My practice, today.

My Practice, Today.

Having finished the seminar program i feel that the moment has come to look back on what has been said and relate this to my own practice. Coming in to the course i had what i would call an embryonic practice, but throughout the course i have grown to appreciate certain elements within other disciplines that I feel benefit my methodology. Early on in the first semester i decided to involve these in my work, and because of this i currently find myself with an interdisciplinary practice, existing in the space between spaces. Without a doubt the single largest contribution to my own work from the seminars has been my introduction to contemporary curatorial practice, perhaps because this is the more design oriented section of the seminar program or perhaps because it offers you're work such greater potential to leave a lasting impression. Design has the ability to reach a lot of people, but by and large these people exist as a closed community who mostly view and asses an object on its material properties, aesthetics are about beauty, and function is about practical use. My current work has a message that is for everyone to consider and in order to reach a broader audience I have effectively been forced to supplement my practice with that of the Art world in an effort to reach this these people and i feel curatorial practice helps me achieve this.

“To me doing artwork is using art as a tool to confront with the world”

- Thomas Hirschhorn

Moving into this new territory was at first a timid affair, but through time and conversations with people like Geoff Mann, Tom O'sullivan and Joanne Tatham i began to feel more comfortable in what i was doing – it was as if they had afforded my approach a certain credibility.

Seeing how artists like Thomas Hirschhorn and Christophe Buchel create installations of such scale and grandeur that take you on a sojourn into the unreal has opened my eyes as to how i can be displaying my work, rather than handing it over to some stranger to place in a space according to how they feel it works, i prefer to take control here as well, ensuring that the integrity of the work in kept intact. Before as a design student i had displayed my work at New Designers and 100% Design London but it is with no small measure of regret that i look back on the relatively simplistic and shallow way in which either i or someone else chose to display my work. I see the product of my practice now not simply as an object i have created, but as the space and context it is presented in (or as part of), creating an installation with each element contributing to a common goal is now my concern. Knowing that this has been where my practice has being going for quite some time i have been approaching the seminars from an angle which will help me to become a diligent curator.

From my recent experience of the Glasgow international festival of visual arts I have seen work that has been inspirational but i have also seen work which has disappointed me because of the way in which it has been presented, most importantly, i have become acutely aware of the importance of knowing what, and what to not include in a specific space. As your allotted space can all too quickly reach a point of saturation with your work (which you have endeavoured so exhaustingly to produce, and you understandably want to show the world) is choking the spectator, this is a point where, once reached and surpassed, can often mean that the entire affair is suffering and that the impact and significance of meaning of the work has become so convoluted that it is lost entirely.

“I always think energy yes, quality no”

– Thomas hirschhorn

–

I believe this can clearly be seen in the case of David Shrigely's recent expo in the Kelvingrove art gallery. Firstly, the work is sound - in fact i am a big fan of his work, but it was located in a space which detracted from the elegance and dignity of the work, the corner in which it was situated was poorly lit, and in close proximity to a main door and reception area meaning that the enduring memory i have of the work is of throngs of some rather unscrupulous school children making such a noise that finding that state of mind in which you are able to fully appreciate such a work was impossible. When you compare the Shrigley show to that of Buchel's at the tramway it seems to me that the Buchel show works purely because of its scale - for instance one of my criticisms of the Shrigley exhibit was that too much was crammed into too small a space, where as the richness of material on display in the Buchel show had quite the opposite effect - it seemed like you were entering another world. Shrigley himself has said in a recent interview in 'the Scotsman' that “There are 42 objects so I've got a lot to play with and can afford to make mistakes” is this the right attitude to have when curating your work? Shouldn't Shrigley be taking it more seriously considering that there are thousands of other artists who would love to have the chance to exhibit in such a well known and frequented space? later in the same interview he admits “I've just got to fill the space available” - but does he? one of the most important things i have gained from the seminar program has been the understanding of the need to consider the environment your work will be shown in, and to me it seems as though Shrigley simply has not done that. I believe that Shrigley has been seduced by an opportunity to have his work shown in an entirely different way and to a wholly different cliental, from his past work which for example has seen him shooting mock identity cards out of a canon in a nightclub we can see that he is open to showing work in different ways but in this case i believe that the compromise has cost him too much.

So from my experience it appears to me that you must have a space that is adequately free of external distractions (creating a conducive atmosphere) and a area large enough to achieve a 'critical mass' if you are trying to pull off something similar to what Buchel or Hirschhorn have done, but for a space as small as that afforded to Shrigley's work in Kelvingrove, the real challenge is to avoid over populating the space and ensuring you do not - to continue the nuclear analogy - go 'supercritical' whereby the meaning or message of the work is effectively destroyed by the very work itself.

Having moved from my under-grad in product design to the masters at Gray's School of Art my own practice has evolved beyond designing a product to 'fix' a situation, instead i have developed my approach to facilitate the creation of objects which bring with them their own rhetoric. Coming from this design background, i have been trained to constantly consider the user when creating whatever it is i may be in engaged in creating, it is because of this that i believe my work has an edge of practicality to it, this quality can be toyed with to the degree where a products function becomes a mockery of itself. A throne for instance – an object of such decadent luxury - can be portrayed as an uncomfortable penance, creating a nonsensical rendition of an instantly recognisable object which causes the consumer - the viewer - to think, to re-evaluate the subject matter and hopefully emerge from the experience with a better understanding of the issues at hand. Works like this carry with them their own narrative, a mute statement that emerges from the finished article simply by being in its presence - this is what i find very appealing. Whilst participating in the seminar delivered by Geoff Mann i found some of these ideals to be present within his work, where some of his more avant-garde studies into motion do not maintain any pretence of practicality - they certainly carry with them a narrative. During his seminar Mann also raised the interesting issue of entitling yourself and your practice, to him the idea of practising any one art, craft or design discipline is now defunct, according to Mann we can all benefit from referring to our formal training in a past tense for example as an ex-designer or ex-painter. To me, this makes a certain amount of sense - to the point where we are all given so much more freedom to explore our creativity, but the idea of distancing myself from a discipline which i have grown to love, and have worked hard to gain a qualification in seems rather counter-productive. The advantage offered by being able to sample other disciplines and bring the more desirable aspects of those practices into your own should not be under estimated, and in my opinion should be encouraged, we can all improve after all - and no institutional barrier should stop us from doing so.

Seeing all these methodologies which are, realistically, quite alien to what i have been exposed to before has allowed me to consider them in a way relative to what is effectively an outsider's perspective. For instance, during the seminars on the uncanny i was forced to think about how the uncanny is present in product design, where elements and ideologies from the artistic or psychological world combine with that of consumer driven design, and what impact that has had on work being produced by the design community. When moving into new territory it is interesting to note how someone can often become more dependent on what they already know as they are active outside of their comfort zone, for instance when Meret Oppenheim created her fur lined teacup she was capitalising on an object already present within the vernacular of our homes - the teacup - but she was also incorporating something radical, one of the fundamental elements of the uncanny, to solicit an emotional response from the user - the "unheimlich", or 'unhomely-ness' - although not a designer she was setting a precedent simply by choosing to use such a 'designed' item. The term 'unheimlich' is of great interest to me as a large part of design is concerned solely with creating objects which 'fit' within our home's landscape, which are unchallenging and comfortable for us as consumers to invest in. For someone to then create an object such as a fur-lined teacup, which flaunts these ideals and is in essence an anti-product, is very provocative and was at the time a genuine cultural innovation. In fact, this object is so highly emotionally charged - to the point where it is almost confrontational - that its function has moved from the practical to the abstract.

As product designers, we are aware that we are not in fact selling the product - we are selling the user experience, what makes work like Oppenhiem's teacup so innovative is that the experience of using something as mundane as a teacup has moved from being one that was physical, to being one that is metaphysical.

“It isn't particularly beautiful, and its certainly not useful,

but what a story it tells”

- Donald Norman

In doing so the role of the product in our society is elevated - to use Maslow's 'hierarchy of needs' as a point of reference, the product ceases existing in our consciousness as a mere facilitator of a physiological or safety need and has been elevated to fill a role more akin to self actualisation. Undergoing this paradigm shift has meant that these products are no longer disposable utensils, and have become less of a commodity and more of a memento. Knowing that i do not simply want to create culturally worthless items it is good to see that others have broken ground in this regard. At times, finding these new ways of looking at deign has not been so straight forward, but it can definitely open many doors in terms of where one would choose to take their practice. This consideration of other disciplines is what i believe can give me an edge to my work, and in fact i now picture myself straddling the separate approaches of product design, curatorial practice and relational art practice.

Something else i have come across is the use of the term rhetoric when describing an object. To me it implies that an object has an embedded set of ephemeral qualities that coalesce to provide us with an argument. Andrea Branzi has postulated that one can embed meaning in an object, in his 'domestic animals' project he creates a series of works which further discourse and serve as part of an argument for design scholars. As someone who is involved in public planning and architecture his role is not only to see to the everyday running of such affairs but to challenge them as well, one of the ways in which Branzi has done this is to create these interventions. Branzi, however, is not alone; the work Jurgen Bey has produced since the turn of the century is almost solely concerned with conveying some sort of message - this message or rhetoric varies from project to project but each and every piece of work he creates is an argument for some kind of social agenda.

Where Bey creates a social commentary, people like Max Lamb and Tom Price create interesting celebrations of what contemporary design can be. Out go the 'robin hood' intentions for a better society and in come designed objects which shift the focus from societal change solely to the act of making, allowing the finished object its own unique kind of rhetoric brought about by the indicative nature of its aesthetics, where the act of its creation is immediately evident in its form.

In conclusion, i feel that overall the seminar program has been informative and enjoyable, and that despite the lack of any true design oriented sessions, i have found my practice has been expanded by learning about the approach taken by other parts of the creative industries. Furthermore, i would say that the most important seminars to me where the ones pertaining to curatorial practice and relational art practice, which i feel have armed me with a better understanding of how to present my work and allowing me the opportunity to create more effective art or designed objects.

seminar 19 - tyrebagger forest

'Art Centre' might be a bit of a misnomer when describing the site of Tyrebagger forest, but hidden within the shadowy boughs are works by internationally recognised artists who were commissioned by the forestry commission, who were seeking to produce an attraction to a green area that was in close proximity to aberdeen city. These works range in their intent and meaning but most aim to create a locus of some sort - a place where you concentrate on your environment. Some directly mirror the environment where as other merely reference it.

Meanwhile you have works like 'Birked Scar' by Donald Urquart which uses planted birch trees and burnt heather as its only medium meaning that it is hidden in the vernacular of the environment - currently the work is technically still production as the trees were planted around a perfect square of burnt heather which will over time "become bleached white" alongside the trees whose trunks will similarly grow to become white creating a pristine white space so commonly associated with modern art galleries.

Conversely the piece 'Modern Nature' by Matthew Dalziel and Louise Scullion utilizes modern technology and materials as its name may suggest. Standing tall in a small copse are a set of mock satellite dishes "like a clump of futuristic trees" their inbuilt solar panels provide energy (in a manner deliberately close to photosynthesis) for partly subterranean speakers which provide us with the auditory stimulus of a bird now locally extinct - the capercaillie. According to the artists, this serves to "alert our attention to sound in the landscape" and whilst this may indeed be the case, to me it serves as a catalyst to the recognition of the impact of man on the natural environment. So the area is rich in some diverse sculpture which is so effective because it capitalizes on its environment, whilst a separate work may be based upon the artists' own internal convictions, each sculpture is activated by its environment, a precedent re-iterated by the controversy surrounding Richard Serra's 1981 artwork 'Tilted Arc' in which Serra stated that Tilted Arc is site specific - similarly, in the case of tyrebagger, the work would not function outside of the forest. If the sculpture was placed within a white space the work would loose its resonance and such an act would effectively destroy it.