Work exchange - whole cohort experimental session, Caroline, Les and Kimberly.
This session was a first for the MA. Having the new platform for video communication has opened up horizons it seems and our excitable tutors were ready to test it out! The only preparation we had was to expect a package and have some dry art materials to hand. I was impressed by the dedication to getting everyone involved, even the lack of a mail system in the middle east didn't stop them as Les diligently couriered packages to myself, Mozhdeh and Rhoda. We were the last to receive them, and I believe possibly the only ones out of our year group to not accidentally open them.
What are my thoughts:
This envelope contains a piece of work that Les has started, we will be given prompts throughout. the same prompts to produce different outcomes similar to the drawing walk I did at college and do with my own students. It has the potential to feed into all of our practices if we are embedded in our work enough that it shows evidence in this piece. Some of us will hate this task, feeling uncomfortable and frustrated. Some of us will be non-plused about it, and some will love it, thriving in the anticipation and collaboration. I am hoping to thrive, I'm excited. Tired but excited.
What did anticipation feel like? - my anticipation was shorter, or was it? I wanted to receive it, or to open it?
3 things about the act of opening the envelope?
awkward, I'm quite small, tiny hands, it was clumsy to open it on screen.
inquiring, what is in this envelop? what state would it be in?
relief, the burden of a full envelop that is full but has unknown content.
- make an aperture
- make a screenshot looking through the aperture at the screen
Text for the reading from Les performed: What makes Argia different from other cities is that it has earth instead of air.
Fill a small bowl or jug with ice cold water and put near the stove.
In that empire, the craft of cartography attained such perfection that the map of a single province covered the space of an entire city
Grease a tin of approx. 30 x 20cm.
and the map of the empire itself an entire province.
Put all the ingredients, apart from the vanilla, into a large, heavy bottomed pan and bring to the boil,
The streets are completely filled with dirt, clay packs the rooms to the ceiling, on every stair another stairway is set in negative,
stirring constantly.
over the roofs of the houses hang layers of rocky terrain like skies with clouds.
In the course of time, these extensive maps were found somehow wanting
Boil for 12-20 minutes, still stirring all the time, until the mixture is golden and,
the College of Cartographers evolved a map of the empire that was of the same scale as the empire and that coincided with it point for point. We do not know if the inhabitants can move about the city,
when a bit is dropped into the water, it turns solid but still squidgy
widening the worm tunnels and the crevices where roots twist:
How long this takes depends on how ferociously it bubbles as well as on the properties and dimensions of the pan.
the dampness destroys people's bodies and they have scant strength;
This is hot work!
everyone is better off remaining still, prone; anyway, it is dark.
The following generations, less attentive to the study of cartography,
came to judge a map of such magnitude cumbersome
From up here, nothing of Argia can be seen;
and quite useless and it was abandoned to the rigours of sun and rain.
When the fudge is at soft-ball stage, very carefully remove the pan from the stove and stir in the vanilla.
In the western deserts, tattered fragments of the map are still to be found sheltering an occasional beast or beggar;
Preferably using an electric whisk beat for about five minutes,
by which time the fudge will have thickened to the texture of stiff peanut butter -
some say, "It's down below there,"
in all the land, no other relic is left of the discipline of geography.
and we can only believe them.
this is quite steamy and strenuous - and pour and push into the prepared tin. Smooth the top as well as you can.
The place is deserted. At night, putting your ear to the ground, you can sometimes hear a door slam.
Put in the fridge to cool, but don't keep it there for more than 2 hours, or it will set too hard, then remove and using a sharp knife, cut into squares.
This is not a geometrically accurate term, as you can see from my cutting skills. - text from Les
My response: squares on the pages - the size of the tin
consider - what are you listening for? what sticks, how do we react
Text for the reading from Caroline - small agency of worms
Bennett J (2010) Vibrant Matter: a political ecology of things, London: Duke University Press pp 95 The "Small Agency" of Worms
Darwin watched English worms: many, many of them for many, many hours. He watched how they moved, where they went, and what they did, and, most of all, he watched how they made topsoil or "vegetable mould": after digesting "earthly matter," they would deposit the castings at the mouth of their burrows, thus continually bringing to the surface a refined layer of vegetable mould. It is, writes Darwin, “a marvellous reflection that the whole of the . . . mould over any . . . expanse has passed,and will again pass, every few years through the bodies of worms. But the claim with which Darwin ends his Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Actions of Worms with Observations on Their Habits (1881) is not about biology or agronomy but about history: ·Worms have played a more important part in the history of the world than most persons would at first assume”. How do worms make history? They make it by making vegetable mould, which makes possible "seedlings of all kinds; which makes possible an earth hospitable to humans, which makes possible the cultural artifacts, rituals, plans, and endeavours of human history (Mould, 309). Worms also "make history" by preserving the artifacts that humans make: worms protect "for an indefinitely long period every object, not liable to decay, which is dropped 00 the surface of the land, by burying it beneath their castings; a service for which"archaeologists ought to be grateful to worms". Darwin claims that worms inaugurate human culture and then, working alongside people and their endeavours, help preserve what people and worms together have made. Darwin does not claim that worms intend to have this effect so beneficial to humankind, or that any divine intention is at work through them. Rather, that the exertions of worms contribute to human history and culture is the unplanned result of worms acting in conjunction and competition with other (biological, bacterial,chemical, human) agents. Darwin describes the activities of worms as one of many "small agencies" whose "accumulated effects" turn out to be quite big.' It would be consistent with Darwin to say that worms participate in heterogeneous assemblages in which agency has no single locus, no mastermind, but is distributed across a swarm of various and variegated vibrant materialities.'
My response:
Kimberley's text is from 'the prosthetic pedagogy of art -embodied research and practice' by Charles R Garoian - I do not have a copy just a link.
My response - the red line that became an act of frottage is the wax crayon lifted the wood grain from my desk. This was a beautifully serendipitous event as the text refers to a student project in which a piece of wood is sand down to dust, combined with cake batter and then consumed by the critique group in the form of muffins. This moment excited me. The work produced itself and the link was visible but accidental.
Think about how the work is guided, incidental and deliberate or unconsidered.
Student task: create instructions - set up instructions for the object. BREAK OUT GROUP - Bob MA1 and Jon MA3
my suggestion: wear your object while manipulating it for as long as possible.
Their suggestions: Cut it, re-assemble it and turn it around
use the tape
We settle on wearing the object for the rest of the instructions.
Back together - we go first - so we asked everyone to wear it
The next instruction was to create it into an object - most people took it off,
tutors to read every third word from their pieces alternatively - excavating the piece - this was difficult and turned the activity around on to the tutors. we did not create work from this. I continued to wear my piece.
The synchronicity was what was being asked for - regurgitating work, collaborative - for the tutors to partake in, so the task was changed.
The task turned in to the tutors reading a word from the initial text - the instructions were slightly lost on my due to the connection. - Thrive - it was awkward, Caroline said 'abrasive' . the negotiation of practice. process.
Lastly we were asked to do something drastic with the piece, and then put it back together. It was left open for interpretation. I ripped my piece off of my head, in to segments and taped it together in a longer format. It was then attached by the tape, using different tape, to the wall of my studio space.
