - the work - what is your work about? what s it connected to? where do you see work like yours? 

your making - your context - 

social context - making and seeing work always takes place in some form of social context - the time and the place the work is made

audience for work - who is included/excluded/implicated on the way an 'image is produced, circulated, and consumed. - online, books, zines, publications

the role of the audience? do they need to do something? are they making their own work? do they move your work, do they become your team? do they reorganise?

political context - gender- race - ethnicity - sexual orientation - class - disability - religion

specific political issues - space where issues are engaged with

broad political issues

Personal context - biography- the narrative of the self - particular issues, what motivates you? your skills as an artist  - who cares? - what strategies do you use when the work is not going well? How do you relate to the forces that in part condition, what you know and in which you make? - do you have the expression to give someone a voice? become a conduit?

Critical/theoretical context - does your work relate to particular critical debates about contemporary art and design practices? 

particular critical debates

is your work informed by /engaged with/ contesting particular theoretical frameworks?

Historical context - understand how/whether your practice relates to a tradition, with a history - find a l=place that you are extending the lineage - become part of a tradition - 

work that os specific to a particular time

how knowledge relates to periods in time.

Geographical context - local, regional, national, international, global.

is the place where you make the work important to the work? 

do you make your work in relation to a particular place?

studio, home, church, city, rural, the space online, abstracted space.

Institutional context - OCA - MA Course - the course is informing the choices we make - 

your educational background and how that informs

professional background/experience

your family background /experience

What is the role of the institution?

Cultural context - a whole way of life - this relates to all categories - who are we?

more specifically, why where when etc

what activities do you engage with?

Mapping your practice - ant other contexts worth mapping? Importance, Overlapping, Change - evolution of practice - which contexts are under the terms listed

Break out room - talk about the slide  - who do you know? who do you have access to ? what networks do you have access to?

who do you have access to? 

friends, family, extended network….

what networks are you connected to?

what do they do?

where do they work/play?

MZ - PN - KVW - 

PN - english organisations, local art co-op, 

Mz - elevator art - already done

KVW - events company - events organisers - chef - small business owner - cafe owners - engineers on site - airport - art world people: curators, admin, other artists, gallery owners - radio/voice workers - 

Testing boundaries - 

use of existing systems v new systems

presentation - shop windows - waiting rooms, religious spaces, educational spaces, foyers of public spaces - captive audience in an existing group - pieces that will transform lives for a couple of weeks

shop fronts - empty shops - or existing shops - what is sold in the shop?

library - if the work is about text or narrative - 

sport - interaction - play - children - factories - industry - artist placement group - gardens - outdoors - public or private - open houses - open studios - 

change   format  of your work

translation...... scale, materials, projection, publishing, magazine, newspaper artists book, website..... billboard? antipollution - cleaning dirty things with images, grass - projection - projection mapping - Dubai lynx - lecturers

start - research - reflect - what do you offer/want - who = make contact -name  - consider - appropriateness - of opportunity - trust yourself 

Break - 

initial ideas - small groups - pre-mortum

initial ideas - publication - airport exhibition - cafe exhibition - 

flyering of publication - takeaway artworks - in the cafes - colouring for children - placemats - beermats (Les) - restaurant colouring in  - changing the audience to children or making artworks for adults to colour in - have a message and challenge the concept  - PREMORTUM - the group work - the fracturing of the dynamic - solo work keeps me accountable without the reliance of others - finance - demand - design --feedback from Les - text not an issue - adult colouring book - self-publishing 

EC - stickers - back projection in a space - anonymously - post-mortum - littering fine - is there feedback - is it clear in the message  - not finding the right space, working in the proportions, visibility, work not ready to be shown. Guerilla projection? derelict space - anti-social spaces - forcing a conclusion

RF - capture the process of others and their journey of exhibiting the work - marginalisation of others - documenting the process of other artists - limited footfall, pushback from family - 

when do you know you've been successful?

try to learn something - maintain perspective - avoiding 'changing your life' issues and concepts - in a month - start working out who you know and what opportunities you can open.

5th Dec 2018 - Drawing - has the collision gone?

In anger I lashed out at the page, I needed the hug of the charcoal on paper - I never thought I'd hear my self say that. The abandonment of life drawing has finally caught up with me, the charcoal is haunting my thoughts, sneaking in with its lustful desires, calling and tempting me with its sensuality. My person and my business collided, I felt the anger and frustration well up - I decided to drown it in the paper and the charcoal; satisfyingly building the piles of dust on the pages as I scratched out the work. 

I looked and felt like the collision was missing from the work - then I saw it - the devastation on the page, black smears tainting the pristine surface, fingerprints and smudged edges, dust and layers colliding with the white expanse. The collision happened both physically and mentally, the lines collided on the page, the thoughts collided in my head, my fingers collided with the charcoal and the page. The devastation was satisfying, the aftermath was beautiful.

Circle book, line walking

Repeated the act of drawing by mapping the walk from my front door to the front gate of our home. Walking using same materials as the classroom walk. The paper was found and the shape considered a challenge for display.

Construction

I considered how to display these separate pieces with the lines attached. To maintain some consistency to my existing practice I experimented with a book form.

Although not as secure as I would have liked it made an interesting object.

I activated it by suspending it from the roof of the house. A horizontal journey given a new perspective vertically.

Circle book drop from Katie Venner-Woodbridge on Vimeo.

https://vimeo.com/310311167

Mon, 3 December 2018 -Group crit - KF

Group crit - KF

Open discussion -

On the 3rd of December, we will be having an Open Discussion in which we can have time to discuss emerging issues within our practice/writing/thinking. what do you NEED to discuss and share - what is exciting you - what is preoccupying, puzzling, interesting you. Can you share a question, or an image or a quote, or text or….. by Friday 30th, please.

we can see the practices you are involved with as a whole, not just making, not just thinking, not just theory…...all of it.

Make it useful!

KF- how we manifest practice - Charles Garoian - how we make things concrete, how we see things differently when they are outside of our heads 

https://youtu.be/MKY6VN2Tsis

conceptual wonderings, the ideas of what practice can be and how we find our route through it.

Slide show - - how do we take risks? the ways we all take risks are different and appropriate to our own practices.  Kettles Yard - small things are shifted and made a little more interesting - Jim Eade - Keep off the grass - signs that were ignored and then one that wasn't - things that we are afraid of that we don't know, the sudden fear of what we don't know.  - whats our grass? what are we afraid of? 

my question - think through the making - that is your research - allows there to be concrete links through the process and be embedded in the practice - so we are researching through the materials

Art pursues knowledge and yet resists the assimilative urge to know. This is the why, the what and the how - the questioning through our stuff not just in our heads

Speculative and emergent - a relationship with the work - acknowledging the movement - try to feel unity while in flux - understanding that I am part of the relationship - 

Greenhill - thinking and the aspects - can you replace the word making - is that what I need - this list, to consider that practice and thinking are the same, that research is the making, that thinking needs to happen through the making - let the making research and think for me. 

meeting point - this is something I want to articulate - how do I make these ideas come together - worrying away materially and conceptually - trying to get to the foothold. trying to find the foundations - 

the questions are mapping the practice and doing so appropriately - the difference between thinking and making - having an intention and playing purposefully. 

audio film from Joseph Bouys - link to come.

My moment was actually at the end of the session - I have included the notes from othere members moments below my feedback.

https://katievw.com/2018/12/01/30-11-2018-questions-for-open-discussion/

Above is the initial post with my question in. 

Key points are:

Changing a practice - more art based from design led

Influence or guidance - how to get comfortable

Can a practice change dramatically with a simple term change? 

outside sources impacting directly on practice - to credit? ownership?

materials led vs research led - help!

KF - entanglements happen - differentiate between what you know, what you learn and what you are influenced by and how to unpick it. constantly influenced but don't reference it all - when you find something that influences perfectly and understands your position within it - how do you determine which part is yours. the drawings are coming from me - it's been read through my work - she saw it and offered it - she saw it and found it there in the work. 

jv - would the it help to stop questioning?

KF - don't have to do either or - allows you to play you can do both and allow them to coexist and that they are interdependent and correspondent. complementary - what its doing is enriching - don't have to say whether I am practice-led- or concept based - push the 'what I am doing' sometimes labelling it actually blocks us in to a corner - shift it out of the head and allow the work to happen and realise that the thinking and creating happens at the same time. Let it happen and the drawings take shape.

chatbox:

-We are all building on the work of those before us


-
we all need a framework to give our practices context!
you are tethered!


- 
By a chair?!
You seemed so happy on making day getting into the materials


- 
I guess the difference between design based practice and art based practice is intention even if the outcome is the same physically


- I recognize what you say. I can easily get overwhelmed by my thoughts. That is why I tend to focus more on making because I know my head will continuously do its work; this makes its way easier for me.


- 
I always thought that fine art is a deeper version of other art/design disciplines

- Some of the best scientists are artists too


- 
also Katie: embrace the experiences from the past. I always try to use whatever I developed in the past

KF - the shift from the architectural - to joins and then built - back into drawing and flattening. all the work to happen - allow the drawings to grow in their potential - just let them grow and be surprised by it. Interesting questions of authorship and influence - do my work! collision - disruption - confidence - drawing colliding.

Immediate reaction after the session:

That felt really awkward - there was a point where the pause for feedback was too long and no one had anything to say to me. How do I read that? Were my questions not challenging or engaging enough, was everyone just over it and I was the unfortunate soul a the end of the session no-one could be bothered to engage with as they all wanted their beds? I feel like I'm at a different point to the other members - I spent last year questioning my research and how it feeds into my work while everyone went through materials and making and now I'm going through materials while everyone builds on their research and concepts. Is there something wrong with my practice? is it weak? Some days I question what I'm doing here and if I belong - the language frequently evades me and I spend so much time looking things up to play catch up.

Perhaps sleep will help.

Takeaways from other peoples moments:

questioning time - images that are timeless - or from time? unmooring time - I’m thinking about the way we digest time - the photo is a second in time - a time-lapse is time past but sped up - the piece at Ways of Seeing in NYUAD

https://davidclaerbout.com/The-Algiers-Sections-of-a-Happy-Moment-2008

tactile materiality and physical experience of visual experience - 
the tactile eye by Jennifer Barber

Paul Klee - taking an line for a walk - 

lens based media - analogue vs digital - scale, time and distance - how close you become to something - 

carve out time - using the commute to make work - the car journey productive.

Is the possibility more compelling than the product? How much consideration should there be for the audience? How much research do they need to see? Is a poem enough to let them in? 

KVW - My students and I had a conversation about the conceptuality of space last week - the fact that we talk about space being ‘out there’ but that we are also in space - it’s around us and in us
 - 
a vacuum is still something though—nothingness is still a 'thing’



A metaphor
 - Zen nothingness

Interpretation of objects - looking for a similarity of object - for validation? symbolism - semiotics - scientific drawing to understand an art practice
studying objects - how they speak to us - question how long is culturally acceptable to listen to an object? 

Are all art pieces related/connected to ethical questions? Is the term political correctness* intertwined with the term ethical responsible? Are artists expected to be politically correct/ethical responsible? Or are they may be expected to sometimes deviate from it? Related to the previous question, to what extent can artist behave ‘unethically’ for the sake of increasing awareness or making a statement?

if we are seen to be misrepresenting something - being open to the fact that you might trigger someone or something. Do I need to know what happened next? blocked the path -  put our work out there consistently.

working with others

narratives to be simple, but multiple layers can add to the complexity.

the chance element is really interesting

the butterfly effect - that aspect of a happening having a massive impact or a nothing impact
 and not knowing

work put out there -  let it off and it's beyond the control 
- the instigator

playfulness is fascinating and reminds me of this http://playthecitynowornever.com/

KF - punctuation of every day - situationist's - happenings - a shift has happened with the work as you can see it and it is beyond you. People being annoyed by it - slinkachu - model people enacting things with the debris of daily life