ARTISTS TALKING

# 31 [17 March 2010]

www.rich-taylor.co.uk/archive/museumproject

I propose to install MUSEUM::project  as a 'instance' of clarity to punctuate an ongoing project researching elements of circulatory flow and cyclicality in the making/documenting of an artwork.

The piece has been developed throughout 2009 and in to 2010 by way of re-visiting the museum (Leeds' Civic Theatre) as a research-site and traversable studio where documentation is cohesive with temporary experience. The notion of a 'site' is an architectural reference point cited visually, textually and sculpturally.

The next step is to house the material as a collective piece in a space alternative to the original context. The concept of 'exhibition as documentation' extends the work, attempting to re-define recorded visitation and the sculptural quality of public institution.

The workload currently exists in archival storage and awaits the next step. It already has plenty written about it; this textual content seems exhaustive, it now needs space to breath and other works with which to communicate.

So far the idea exists in digital form as well as through notes and collected materials. The proposed arrangement will take on the form of installation in response to re-located architectures. This will necessitate the 'artist as documenter' to visit the new exhibition-site via the work's research-site, cross-referencing more material.

MATERIAL

Documents compiled:
Documented photography - series of 11
Source material for drawings and sculptural arrangement -

Materials/documents to be compiled:
Representational drawing paths - series of 11
Found materials in sculptural/sight specific arrangement - 19
Text element [between description and fictional wanderings]

The collection of documents will include a series of drawings that absorb the process of envisaging a sculptural form. This sculptural form will exist through engaging with the wall and/or floor space: making use of the found materials and their affected state, the formation will then elude direct-documentation; instead defining itself in reference to the photo-documentation produced during visitation.

# 30 [9 March 2010]

A piece of text about something that describes the landscape as well as the journey and hopefully gets to the final result. The work is about the process someone once said. And one mostly avoids, or tries to avoid, the word 'space': instead the use of 'synonyms' makes the text more diverse. But when does the text become a partitioned language set aside from dialogue? When is it instructional and when is it directional, informative or discursive: when is it then descriptive as well as informative and critical? These definitions of what a language, an artist's 'linguistic-visual', come in to their own through visual diversity. This happens within dissemination and project-work that defines by way of and passed the result, then the aftermath, the publication, the exhibition before a catalogue; or the advert for the show. 

Here comes along the notion of forming sites. Virtual sites with viaducts in cyberspace, or hyperlinks: something readily available and accessible to the public eye and arching with diversity in artistic language. At this point visual preoccupations become something of the discourse that goes in to them, archives them and documents them. It is self-generative. There is now a field of vision that comes from observing experience. There is now a verge of disturbance and a river, a viaduct again and then more trees whilst I converge towards something descriptive as well as explanatory.

I am explaining something that is an archive of events, objects, experiences, writings and other nuances. Or works. These are collated somewhere between the definition of Stating and Showing an idea, the instructional drawing of how to solve a puzzle - the photocopy of the original that forwards to the negotiation of space; a puzzlement in real space that eludes then to virtual dissemination.

Somewhere in Liverpool there are some stickers I used to make wall drawings so high up in to ceiling that no one dares get so far to take them down. These are recorded digitally, but also they form a selection of a permanent collection within the architecture. This is how they work in permanence even though the affect was supposedly ephemeral: wall drawings are not meant to last. But this one does. It's homage to what went before and deserved of publication through text, image and descriptive quality. It stated and now remains to show. Its shows something of a statement of what was once shown.

So what goes now is the negotiating of a space between Exposition and Exhibition. Somewhere along the line and endurance of knowing your studio-site and your exhibition-site: the language of objects and the conversations of recorded and re-presented imagery are superimposed, delivered, installed and re-recorded, then cropped and then uploaded, then downloaded - written about.

I'm writing about something now I am sure of that. But how does this build around the hanger of my practice ready to sprout some projectile machine that has a general direction?

Lets talk about general directions. What sort of direction does an artist's work go in and where is its resultant destination, the countryside of peace and mind? The industry of beginning? Or the edge of reason that has no reason but to be remote without social recognition? The South, the Mid-land, the North and the so far beyond north, that 'North' becomes more like South again? The border between England and Scotland is like a reflection of itself. So somewhere on the journey to and fro something happens where I become a reflection of myself. The only way I can keep track of this is to use terms that elude geographical problematics, instead they confront the notion of a 'site': a site with language, with form, and with accessible/updatable space.

The track then becomes the journey of an online sketchbook, which works as a generator for writings and ideas and the placement of images, titles and then further ideas.

Text can be collaborative. See the next post, which links to the next pylon or pillion. There is relativity in what I now write as my thoughts are on this screen that is blanched with sunlight through the window that, for me, never moves. Yet on the outside - as towns and stops and electrical lines pass by - they move with a force, a direction, a plane of organised vision. If only artistic directions could be so time tabled just as much as they are accommodating.

# 29 [8 March 2010]

These notes cover the talks (I am writing this in my hotel room) I am to do at Stockport College and Sheffield Hallam University (my hotel room is about twenty metres from the sea, overlooking the waves and cutting out the road in between me and the water that leads to the horizon - through the bay window that I look, the central pain holds the sun as it ponders through the clouds and marks the water around half a mile off shore). So I am writing these notes and can be anywhere, just like the words that I write could be describing anywhere through fiction or through real life description (the central pane is slightly lifted so that I can hear the waves better). The sun is now reaching me as I see myself back up in Northern England (my hotel room is in Penzance), travelling to Stockport and to Sheffield to deliver the same sort of 'chat'. I felt it unfair to keep either of them out of the other's picture, after all there's only the Snake Pass in between them - the virtual sphere eludes this and 'can' make them be together through creative form. This account brings them together somewhat I think.

So for the Sheffield talk I have been told around 30 students out of 60 will attend. I assume that this is down to peoples' commitments with time, other responsibilities that conflict with university hours - or perhaps some of the students deem certain things irrelevant to their practice (The sun is now reaching me - no longer polarised upon the distant undulating waters - but acting out its warm attendance to my hands and my keyboard).

The fiction or the fact in a virtual sense does away with geographies - it exists in a language above a language that pursues nature but also does quite well with out it. People can talk across nations and make communities within points of view not just because of geographical locale. The students from Sheffield and the students from Stockport can exist in the same place. There is a platform for this.

text/finished-started-travel-direction/

# 28 [12 February 2010]

THIS IS A WORKING TEXT (a text that may still need work) OR A TEXT THAT CAN NOW WORK FOR ITSELF...

SUPERIMPOSITION

Making and doing in at time of making-do.

The film and accompanying photographs were taken during a time of re-exposition whilst, mostly, looking at someone else's formation of exhibition. The Henry Moore Institute became an architectural device, in which to explore ideas through degrees of its compartmentalisation.

The directed compartments were the goods-lift, the disabled-lift, the archive-hold, and the book-store. All are continuing directions / movements in how the building functions in supporting the research institute and its ongoing stature, through catalogue, publication, visitor intake and exhibition delivery.

SUPERIMPOSITION brings these elements together, animating them through movement image so that they may attain a further language. Perhaps a building's inner workings, especially when its status goes through many changes / transformations, do actually converse: since there is no understanding of space when we are not there to experience it, the next best thing is to make do and use movement to humanise this and try to define it.

This is where the accompanying photography comes in. The images were taken and collected during times of particular inactivity. They focus on the empty space and its quality in transforming languages and ideas through 'empty' architecture, which in actuality is full of endless possibility.

In addition there are other works from previous exhibiting points of SUPERIMPOSTION. Labelling systems were designed in re-defining the work, what it can be and therefore is at any given moment. Therein a question protrudes: what is the title, the work itself or the label that attempts to explain its positioning and preservation.

Finally, there are a new series of site-photographs that explore a re-visiting to the explored site. The gallery is always at its best during the turbulence and endurance of the interim period, when the technicians, the front of house and office staff co-exist: the building and its workings were always more exposed. This time, the security lighting replaces the fitted lighting, creating compositional forms within in-between space, outside of the gallery looking in.

This is a re-exposition of work alongside a periphery of found photographic compositions. A 'taking-away' of SUPERIMPOSITION towards a re-location matches the designs of the Henry Moore Institute's self-exposition within the virtual domain. Thus, through this work, an ex-employee ties together his new location in Glasgow to his old one on Leeds. 

# 27 [8 February 2010]

photo·pia (fō tō′pē ə)

The relationships with a found photographic composition and then re-compiling this as an image / object: meaning: the 'left over exhibition advert'. Lock and key prevented me from accessing the actuality of this object - but I took the picture anyway: and I do indeed become increasingly aware of how it can be used as the beginning / end of an art piece and the re-construction of an environment. I will not give away its location - but it exists in the interim stage and most probably was cast aside by a technician, ready for the rubbish heap.

So I have photographically rescued it from the rubbish heap and kept its documented-sculptural form encased in archival existence.

Here comes the actual notion of its embellishment through digital edit. It is a digital edition of its former found functioning. It had a function but now does not have a function except in how I might see the forwarding of its found potential...

ANYWAY - half of that is rambling tosh - it is a nice image and does generate a good composition, enough for you to question how it has come to be and what it may have been before: this could well be obvious and self-explanatory to the exposed eye. But I like the concept of it being transformative through its re-ignition in photopia. After light has affected found-vision, perspective after probability and potential. 

It also adds a certain element for enforcing reflection within the composition: making this reflection unequal delineates reasons for black, reasons for white and reasons for colourisation (for instance how important is colour as far as the object goes - is it there merely for the objects identification. And how much of this work is in its actual form, not its identity?)

# 26 [7 February 2010]

Two images from both the exterior and the interior put together - I guess that this is some sort of exercise in looking how things can be constructed and displayed in the end of things. Or the beginning of things. Or the middle of things.

The display will be a series of screen images or framed printed images that then correspond to a construction of the found (or given objects) that will have been altered according to the amount of other images that are made (altered in paint - either black of white.

Circulatory flow will then relate to the exterior mapping and the interior exploration of the building as a whole.

(these images have also been posted on my Central Station image bank page / profile - take a look here)

# 25 [7 February 2010]

Blog post for the continuation of the Museum project
APPARENTLY SOMETHEING TO DO WITH CIRCULATORY FLOW

((-according to a friend who used to work with circulatory flow-)) So I already have pictures that have been formatted in to squares with blank-black dots in the middle - the next step is to approach the interior of course (I thought).

"What is the opposite of the outside (the inside of course - ok)" but then in terms of the aesthetic choice and the form that inspired the work in the first place:

"Another element of research finds its beginnings in the make-up of Leeds' new city museum that opened in 2008. Upon making friends with an assistant who worked there I managed to locate and attain a number of wooden panels that had some sort of use or pre-function: some sort of history that is unknown to me.

The strange thing is that they have perfect circular holes cut in them, the same point on each one..."

THE NEXT STEP IS THE OPPOSITE OF THE FIRST OR THE NEGATIVE

OR THE NEXT STEP IS THE POSITIVE OF THE FIRST - WHETHER THIS IS TO BE SEEN AS MINUS OR PLUS IS DEPENDENT ON HOW YOU VIEW THE INTERIOR OR EXTERIOR OF THE BUILDING....

Story:
It happened when walking through the university (re-visiting another idea "an exhibition in the time it takes to empty / clean / re-fill the university pool" - there is another story to this: my friend went skinny dipping and had sex in the pool - but I am not sure how long an exhibition can last during sexual intercourse) - anyway, I then walked down past the hospital and towards millennium square and the Leeds City Museum. I began to think of the architecture as an explore-able object: how on the exterior there are four definite corners and so on the interior there are four findable corners that can be sourced and photographed. So I set too it: but was told not to use flash photography, and to avoid the MUMMY exhibit for copyright / insurance reasons - the most interesting findings were avenues to un-explore-able spaces: fire escapes and scaffolding and a huge arena-space that was closed for a private function. BUT THERE IS ALWAYS CIRCULATORY FLOW I SUPPOSE.

# 24 [5 January 2010]

APPARANTLY TO DO WITH AIR VENTS AND CIRCULATORY FLOW
SO THEN, WHICH DIRECTION DOES THE WINDOW FACE?
BY USING THE NOTEBOOK AS A BLANK, CONCEPTUAL ARENA FOR DISSEMINATING AND CONFERENCING IDEAS - THE PRESENTED WORKS/OBJECTS/SCENARIOS ARE TRANSITORY IN THE GALLERY SPACE THAT IS EQUALLY AS BLANK. AS THE NOTEBOOK IS FIRST EMPTY IT IS THEN REVELATORY OF TIME SPENT WITH IT/WITHIN IT: THE GALLERY THEN, IS TRANSFORMATIVE OF OBJECTS USED AND SCENARIOS SET, CORRESPONDATIVE WITH THE PAGE TO WHICH THE IDEA FIRSTLY OWES ITS BEGINNINGS.

The work I produce is manifested within written pages of a notebook, the set paradigm that withholds notions of language, space and inauguration / organisation of ideas. The practice lies on the periphery of what can be and seems to be a studio, where ideas are then transformed into objects and subjects. Then comes the gallery-arena of ideas to be presented: I propose to use the gallery as a public-studio where the page can be three-dimensional and thoroughly explored.

TO WHICH DIRECTION DOES THE WINDOW FACE, AND WHERE DOES THE SUN LIE? The works in the exhibition will correspond also to the exteriority of the building, and the objects used will be organic with the natural setting of S1 Artspace, which is particularly industrious. This industriousness will be welcomed in furthermore transforming the ideas as they construct themselves within the gallery. 

The objects will be of everyday, just as the ideas were conceived within everyday happenings: their arrangement will demonstrate certain dichotomies, developing further inspections upon how an artwork or object is recorded and proven.

# 23 [3 January 2010]

Some old sketchbooks re-visited: scanned images from ideas past & numbers noted down and calculationory dimensions made too. Dancing around like visual plethora and infested with spelling mistakes and missed decimal points.

This all amounts to how I see the next stage of work: as a collective whole that needs and covers the process of sketching ideas and making notes for all number and worded reasons.

So I will have a room that will be all to myself and there will not altogether be coherence or progression through the pieces that are displayed: there will be different perspectives on things. Beginnings middles ends and appendices that look more like the beginnings of further things. The environment will be organised but the works may not be. Making use of the floor, the walls and the ceilings. Installed projections, sound pieces, drawing and other things. Intermedia connections: how do things connect through media and how do things connect through how they are recorded, documented and archived? How does art-work work as artwork? When it is conceptualised or when it is archived or when it is on display or when it is documented or when it is philosophised or when it is deconstructed and put back together again or when it is observed?

I would propose this as a collection of works that are foreseen as well as others that are complete or reaching completion. The exhibition will see the end and the beginnings to works that have working-titles as well as other nuances as to their completed selves. Some pieces will be re-established from previous exhibitions and others will be formulated newly in the given space.

# 22 [3 January 2010]

BELL TOWER COMMUNICATION (RE:VISITED)

DOUBLE SIDED TAPE

WORD LENGTH / LINE RULE

PAPER WEIGHT IN SIEZE OF PAPER

MUSEUM PROJECT (AIR VENT)

SUPERIMPOSITION

SCANNER PLANT PIANO PIECE (OBJECTS COLLECTION & RECORDING)

ST. MUNGUS CATHERDRAL (LEARNED PATTERN)

some titles to be thinking about in a space. and then some more text...

added at 12.23

This at some point has to make sense

PAPERWIRGHTANDWEIGHTOFPAPER