ARTISTS TALKING

# 99 [17 May 2012]

The writer will tell you of his game

"Decks were always in the basement but the noise always hit the attic rooms full of smoke chat drugs and hellos to morning light. At a good hour the basement filled with people and dub step sounded out to everyone's hearts. Girls would grind the decks with hard-edged repeated movements, their hair tied back with skirts and tights at a functional height to assist proper dance. There was more room for proper games outside though and you could leave via the back door, just a few steep steps up to the kitchen, out to the courtyard and out on to the backstreets of Paper Rubbish Row"

He always manages to start with a drawing, straight forward pencil and paper that then reveals character, mode, story encapsulated composition and narrative. The title comes from somewhere else when the props, synonymous with marks on the page and gradations of led, are held painted and placed in to the space. Then come the photographic memories and the conversations withheld; the escapes; the play; the ladders over walls and deaths on spiked iron fencing that never made it as far as the war effort.

So the title of this piece is "Game two; Tower Colour Cave".

The work is a drawing in all intents and purposes, but also a direct confrontation of framing; the work is framed by the idea and its content, not a physical and conserving wooden encapsulation, so is displayed next to other found and folded pieces, also fixed to the wall, which build on its installation and relationship to other objects and works in the room.

I want to introduce the drawing through direct wording:

It shows two characters, both men, one instructing the other the other taking instruction. They are in a makeshift pavilion like space - a play space that has been constructed indoors; many an object and mask and shape adorns the floor as the instructor gives tips to the other man on how he should fire his bow. The other man holds what should be like some kind of bow, but in fact it is a useless piece of ephemera likened to the metal part of a windscreen-wiper. The action that would unfold is a game-play or a practice of performance, fight or confrontation - more than anything it is training. On the back of the instructor is strapped a doll dressed to look like a woman; an arrow pierces her left knee and another pierces her right breast but she is a doll for target practice so that is all fine. You get the idea that out of frame, the instructor would then proceed to be a target for the man holding the bow, but it is not entirely clear how the game will play out. Small tower shaped objects fill out the background and foreground, these relate to other works in the gallery where the drawing hangs. To the right of the drawing hangs four other pieces; these are taken from magazine pages. One is solid layer of the colour red. Attached to this is one piece of thin metal taken from a car windscreen-wiper. Another piece is a glossier page which has been collaged to formulate a tower shape - there are many colours within this: great big colourful pastel colours that were used as a pallet for other paintings in the space. Attached to this is another piece of metal identical to the other. The next piece is a small cutting from the glossy page. There is a further and final piece that hangs to the right and is pencilled on to the wall to look as if it hangs on a piece of string - this is another cutting from the same page.

"Are you English?"

"Yes"

# 98 [16 May 2012]

Introducing 'I lick your badge'

"It seems more like a hamster cage than a painting"

"I guess I try to make paintings but they always fail and fall or deconstruct themselves in to objects. 'I lick your badge' is the first one I have ever made that hangs lightly from the ceiling - it is framed elegantly by the rest of the work in the room (also paintings and other constructions of light, wigs, origami and found objects)."

"There is a true music to object - and this sure can dance to it, it twists and it turns and it looks like a hybrid between Pinata and Patsy from Ab Fab's beehive hairdo. A Pinata that has been smashed and then glued back together by a greedy and premature child trying to cover his bad tracks and a Patsy full of drugs cut by the witch in Spirited Away"

"So where does the painting come in? Well, there sure is still a surface but the surface moves and glosses - and as the material, bunched together as it is, is three-dimensional the painting becomes more like a dressing of a cake or adorning of a prop. Its just a bad cake and a bad prop that is subject to its positioning in the room - it is a war cake prop."

"This prop is for battle then, to affect the room and dominate the space - yet it is so light and nothing with shit stuck in it"

"Are you Japanese?"

"No"

# 97 [16 May 2012]

A collection of perspectives for round two of the performance "Whistle Blower your Table Shine is Mine: Seduce and Destroy", presented on Friday 11th May 2012, as part of Jennifer Picken and Richard Taylor's 301 hour GO-GO residency at AWA Gallery, Amsterdam.

Perspective of father who enters my work constantly and somehow never leaves; "I think the concept for your performance was good but I was a bit shocked by the content."

"Was this all according to plan?"

We entered the gallery around 8.30pm. We were hit by smoke and fire and voice resounding in the cavernous room; "Game two... game two is about to start" the whisper reached us as we treaded towards the centre "Game two is about to start and its subtitle is 'tower colour cave'... so... expect Towers Colour and Caves". They could not have been more wrong.

I had been to their previous performance in Glasgow a few weeks before but this time around it felt altogether more planned; more amassed and according to the space around them. This time they had a singer, here's how it played out...

"So I was led by hand down the steps; the rehearsal was earlier in the day when there was more light. At the time of the performance I could not see a thing in front of me. Whilst holding Javier's hand I staggered unbalanced towards my starting point: the chair with projector and propped mirror, which would be used as a balancing of my guise and also as my own visual reader throughout the following ten or so minutes.

The sound track began, by this time I knew Javier was in place - I started to lift the mirror away from the projector slowly filling the room with light. I used the light to shine on the audience around me to get a better idea of their placing in accordance to each step I would take. The sound bellowed on. I stepped further in to the room filling it with more light using the mirror to reflect and navigate.

She was there waiting for me in the middle, half hidden behind the black box - I had to use my light source to find her and managed only to locate a faint sequinned glitter, which I knew was her head, her dirty disguised head with red lips below. We had practiced this. This movement and display. Javier began to sing and we took this as our cue, me and her, to round one another up, size each other up, chase each other as if entering in to circulatory and stifled battle.

I moved with the rhythm of his tonal range, which believe me was a range and a half that pinned the audience to the walls of the gallery: I was fine with this, it gave me more room to manoeuvre. I chased her and on occasion she stood her ground - neither of us gave in yet we agreed once in a while to relent for the other to move off and gather thought and posture. It was a civilised confrontation.

Javier reached the end of his blasphemous cycle of jugular acrobatics and it was time for silent come together movement. Now the two battling parts came forth to the centre to open the box, remove its contents and then reshape the lid as a plinth. More sequins and a dismembered orifice: vaginal anal beautiful it was an object of sexual aspiration for us both.

Then another recording, which sounded out a meddling of each other's perspective. A sexual encounter woven in to how one would like to encounter the other sex. Altogether story led, accented and direct in every possible way."  

# 96 [25 April 2012]

Performance looming, films being made, GI happens its happening now

"Its been some what of a slog, but slogs are good when you really know how to knock them out of the court with some good old fashioned 'sod this let's just enjoy ourselves'."

'Parallèlement à l'intérieur (au-dessus de)’ the project I am collaborating on with Jennifer Picken is now installed in three different places around Glasgow, threading in to Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art (GI).

The Mutual artist group have coined each of these places 'Muster Points', places of information, collection. We decided to use three out of their four spaces to elaborate on aspects of the work we have been making.

Muster point, Trongate 103

Here we have two sculptural works installed in the space next to a monitor that displays three separate films we have made for the project; 'Radish Journey', 'True Music to Object-hood' and 'sound from tunnel and back'.

Muster point, Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA)

Here we have the same films on display on a similar monitor and have also produced an intervention using the last two manifestos conceived during the build up to GI (see http://tinyurl.com/breakdestroy4 and see http://tinyurl.com/whistleblower5 ), these have been printed as posters on to A3 paper and pinned to the wall amongst other posters and flyers for other events (GI and otherwise) on the first floor entrance to the building. The other posters are of course timely with our own project's first instalment; this is a deliberate use of space, engendering the manifestos with a formula usually attached to the 'poster' format. The manifestos themselves are not posters though, they sort of hang in between as ideas or proposals for art works and further interventions. They get taken over and get taken down as more people add their events to the room, and as our project runs its course.

Muster point, The Glue Factory

Here we have a larger selection of object-based work, painted objects, cardboard sculptures, drawings, leaking sacks, lubed up black holes and dangling golden plastic hair. The installation as a whole doubles up as a stage set as we have a performance in the very same room on Saturday 28th April, entitled 'Whistle Blower your table shine is mine: Seduce and Destroy'. In fact, its worth mentioning, the final Manifesto, which Jennie produced and is now on display at CCA, acts as a sort of pre-cursor to to the performance.

More about the performance to come after the weekend. We have produced a short story in order to help us script and pace the event. The story talks about the performance as if it has already happened, from the perspective on an audience member.

In case you're in Glasgow on Saturday and want to come along, it starts (with means to go on) at 5pm at The Mutual Charter Muster Point, The Glue Factory - for more details see the Facebook event here - http://www.facebook.com/events/345045302224903

The performance will introduce a further story written by Jennie and will feature a new film produced by myself specially for the live event! 

For more details and addresses of where to find 'Parallèlement à l'intérieur (au-dessus de)’ during GI see - http://tinyurl.com/audessusde

# 95 [3 April 2012]

GI 2012, Amsterdam and Overtoom, Edinburgh Detour Library.

I have been itching around for most of the morning staring at the windowsill and the outside. My housemates re-arranged the living room the other day to accommodate easier access to their new grow-your-own tomato plants. It was snowing. Now its just windy and the windows sound loose: I guess that's my soundtrack for the day - rattling windows. Anyway, I have been skirting around an update on this blog for a while now and I always like to set the scene.

Things are most positively underway for the project 'Parallèlement à l'intérieur (au-dessus de)’, which I am producing with artist Jennifer Picken. We have work (almost completed), ready to install in the Centre for Contemporary Arts, the Lighthouse, the Glue Factory and Trongate 103: for Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art and The Mutual Charter. Things are getting exciting and we have a performance planned for the second weekend of the festival, which will play out at the Glue Factory also.

See - http://www.glasgowinternational.org/index.php/even...
And see - http://cargocollective.com/audessusde

We also have a longer-standing, but private, blog where ideas sharing, screen sharing and general uploading of content has been 'happening' since August 2011: a lot of content that's really rich in collaborative endeavour. We are yet to decide if the url for this blog should be disclosed…

Jennifer and I have also got a two-week residency at AWA gallery, at Overtoom301 in Amsterdam, which starts straight after the GI festival: this will continue the working project developing its content and bringing the so far virtual collaboration in to the realm of the 'real'. I will sleep on a shelf smothered in smoke: things will happen.

Another project, which has almost reached conclusion, is a slightly quieter stream in face of the  mountain river that is GI and Amsterdam. Artist Becky Campbell, who is based in Edinburgh, invited me to take part in 'Detour Library', a touring collection of artist books that will be placed in different collections over an indefinite period of time: starting with the Artists' Bookmarket at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh on April 14th 2012. I have been busying myself by delving in to past projects, discovering left over bits of work that I felt needed some form of resolution or indeed needed re-visiting in order to build them in to further research. The result will be set of three posters and three photo/word cards as loose-leaf pages. The abstract for the collected pages is outlined below in a short story/introduction (this will bind the pages together).

----
legend.
A Search For Dead Sculptor (Albert|Jack|Excavate)

premise.
to build around chronology of work done, familial conext of objects in possession, and the role-on fabrication of art-works thrice fold

content.
three times posters for performance, state and film
three times picture/word cards with story inclosed


In Search of the dead sculptor (Albert|Jack|Excavate)


"
He used to work in a research library that focussed on the subject of sculpture, one room was for British sculpture and reference alone - another for international commentary on the subject. Other corridors and vitrines were set aside for exhibition catalogues and thematic publications on historical periods and philosophical definitions. Every odd Wednesday and Saturday or Sunday, he would re-shelve the relevant books to the relevant places, using either a numbered or alphabetised system. Another duty was to leaf through weekend papers picking out relevant news clippings on sculptors, or exhibitions on sculpture (or indeed the obituaries, where recently deceased sculptors - stone carvers, cast moulders and assemblage balancers etc. - would be lamented in type).

The first room mentioned had a section in the far left corner. This section was alphabetised with loose leaf box-folders, which housed sculptors from a through to z. News clippings, posters, photocards, post cards, private view invites etc. were slotted in to the relevant sections: the result being an archive model for visitors to the library to gather further information on their specific measurements in research.
"

legend.
----

now there is snow again!

# 94 [21 February 2012]

Recommendations to house in garden

I wandered in to the botanical gardens the other day and felt strangely west-end-Glasgow-esque, for the ones built on the east of the central belt of Scotland are definitely of the same architectural era, yet they are not free. In Glasgow they are free, and an ice-cream hut lives outside next to the vegetable patch where Shakespearian recitals play out amongst growth and glow worms.

In this particular garden in Edinburgh, a house plants itself on top of the hill - more halls and rooms for more work to be viewed and the outside to be accounted for. Upon leaving the said house-cum-gallery to collect my coat I noticed a scanned copy of an article published by the Independent: a recommendation for people to visit the gallery. More for its placing and curatorial stance against the backdrop of views and foliage than anything else. But there is more perspective than four walls, for each room also has a window...

I do remember a time when hours were passed in great halls of sculpture, my friend hailed from Wrexham or thereabouts, she now resides in Korea. But for a time we inhabited the same imaginary open plan living space - the place where Sunday afternoons were regardless of visitors. We maintained our shared head space and dreamt of further projects. The white cube, in hindsight, was more of a catalyst for an in-transit or transformative lifestyle.

There we read everything backwards, each word was taken, read, and then the word before was to follow instead of lead. A strange performed language exuded from a need to translate your speech for others to understand: hand movements and head nods were needed to emphasise certain bits and certain bobs. Its as if we wanted to reach the end before we accepted the beginning. A literary style perhaps for the stories we would prefer to tell.

Now we have more of a voice to tell them 

# 93 [21 February 2012]

You shall get used to it whether you like it or not

This weekend gone (February 17-19th), Tramway in Glasgow hosted a symposium on emerging artists in Scotland, including commissioned and integrated contributions from Collective Gallery's New Work Scotland 2011 programme.

For this, I was approached by the Glasgow based artist Olver Braid to produce a film, using a monologue written by Hugh Dichmont, who lives and works in Nottingham. I worked with two actors, Gary Reid and Iain Morrison (both of which live near me in Edinburgh), who interpreted the monologue to camera.

Below is the result of this project.

Other videos including the one below are viewable for a brief time on this website: http://www.youllgetusedtoit.com

# 92 [20 February 2012]

These are two texts that were written several posts (months ago), they are now planned art works for a project entitle 'Mobile Library', for which I am developing a publication. Art works from blog posts - not a first for me but hopefully here and now will explain this particular process.

text one:

Flash dance in scaffold open door firework run

"Shit, I truly think we might have destroyed her performance"

We had escaped from the party out the back door. Further we climbed up the road to meet a wire fence taller than twice our height. A small gap at the bottom allowed us access to the wasteland beyond: a place for crack den escapades. The night was full of the moon though, so no drug takers and beer can rusters got in our way. The broken wall at the other end of the field overlooked yet more ruin bathed in nothing but city light reflected off distant clouds - and the moon joined in to affect the landscape with such a haze to fit our drunken state. The wall was anything but safe but we climbed it anyway:

"Yes but, it was quite funny - I thought it had finished and I did apologise immediately. And you, you hid behind the door out of sight and it was your dare"

"I enjoyed our own private dance inside the sculpture though: the builders light really set the mood. We must have looked like a couple of flash dancers having a rave from the outside. Arms in the air with nothing but a wide birth of scaffolding around us, our very own catacomb aside from the rest..."

"Sit up straight or you'll fall"

text two:

Gut throat and rhyme

"I recite the written description directly in to the camera. Little do I know that it focuses on my mouth alone. Whilst brandishing my characterisation in to the lens Len's laughter escapes. A willowing dip in sensibility, a slight whine and then a realisation that gobbles up the sound and swallows only to let go again: to exasperate or to exult. Such an incantation this is! I release, knowing it's exacting affect, its altitude in decibels, a measured intensity of two sources: a logarithm of gut throat and rhyme."

(source one) Len had my laughter

"There's a hill so steep that your bike would have to be pushed, not ridden, on the return home."

Len laughed at the revelation of his creation, as we sat in the front room of his hill top semi-detached in Crookes, on the northern shoulder of Sheffield. This was 1989 and I remember match sticks making a composition of a house on a lane with a tree in the background: a snowy scene with fading orange light.

Len held the can of my laughter. Len's brother was Jack. I wear Jack's jumper and laugh. And talk in to the camera with the effect of conversation.

(source two) Talking in to camera

Sat in this place we face one another with teacups and sauces and crumpets in the middle, and a shiny Mongolian teapot reflecting our convex torsos noses knees and shoulders. We begin to write down every detail of the character in front of us, drawing out physicality on the surface using words that describe our knowledge of one another. At first a tip of the head, then the brow, the cheekbone and mouth and ears, connected by the odd smile. Then eyes come with a flash of further description. Then comes laughter; how do you describe laughter in words without alluding to the person's history?

To edit text you first have to edit film. So - edit the film, re-play the film and decipher the words spoken.

When speaking to camera I will be aware of myself. I will laugh.

# 91 [13 February 2012]

Certain bits and certain bobs

I do remember a time when hours were passed in great halls of sculpture, my friend hailed from Wrexham or thereabouts, she now resides in Korea - but for a time we inhabited the same imaginary open plan living space.

There we read everything backwards, each word was taken, read, and then the word before was to follow instead of lead. A strange performed language exuded from a need to translate your speech for others to understand: hand movements and head nods were needed to emphasise certain bits and certain bobs.

To Align or to Derail

Below is a film, which is being developed through modes of translation for an upcoming exhibition in Glasgow (mentioned in last post).

[Computer.m4v "A film developed from original 'snap shot' footage documenting travels made and repeated, underlaid with sound from buskers and singers in a tunnel in Belem (a suburb of Lisbon, Portugal). This film aims to translate the idea of communicating with other artists and groups by presenting a layering of image and text to configure or dis-configure - to align or derail."]

# 90 [13 February 2012]

I am finding some time to blog

not touched this for a while and not even so sure why… truth be told, I am currently rendering a film for a project that is to be screened during an emerging artist symposium at Tramway this weekend - so I decided to whip out TextEdit and get typing...

The film aforementioned is about male pattern balding and has gone through several phases using different creative practitioners at different points. First point of call - the artist Oliver Braid, who is leading the project, spied me out on Facebook, stalked my pictures and decided I was "physiologically apt" - i.e. going bald! He then contacted me to ask if I would be interested in producing a film using a writer's monologue, which crafts a certain nervous character, who has dealt with the balding process. I said yes. I received the monologue via email and enlisted two actors to play out the script to camera - I got some interesting results and hopefully the film will end up having my mark on it as well as the actor's and the writer's.

… truth be told, I am currently rendering this film. I have not made a film like this before and feel oddly under script and within brief. Not sure I like briefs. Hopefully the result will be something aesthetically interesting as well as narratively engaging.

I will get used to it Oliver and so will you…

Another project that is well underway is a collaboration with The Mutual Charter for GI 2012 and artist Jennifer Picken: we have made it to manifesto three and then four five and (six) will result in a show for the festival in April/May and a residency in  Amsterdam that develops the project in to a considered exhibition Netherlands style. See here for more information - http://cargocollective.com/audessusde

I was reading through an old guide to Amsterdam round at my partner's flat the other day. The way they described the gay scene was something of archaic - perhaps it remains the same…

I have heard that if you pick the correct time before noon (approximately 30 seconds prior to the chimes) and wait at one end of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam - and then ride your bicycle with constant speed underneath the museum, you will hear each clock hit '12' as you enter in to one side of the tunnel, cruise through the underside, and then reach the other end.

Reach the other end, tunnel and back again with sound

file_name.mov