ARTISTS TALKING

# 45 [7 October 2010]

The post-MA world is a bit of a weird one. You always know after working so stupidly hard on a project, that there’s this odd flatness when it’s finished. Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite pleased to be done – but having spending all week working in front of a computer at home so far is a wee bit of a change to being pleased to leave uni by 9pm at night.

So, the exhibition. I showed 3 pieces – the carpet piece, now entitled ‘Document’, and sound work ‘Empty House’. These were shown together in the Hatton Gallery, whilst my medium format projection ‘Untitled (Projection)’ was shown in a separately, in a space just outside the Hatton. Various reasons for this - although I wanted to have this build up documents in one space, visually it wasn’t working in the slightest. The projector would have ended up bang-slap in the middle of the gallery, disrupting the view of the carpet. I tried putting it next to the Mertzbarn, (which I’d built a wall in front of to give the carpet some space) but again, there was a massive over-crowding problem. In one of those lovely accidental things that actually work quite well, the light from the projector ended up really lighting up the space – as the transparency was an overexposed shot of light coming through a window, this seemed to work pretty nicely. Images attached to this post show ‘Document’ and ‘Untitled’, follow this link for ‘Empty House”: http://soundcloud.com/lauren-healey/empty-house

As a result of the MFA, I was awarded the Hole Editions Publishing Award (http://www.holeeditions.co.uk). I’ll be working with Lee Turner to produce a litho edition, which I’m really excited about. Instead of working directly from some of my photographs, our first idea is to see how litho plates work in a pin hole camera, the idea being that there’ll be a directness about the images being made. Neither of us have any idea how this will work, but I really like the openness to experimentation.

I’ve also got a studio sorted at the fantastic New Bridge Project http://thenewbridgeproject.blogspot.com , so will be able to get on with continuing the fire surround piece. I wasn’t convinced about using this for the exhibition, but after loosing a week due to some insane skin outbreak all over my face at the beginning of August, there was pretty much no choice but to put it on hold. Other pieces / ideas I’ll be working on in the coming months include: combining new recordings with found and archive sound, to create a situation where a linear understanding of time is disputed by over-layering recordings from different periods; and making a text piece which discusses the limitations of the document, whilst being written in such a way as to embody these limitations through the use of language, description and presentation. (And yes, I did pull those descriptions directly from an application I’ve just done). And if the funding comes though, I’ll be doing some writing for an exhibition catalogue for a gallery showing at the London Art Fair too.

Which is all good, ‘cos I really don’t know what to do if I’ve got 5 minutes space.

# 44 [20 August 2010]

So, this time next week I think it's pretty safe to say, I will be feeling more than a little worse for wear following copious amounts of wine at the preview for my MFA grad show. This delightful thought (and having a couple of days off afterwards) is keeping me going as we enter The Final Week.

I've (hopefully) finished the audio work and laid my hands on some fancy speakers for the show. I say hopefully, as unfortunately I couldn't hear a massive amount of it when I was adding an additional recording to it this morning, due to the pneumatic drill be used outside the edit suite. Will have another listen tomorrow (fingers crossed) after I've finished making the panels to construct a dividing wall in the gallery.

After a couple of conversations, I realised I was being a bit slow with my idea for the audio work - instead of recording movement, it made much more sense to record the sounds of an empty house. The work is therefore very subtle - there are sounds of passing traffic on the street outside, the sound of the refrigerator and a toilet dripping. All very slight. I don't want it to feel like there's a lot of sound going on, just small moments that give the feeling of domestic indoors-ness, transplanted into this gallery location. Originally I was going to put the speakers up on the mezzanine floor around my exhibition space, but decided against this for three reasons: firstly, as the piece is so quiet, there should be an indicator for the audience that there is an audio piece there; secondly, as I'm being so blatant with the carpet, it seemed kind of daft to then disguise the speakers; and thirdly, surprisingly enough, speakers work best at ear level. It was recommended that I read David Toop's Haunted Weather - a really interesting book about sound, space and memory. I love it when you read stuff with litters the text with references you've already come across, or ideas that you've been thinking around, perhaps in different contexts - Austerlitz is mentioned a few times, and he also describes how "sounds are woven with memory". Lovely stuff.

On a different, but irritatingly hilarious note, I managed to completely trash the transparency I was going to project, and have been spending the last week hoping that we'll get some sunshine at around 10am so that I can re-take the photograph. I've had a wee bit of success, but the camera is still set up as in theory there should still be enough time to get another film developed if necessary.

I'm not quite panicing yet.

# 43 [19 July 2010]

Decision time. And mass editing time. Despite having about 80gb worth of video footage, I'll not being showing any of it (add harsh editing decisions to that). Carpet is staying but is having nothing done to it, no projections, nada. It works very nicely as it is thank you very much - see images attached to this post.

Managed to locate a medium format projector (and a rather fancy one at that) so I'll be showing one of my photographs as a projection and another as a c-type print on aluminium.

And finally, there'll be an as-yet-to-be-made sound piece. I'll be setting up 4 mics in the house - one in the bedroom, one on the landing, one in the hall, and finally one between the back room and the kitchen. I'll then recording me and Andy moving about, possibly getting ready to go out - as we move about the house, the sounds will be picked up by the different mics, the idea being that when it's played back via four speakers in the gallery, you'll get the sense of us moving about the space.

Not sure about the fire surround as yet - it seems to be becoming something else, something more sculptural and less about documentation. I've finished Stage 1 - making boxes to hold the separate sections in the right place, and which also enables the piece to be broken down into sections for storage and transportation - this thing is bloody heavy. Stage 2 will involve filling said boxes with expanding foam with plasterboard on top, and finally Stage 3 will involve a plaster render. Not sure if it's going to be going into a fake wall anymore, or whether it would be more interesting seeing the packing crates. Hmmmmm.

One of the later video ideas I had involved using various different photographs, and plans of the house and making a piece in which these different sources seemed to melt into each other. This was an earlier edited plan, but I've put version of this forward to the lovely folks at Rednile (www.rednile.org) as a proposal for one of their Factory Night commissions at the Oceana in Wallsend (where coincidently, the work I made as part of the Wildworks project I was involved in last year was shown). Will know the outcome of that in a few weeks time (fingers crossed).

My night time reading consists of a couple of music tech text books (Spatial Audio and Shaping Sound), I'm catching up with some reading about cultural concepts of documents and documentation and I'm on the hunt for writing about how the Victorian's believed recorded sound to be akin to cheating death. Relevant? I think so.

# 42 [20 June 2010]

Yeah. So editing, right? It's gotten to the stage that this is an increasing priority. After deliberately trying to stay open-ended about processes and ideas, my MA exhibition opens in just over two months and there is a limit to how many pieces will work together in the space I've got, and how many I can realistically make.

I'm showing in the Hatton Gallery, which as far as exposure is concerned is a bonus, as this tends to get the most foot-fall. However, the distinct drawback is having five days to install, and only 9-5 at that. Now bearing in mind it took over a month to install my interim show, and that was generally working 9-10 most days, you can see why that might be causing me a few anxieties. And that's not to mention Schwitters. The Hatton Gallery has a permanent installation of Schwitter's Merzbarn, which adjoins the space I'll be using. This causes difficulties whatever exhibition is installed in this space, as Tyne and Wear Museums dictate that it cannot be covered in anyway, and that the large green information panels remain in place. So you've got the choice of ignoring it (pretty difficult) acknowledging it, or in my case, using it as an instrumental part of the installation I'll be making.

The reason I'm going down this route is for several reasons - as a use of the space it suits the way I like to work, but more importantly, there are echoes of the Merz in work I'm making. I've taken a carpet from one environment (in this case a domestic one - the first Merz was created in a domestic space), and am re-locating it to another. Schwitters also made incorporated lots of pre-existing objects into his work, again, similarities here.

Continues...

# 41 [20 June 2010]

(Cont.)

So the pieces I'm working on:

Carpet - might be on a wall, might not be, might have something done to it - possibly a projection of a shadow from where the bay window would have been. It would be a shadow from somewhere else, not related to the carpet itself, or where it's from - basically a recording of another trace, layered on top of this one, so two different documents are intermingling, but as a viewer you're not sure about the relationship between them.

Video - hour long recording on the light from a window moving over the floor. A sound track from the same space is recorded from at a different time, so as you watch the visuals, you're aware of something else happening which you can't see, but is taking place in the same room.

Photographs - very excited about my new medium format camera. It's about 40yrs old, is solid as a brick, has interchangeable lenses and bellow. Yes. Bellows. I've been playing around with bulb exposures and slide film, photographing small details of domestic spaces, traces of light on walls, through curtains... If I can get hold of a 6x6 projector, then perhaps I just project one image. Or maybe just one print. I know that I don't want any framed prints, as then it's about an image, where as I would prefer to see any printed photographs as objects. So paper and printing processes need to be carefully considered here. I was thinking at one point, of having these as a looped DVD, where one still image melts into another, into another... but I think now this is going to be a proposal for something else.

Fireplace - I've got the plaster fire surround from our house, and the idea is to turn it the wrong way round so you can see the interior of it, then put it in a fake wall. So when you look at it, there's this feeling of perhaps being in the wall.

Overall sound piece - I've been recording ambient sounds from the house, with the idea of making a soundscape which subtly suggests the domestic space within the gallery location. Again, time issues here.

So there we are. Also, just posted a review of the National Glass Centre's current exhibition The Glass Delusion up on Interface. I've haven't written many reviews before, despite having opinions about just about everything, so thought I should rectify this. Here's the link: http://bit.ly/dkK7kK

# 40 [18 April 2010]

I can't remember where this is quoted from, but it is apt for the stage my video sequences are at the moment: "Beauty is rearing its ugly head". Indeed, the reason I was intrigued with these macro shots to begin with, is that the camera transformed mundane grey dirt and plaster dust into something quite magical, with a hazy dream-like quality. But that's just the problem - they everyday has been usurped by the fantastical, and by being so, the breadth of the piece's concepts has been limited. Basically, I need to rough it up again.

In the latest shooting, I've tried to avoid framing the shadows of the screws and nail, instead focusing on ripples in the dirt, a tiny hair, a delicate smudge. I've also been playing with the focusing, letting it slowly slide out, watching the line of focus slip up the screen. I'm quite pleased with some of the shots, the difficulty I'm having is editing them together.

I spent the majority of today at the wonderful 25 Stratford Grove (http://25stratfordgrove.wordpress.com/). Brian Degger has just finished an art/science project there, which involved the creation of bio-plastics and culturing phosphorescent bacteria - really interesting cross-over between science and art. What intrigued me the most was the story of how a cancer tumour was taken from the body of a woman many years ago. It was deemed to be so interesting, that's been grown in laboratories ever since. The lady it originally came from has since died, but in effect a part of her is still living. Or at least, something long ago was a part of her - it has since developed to become something in its own right. I think the reason this interested me is because it made me think of how I've been considering traces and documentations to be something external to what they reference. Certainly there is an indexical relationship, but the document, the trace, is wholly dependent upon its medium - be this a photograph, the written word or moving image - and its relationship to the memory of the event or object.

# 39 [7 April 2010]

After trying out the various sequences idea in my previous post, for the moment I've settled on concentrating on a dirty shelf in our living room. The various bits of paraphernalia that sat there for months have been removed, leaving a behind what appear like a dark shadows in the silvery dust. I'm videoing this tiny incidents on a macro setting, so the details are crisp and enlarged in the centre of the frame, but slip out of focus as the camera pans.

I've been editing this over the last couple of weeks, but I shot some further footage this evening. Stills of shots are attached to this post.

# 38 [5 April 2010]

Notes from my sketchbook: Trying to 'write-up' a month's worth of ideas and experiments seems like a rather trite and pointless task (I still haven't gotten the balance between spontaneous blogging and my need to have anything I write planned and carefully considered beforehand) so I'm attempting a different approach - what follows are a series of expanded notes from my sketchbook where I work out concepts and comment on ideas as I try them out.

04/03/10

I've had several ideas about various objects and materials I've gotten hold of, but I'm not sure how they relate to each other (if indeed they do) and how these ideas relate to where I think my practice is heading.

Several of the leather gloves, seams unpicked, lying on the floor. Tried this out, but not sure they should be on the floor - what's the reason? Seductive quality of gloves, most apparent with soft, supple ones; prised open, the interiors exposed to the air. Impressed into plaster walls?

Photographic prints on sausage skin- interest in using this material comes from it's use to repair old vellum books, vellum having a 'memory' (after damp has penetrated it, then it's dried to another shape, it keeps going back to that shape, despite later attempts to restore it). Which is interesting, but perhaps more down the archive route that my work is currently going in. Also, by using the skin as a support for a photograph, isn't this just making the skin into a canvas?

Photographing / filming our house - particularly in the empty living room; 'living' being part of the point, it's not currently being lived in. It's an empty ignored room. Can the act of photographing / filming be an act in itself? What if I wear long leather gloves and a negligee whilst doing this? Photographs of empty living room with leather gloves in shot - a set up, a staging?

Is there a way of incorporating sound and smell into the work?

14/03/10

I've placed the old carpet from our living room on a wall. The carpet is the size (4 x 4.7m) and shape of the living room - you can see where the carpet lay under the door, where the bay window was, where the fireplace and chimney breast projected into the room.

Carpet on the wall - references to a canvas, paintings placed on the wall. But it's the size and shape of a room, removed from its original context, opened up for examination. Is placing it on the wall trying to change the fact it's a carpet? Elevating the status of it? Is it becoming a surface as opposed to an object? Everydayness of carpet - is this negated by placing it on a wall? Or has it just shifted its inherent everydayness somewhere else?

How to light it? Layers of different indents and traces highlighted by setting up a lighting programme, which gradually changes over time. So a time element also becomes part of the piece. Would it need sound too? Traces as sounds and smell (the carpet certainly does smell). But again, perhaps this is trying to add too much to a single piece.

I'm trying to think of ways of not making something, ways of manipulating the objects in other manners.

(continues)

# 37 [5 April 2010]

(5th April 2010 continued)

15/03/10

Is there a way of incorporating sounds related to specific parts of / marks on carpet? Some documented sounds (movement within the room the carpet has come from, sounds of the house) mixed up with layers of 'faked' sounds?

17/03/10

Documentation as trace

Different ways of documenting the space - the carpet itself, photographing, videoing. The carpet contains marks and echoes of a previous existence in this everyday context; I'm intending to use alternative photographic processes to record stills of the space - the images become about the process itself as well as the space I'm photographing; using video to record different parts of the space gradually fading into other parts, introducing a time-based element to the recording / documenting process.

But all documentations are traces - they're reliant on a different media, they're a shift away from the thing they're documenting. So perhaps a way forward is to use the media to explore the space, using the way that the media shifts the understanding of that space as part of the idea of these traces I'm looking at.

19/03/10

How would a series of video sequences work? Each looks at a small section of the space, explores it in a way that's sympathetic to that area. Sometimes the separate sequences overlap, not quite together, sometimes seamless other times jarring. Re-visit various sections of shots, so there's suggestions of repeating, layering ... They're then projected together, some on the floor, perhaps others on the walls or on screens. But again, maybe this is overcomplicating it.

# 36 [25 February 2010]

I've been having one of those weeks / most of the month when my brain just feels like cotton wool. Trying to pin down a cohesive thought has been nigh on impossible. So instead of rushing off to the studio this morning to faff about and not achieve a massive amount, I'm sitting under a couple of blankets on our bed (very cosy) sorting though emails of various upcoming things (AV festival kicks off next week) and writing lists.

We've got the carpet all rolled up, and I've managed to locate a space I can roll it out to see it in a different context over the weekend. Not an easy feat, as it's about 6m long by 4m wide. I've had a chat with a few people about ideas for the carpet piece, but I don't think I can make any decisions until I've been able to view as an object as opposed to the floor of a room.

The trouble with making a cast is primarily the enormous cost, plus if it were being made out of a stiff material (such as concrete of plaster) it would need to be assembled in sections, something which would affect the work visually. I then wondered about treating the carpet in some way, perhaps with wax and graphite power, so if people walk on in during the exhibition, the marks of their feet would be left as traces along with the indents already in there. Trouble with this is that the indents have been made over quite a long time period, where as the foot marks would be created in a period of days - the work could easily end up being about the time of the exhibition, as opposed to the much longer history the carpet has. There's also the problem of using quite 'arty' material such as wax and graphite. I tried to shift away from the materials a bit by burning some of the flea market photos I have, effectively creating my own carbon. But then, it this trying to bring too many things into one piece?

I've gotten hold of several pairs of 1920s creamy coloured elbow-length leather gloves from another flea market. I thought these were pretty fascinating because of them being made of a skin to cover a skin; they're a little stained, some are really crisp, others are very soft. I wasn't sure what to do with them, so I started unpicking the seams, seeing what happened when I opened them up. I was also thinking about using them as a support for printing photographs onto. But as was pointed out to me (quite rightly, I might add) is that the glove would basically be acting as a canvas for an image - it wouldn't really be about the skin, but the glove. And why a glove? And is this trying to put too much into one piece again? I realised that even though I haven't worked with print or drawing for several years, let alone paint, there's a way of working that is easy to fall back on. It's something quite habitual, even though I've been working with objects, I still see things very much as images. Also, it's very easy to want to 'make' something. Perhaps just moving the carpet out of its current context will be enough. Maybe the glove says enough just by being unpicked.