seminar 14 - Geoff Mann

The fourth seminar dealt with the categorization of the creative industries, asking the question: Do we have to be labeled a practitioner within a certain discipline? The man putting forward this issue for debate is Geoff Mann - and he is ... well ... one of the group of creative practitioners who simply defy definition in the traditional sense. Neither here nor there, Mann straddles the paradigms of art and design, and continually challenges the tenets of both. His work consists of explorations into the everyday, but is far from mundane, his portfolio includes several different areas of investigation - with a fundamental theme running throughout. This theme is the exploration of form - specifically the "materialization of the intangible" - and that form's implications, in doing this Mann creates a narrative to be explored and absorbed by the viewer. This alone is nothing new - people have been doing this since the modern art revolution of the 1960's - what makes this case different is the way in which he is doing it.

Mann is an individual who does not let anything get in the way of creativity, by his own admission he can suffer from extreme disinterest once something he is working on progresses past a certain point, because of this, he exploits modern technology to realize or sketch ideas but shirks the production of the work itself - preferring to delegate that task to the people who have dedicated themselves to the perfection of their separate craft - claiming that "creativity is sacrificed when you pursue perfect craftsmanship". having both come from a design background i can certainly understand his detachment to the production of his work, as we are taught to consider production on a mass scale which is impossible when doing it yourself. this is contrary to the way a painter would work for example and is representative of the differences between the two disciplines of art and design. however, being a designer who is also creating works with a narrative, and which carry with them a critical commentary of their subject matter i can certainly sympathise with the need to distance yourself from the term 'designer' it has caused quite a large amount of confusion to others in my case already as people struggle to grasp where i am contextually. Mann talks about how we place too much value in terms such as 'painter' or 'product designer' and that if we were to consider ourselves as "ex-product designers" we would be afforded far more creative freedom.

seminar 13 - relational art practice

The third seminar of the semester was delivered by Tom O'Sullivan and Joanne Tathum, during which they brought us along on a journey of understanding through contemporary relational art practice. they began by placing the meaning of those words - 'contemporary relational art practice' - in context. To do this they examined three contemporary artists: Cathy Wilkes, Iza Genzkin and Franz West, and the impact they had on the art world as well as framing the entire discussion with a piece of writing by Jan Verwoert.

During the preparation for the seminar - we were all given the piece of writing in which Verwoerth discusses the merits of relational aesthetics, as well as the potential contribution these aesthetics have to make to socially engaged and motivated art - i read through the paper, then i read it again, and then again - in places i continually had to re-read the same text over and over again in an attempt to get my head around exactly what it was that Verwoert was trying to imply through a shroud of jargon and abstract extrapolation. In many ways it is this attitude which provides the biggest stumbling block to widespread acceptance of relational art by the public - besides the superficial acceptance which comes from the section of the public who are easily led, and are all too willing to venerate work purely because it is in a gallery or museum. More often than not outsiders will continually denounce modern art as worthless, and whilst it may at times seem indulgent or elitist on the part of the establishment, this does not mean that we should pander to such unqualified critics that make up the more militant portion of the Art viewing public, so it came as quite a surprise when the subtext of Verwoert's essay was testifying that this art practice had become too safe, and in fact old hat. in the case of Cathy Wilkes - who's practice centers around domestic issues pertaining specifically to the tension between man and women in today's society - we are shown allegories of the human form alongside objects frequently seen throughout the home, these objects may at first seem like a mess, but after some further contemplation it becomes clear that the artist has in fact built internal relationships between these items through careful and tasteful composition of the scene presented. wether or not your enjoyment of the work is compromised by your particular tastes, one cannot help but respect the craftsmanship in evidence in Wilkes' work, even if you do not subscribe to the belief that this constitutes Art, in fact it could be said that the assembling of such a scene is an art form in itself, meaning that the obligatory question "is it Art?" has become somewhat redundant.

seminar 12 - creative review

this seminar saw us looking into how a creative individual should review their own work. This can be done in any number of different ways, but each method should share the common goal of having the process feed back into your practice. This allows you to bring your work together as a whole, to consolidate your portfolio and to assure one's self as to where it is that you, as a creative individual are going with your work.

Furthermore, due to the importance of producing an artists statement to be presented with your work, the act of reviewing, or re-evaluating your work from an outside perspective becomes crucial as the people viewing your work don't have the same insight into your own work as you do. I personally find that when you are ready to take this step back from what you have produced and write about it in a manner which other people will understand and respond to, means that the piece is as close to completion as it ever will be. in my practice this allows me to gain a certain amount of closure, meaning that i can move onto the next project without continually moving back to past work. additionally, this offers you the chance to take the first delve into what one piece is about, preventing the ideals of said work from being usurped by critics and contemporaries. This last point is exceptionally important to myself as i have witnessed first hand the artistic communities propensity for reading too much into certain elements of a piece which are simply not that important, shifting the ideological placement of the work to somewhere you never intended it to be.

Seminar 11 - The Art of The Interview

Our first seminar in the second semester dealt with interviews in the art world. Often misunderstood or viewed with outright disdain by so called 'insiders', interviews may be prone to sycophantic fluff - comfortable filler for some magazine or other media - but if executed correctly, they can yield invaluable insight into the work of an artist or creative individual, and their methodology.

Though an interview was originally intended to be used as a journalistic device - where two individuals converse for the benefit of a newspaper's readers, in recent decades however, the interview has undergone a paradigm shift. From a lowly narrative device it has progressed through the echelons of accepted information gathering techniques to become a recognized and dependable method of extracting valuable information from a subject.

Furthermore, if employed as a research method they can provide first hand information that is directly relevant to what you are working on - there is no data mining, no need to go the exhausting lengths required in surveys or questionnaires. instead you are able to evaluate what is being said by the subject/subjects on the fly - encouraging improvisation by the interviewer and therefore provoking them to think of relevant questions which may have previously been overlooked.

It seems to me that the most prevalent incarnation of the interview is the televised debate - chat shows, true sport for the masses make up the vast majority of such (im)material purely because of their incessant propensity to achieve prime time billing - perhaps down to mindset of the people who have nothing to do at 10 am on a weekday - although i feel thats a matter far beyond the remit of this lowly reflective statement. Close behind is the gutter press with publication such as 'the sun' and 'heat' magazine sitting on their thrones as the king and queen of societies easily led; then comes the special interest magazines - heres where you can find diamonds in the rough - if you're prepared to look - with film magazine empire's pint of milk a short, versatile and easy going favorite of mine - although it can be said that this particular example smacks of hypocrisy - i simply cannot ignore the insight into the mind of someone offered by their estimation of the cost of something so mundane as a pint of milk.

From its inception the interview has always drawn an audience - no matter how small (even the interviewer is an audience in the truest sense of the word). I believe it is this 'audience' which has proved the chagrin of many a critic, regardless of the medium - written, audio or visual - pressure is always applied by this audience, and in many cases this can lead to the sacrifice of a certain amount of journalistic integrity on the part of the publisher in order to gain the favor of highly critical readers in a marketplace saturated by the promise of a mass media spectacle in the form of the hottest gossip - put simply: an interview with someone they want to hear from.

What's even more crippling is that if the subject did not like the outcome of an interview - they may not want to come back - and choose one of your competitors instead. All this in a world where brand loyalty is being eroded by the constant encroachment of high cash-figure marketing schemes, one could be forgiven for thinking - what's the point in maintaining my integrity?

(Incidentally the price of a pint of milk was 49 pence at time of writing)