Seminar 1 – 15th October.
Tom O’Sullivan and Joanne Tatham
The fact that Tom and Joanne were pitching to us what in four days they would be formally presenting to the Olympic committee meant that I was immediately aware of the work they were describing was extremely contemporary. Several things came up in the seminar which were of particular importance to myself, not least of which was the idea of allowing people to take what they want from any given work. Tom described they’re efforts as “challenging the dominant form of relational art practice” whereby the intention is to create pieces of work which have the same goals as works by artists practicing these so called “dominant forms” but which lack the contrived methods of delivery or machinations which are so commonly associated with the genre, or indeed, art as a whole. Their use of recurring motif’s to prompt the viewer holds its own significance for me in a world where we are - as artists/designers - under constant pressure to produce separate saleable works.
Their ambitious project “The Experience being an experience like an experience you just had.” was a further extension of their current ‘creative grammar’ which directly involved their audience through participation, and aimed to create an experience which would be memorable for the user due to the juxtaposition of the unknown with the known, in the familiar setting of a local gala event.
“This possibility for the absurd is important – our objects are not intended to create passive feel-good situations.”
As with any piece of public art, it is unique to its surroundings and only functions when it is placed in the context from which it was derived, although the imagery used may be a recurrence from their work, the project itself has its own meaning within the “idiosyncratic” events for which they were created. The “iconic” aesthetic of the work is intended by the artist to facilitate widespread dissemination of the work (through photography and film via youtube etc.) meaning it can also serve as a national art project despite its dependence/symbiosis with its environment.
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