ARTISTS TALKING

# 41 [10 June 2010]

She was used to confined spaces but when in open air could not help but walk in to walls and trip over herself and her capabilities. She spent a lot of time clotted in bruised corners making work in the middle of sleeping and humming and spying.

"Consider the following case: She has been taught a use of the words "lighter" and "darker" (a practical use she, in the end, uses to decipher which stones belonged where...). She's been shown objects before of various colours and sizes and has been taught that one calls this a darker colour than that, trained to bring an object on being ordered "Bring something darker than this", and to describe the colour of an object by saying that it is darker or lighter than a certain sample, etc., etc. Now she is given the order to put down a series of objects, arranging them in the order of their darkness and size. She does this by laying out rows of books, writing down a series of names of animals, and by writing down five vowels in the order u, o, a, e, i. We ask her why she put down that latter series, she says, "Well, o is lighter than u, and e lighter than o". - We shall be astonished at this attitude, and at the same time admit that there is something in what she says. Perhaps we shall say: "But look, surely e isn't lighter than o in the way this book is lighter than the page we happen to be upon". But she may shrug her shoulders and say, "I don't know, but e is lighter than o, isn't it?""

"...in the path's of our of our garden one finds beautifully coloured smooth shaped pebbles, varying in size from two to eight centimetres. She cannot resist picking up these unusual stones, and little by little builds up quite a collection of them, which lies on the window-cill of my workroom. Unconsciously I begin to sort these out by size, obeying a lifelong fascination with the sizes of things, equivalent to the interest painters have in the weight of colour in its darkness and shades of light. By rejecting those pebbles whose difference in size was too small to be perceptible, she reduced my collection to a series of thirty-six whose size-difference amounted to 4% of the size of the stones (in the stream). It at once became apparent, however, that if the pebbles were spread out at random, they could be seen to belong to clearly different groups. One could start by picking out the largest ones, until a point came when none were left that belonged to that size. A smaller group, again of a same type of size, then revealed itself. In this way the pebbles sorted themselves out in to five groups, each of six or seven stones which one assessed to be the same sort of size."

GO FORTH...

# 40 [9 June 2010]

The new studio and car in between

The car was as yellow as several hundred spines of national geographics stacked together high upon a shelf; it was ready to take us to the places its pages would depict. We had to find the road first though it was a bank holiday so we decided to escape the city and soft-top convertible our way towards a new studio. As summer was beginning to find its place upon the banks of the loch we took a minor road and parked upon a verge, next to a ruin, a pylon with mountainous lands in the distance. There we took a walk.

Ten minutes down we entered in to character - there, aside a pond and upon the rocks we came across something other than ourselves. Something of a reflection or two: one of each for us to find.

Stream rock ready water dam then leach sunscreen tadpole. Tree, root rock again then bones with antlers for us to fish out of the pond. One of us wanted to build a boat like the one in the river next to the mountains, shaped like a rice bowl, simplified for finding small fry. We would use masking tape for this, we would explore documenting what we make and the appearance of these characters that habituate and ruin the micro-eco-system of this place: with straight lines in the midst of nature’s curves. And then ducks followed by their children dressed in spotted feathers float effortlessly across to the man made destruction. It was all her fault, the found-character and her eyes and ears and meddling feet that looked like hands and her straight Patti Smith hair

We set up the equipment with tripods and lenses and remotes and props to prop our ideas up with. We then gave the landscape over to these characters. And they were away amongst the odd dip in to conversation like the fingering of cool water to take stock amongst the hot sun of work. Photograph next to film, object next to movement and the drowning of lanterns bought and brought from Chinese porn shops behind Leicester Square.

We had exhausted our lens shots and it was getting hot. The found limbs and extenders, she had finished her stream as a straight hairline extension. We have pictures for that. She misses the month ago birthday when shit hit the fan but here she seemed at peace.

We decided to pack up our shit and leave this place so that’s what he did. Stepping over pond, fish, antlers, bones, rock and root. Reversing over tree and passed the dam and across the stream we documented our departure to an envelope on the floor: we had fifty pounds to spend on refreshments atop the hill and next to a gray man guitar player. So that is what we did.

He then wanted walls after lunch so they went in search of them. GO FORTH along the road against the traffic to another grassy verge. The ruin was about us and the dell was beyond to a fork in the river. We found something altogether different there or rather he found us outside his home in a field. The grass took the oncoming rain along with the wind and all colour dissipated to duotone. We have photographs for that too.

You can have a look.

# 39 [8 June 2010]

"... it was a bank holiday so we decided to escape the city and soft-top convertible our way towards a new studio. As summer was beginning to find its place upon the banks of the loch we took a minor road and parked upon a verge. There we took a walk, we walked, we found fifty pounds and bought ourselves an expensive lunch and a shandy or two. Ten minutes down we entered in to character - there, aside a pond and upon the rocks we came across something other than ourselves..."

(Passage from 'escapades', 1985)

Homage 'too' characterisation too (self-versus-another) - see video

With self-characterisation there is an element of performance through histories, balances, extraordinary linkages and staring with one side of you in to the other. This eludes to the creation of researched drawings, tight, singular graphite creations that come from a variety of interrogation and experiments... these come at the end so do NOT expect them now. They come at the end like the illustration of a dialogue.

A necessary process is to play one thing forward and then to create a duplicate of this to, at the same time, play in reverse. Therein you will spot connections, discrepancies and ways forward. This is also explorative of measurement, how does one thing measure itself against another... This gives way to open space: what is open can be measured in more modes than that of simple scale/size, there are certain things immeasurable so you just have to make documentation in its stead and hope to gain something from there. To gain something from observation through 'documentation': the docuperformer. Documenting the documenter.

There is something here - something explored through having two equal measured spaces next to each other. What do you then make homage too but your own histories and accounts of character that amount to you occupying this space...? What then is the definition of 'versus'? One team versus another, one person versus another: one artist versus the character that made him or the characters that this artist then makes. Where are these characters made and what is needed for them to exist and should they have any essence of cross-division. What does it mean to bring the outside in to the measurable inside...

Racoon likes Chinese lanterns
This is one such character

How should it then be described? And what should then be used to document it? And what exactly is 'it'? Perhaps a story would then suffice... a link please.

# 38 [9 May 2010]

Knowledge – Acquisition – Escapism

I will work backwards - escape to acquire knowledge

Escapism – this is perhaps a visual thing and sometimes I find reading to be so terribly visual that I find it distracting and have to draw or just sit and think instead. I am terrible at finishing books and rarely read just one at a time from cover to cover – I prefer to dip my toes in to test the water: if the text is more than tepid and excitingly hot (which it often is) then I have to take my toes back out again and leave the heat to settle. I seem to be able to escape in a lot of ways and not just through reading alone – writing is just as useful a mode of escapism. Its like taking a walk in some respects – in the rain – the typing is like the tapping of rain drops atop my huge white, black, red and green golfing umbrella. Glasgow offers a lot of wind in the rain – I get to take off from time to time – this is fortuitous if I am bored of the pavement and prefer the direction of the sky: an anti-gravitational pull towards potential energy in thought, writing, thinking, reading, observing, documenting. Next time you open you’re umbrella think of me.

Acquisition – this depends upon funds and time and resources. Acquiring ideas comes from watching the world and the passing by of people: their interaction, their concentration, and pre-occupations. Acquisition is therefore the impact of my observing others – it's a regular but fast exchange that takes a few seconds that I can then stretch over time into a paragraph, a page or a few bits of paper with pen and pencil. With acquisition comes dialogue too. An internal or tangible dialogue that matches what you understand with the conceptual process of ideation – language is therefore an offering of acquisitioned process in this respect. Whether this is non-verbal, bodily, mentally or indeed translated through reading. Reading is perhaps the most historical of acquisitions. There is food for thought in this as text is often sustainable if stored properly – less oxygen and less outsider affect. Next time you read something read it as quickly as possible and then put it away again – do not expose it for too long.

Knowledge – the latest piece of knowledge came around about the same time I learnt that Western edges of most cities are better off than Eastern edges because of the direction of wind. Is knowledge affected by smoke? If so then people who lived in the east end of Glasgow or London during industrial revolution did not have as much of an education thanks to geographical and natural circumstances: the prevailing winds of the UK would have seen to that murky dusty fact. So the other fact came from a fire training exercise – health and safety and common sense. How much does common sense match with knowledge and does it restrict the mind’s capacity for more knowledge? Is the  circulation of knowledge convectional like the movement of smoke within a room – and does it influx into empty spaces according vacuum or pressure, once it has maximised one space and is ready to fill another? Is it safe therefore to gain knowledge in a lift? Next time you want to escape (fire hazard or no fire hazard) and you’re acquiring knowledge – try thinking about the process physically as you’re walking or panting from one room to the next.

text by me - Richard Taylor

In exchange with Sophie Frost - writer and thinker and potential art doer.
http://plightofthebritishartspostgrad.blogspot.com...

# 37 [6 May 2010]

THE HOUSE AND OTHER CUISINES

I was given a time and a place
I was told to arrive at the time of seven thirty. When I did turn up no one was there - I meandered for a while and past the restaurant a few times. I then followed some people or perhaps I was more aware that they might have felt they were being followed - I was just looking to pass some time by walking in a general direction. I returned around three or four times, re-tracing my tracks or avoiding paths already taken. I hid round a corner with the flashing lights of Ti cuisine in sight, poised, ready to walk at a reasonable pace and 'arrive' again fashionably, expectantly and enthusiastically late. They were still not there.

I took the choice of entering the restaurant. I entered in to a dialogue with the waitress. She asked which name I was under for the reservation - I realised I knew none of these people's names I recall someone called Chris who worked for an organisation in Penzance, he was the one who bestowed upon me the 'invitation' and showed me the restaurant around the corner from the networking event where we had just met - he had made me coffee - and we exchanged cards/email addresses.

[ -- Before returning to the restaurant for the first time I had taken a walk back to the hotel where I was staying to contemplate the invitation - I phoned my friend Jade to ask her opinion on whether my attending was a good idea or not. Whilst at the hotel I had two conversations with her, one outside next to the shore and one inside the hotel room.

Jade was distracted by the wind channelling down the acoustics of the phone so conversation no.1 was cut short - I had put her on speaker phone so she could listen to the waves on the shore. Conversation no.2 took place in the bath where I made my own waves by copying with my body the landscape outside; it's inhabitants and the environment: "creativity here undulates and transposes across many-a-place disseminating a holistic hub athwart geographical/traversable locales: they make their own city - their own centrality." -- ]

I stank of complementary travel soap and the waitress could smell it on me for sure.

The restaurant remained empty - still I had no names for the people who were yet to arrive and they had no idea I was waiting for them. All the collected cards and email addresses were left stuffed in my bag. I was too busy having a bath and making conversation with Jade to remember them. The bath overran and I was late. But then I realised I can actually walk pretty fast and arrived ten minutes early. But the other 'people' were then half an hour late. So I was always set to be early anyway.

One thing - the reason why they were late is the same reason why I thought I was to be late. Conversations. Conversations in bathtubs: conversations about the sea, next to the sea, and about the southern coast of Cornwall. About journeys made and people met. They then arrived and I had already chosen from the menu what I was to be eating and the waitress had memorised this, she was determined to keep my business.

# 36 [25 April 2010]

Hidden space - photographic performance/stage/abode

HIDDEN SPACE - MADE EVIRONMENT - DRAWING ARENA - STAGE SET - CONVERSATION EXCHANGE

ALLUDING TOO

# 35 [24 April 2010]

There’s something attainable across the airwaves.

"We have a secret hidden group on Facebook where we exchange ideas but its nothing compared to a good chat over the phone."

Most of the time Kimbal seems to be away performing in various countries – forever simplifying his acts so he can travel lightly with a recording device (I can usually tell when he’s not in the UK – the dialling tone is different – sounds like he’s engaged most of the time or perhaps somewhere unattainable).

I got to thinking how Kimbal’s work fits in to this strange beast that is ArtEvict. The nature of the spaces that are revealed each month bends towards an ephemeral approach – an ad-hoc deliberation in what is made and performed. Today’s telephone conversation came to a conclusion: Kimbal takes away, tidies up his ideas – he packs himself up to hitch hike to another land where he straps himself to a stranger. Then I come along and make a piece of installation art where I want props and sounds and flashing lights – basically making a mess.

At some point we have to reach equilibrium and perhaps this will happen in the performance itself. Certainly my drawings seem to be acting as modes of communication – they seem to strike ideas within the nomadic man’s mind.

So I also got to thinking of how even in Kimbal's stationary habitation – a warehouse/studio/flat/bed-living working area in north Hackney – is also a place of ever-changing racing activity. I want to install myself in this and build my ideas next to his self-made MDF bedroom. To this idea I thought of a tent made of paper to match his medium density box.

This image is that which is drawn by another the person on shift before me. It looks like a tent or a pyramid. A hidden space within a hidden space is perhaps a make shift studio constructed upon arrival in London through collaborative exercise and conversational/visual exchange. It can also be a drawing tool or a habitable or moveable studio.

Hidden space - tent as transitory studio

# 34 [15 April 2010]

“This month ArtEvict has moved around the corner from Tate Modern. Be there and experience what is really happening on the contemporary front. Explore the 5 floors of an abandoned Victorian Storage Factory and stumble across various durational, live interventions throughout the evening.”

 AND YOUR LIPS ARE TRUE TOO AS MY STUDIO BECOMES THE SEAT ON A TRAIN – WONDERFUL ON THE EAST COAST.

Once again I look forward to a week of travelling around the country – this travelling lark seemed to lark upon me as soon as I larked up to Glasgow last July – Glasgow is a far cry from many-a-place (13 hours train journey from Penzance for instance – that was a killer). Anyway the week after the next takes me to Bangor, Bristol, Aberystwyth, London and Brighton all in one week to deliver talks and present at events – to discuss the very genre of online platforms that Artists talking is – and their validity to a learning structure for art students and as professional tools for others.

Thursday the 29^th of April lands me at Slade School of art to talk to students from the London colleges – it was on this evening that I was initially invited to perform with Kimbal at April’s ‘issue’ of ArtEvict: then the date changed to the 24^th and the ever illusiveness elongated itself.

I got a mail out today from Kimbal – advertising this month’s event – this time you need a password to get access – something of a backstage pass to a building that is ‘just around the corner from the Tate Modern’. No more instructions I think you have to land a well-placed email in their inbox to find out more.

Kiki is another of the ArtEvict gang – I got a separate email from her asking for a short description as to the performance ‘I’ am planning. Well – er – I’m not the performer, I am the facilitator and therefore I prefer to remain hidden and let my actions do the performing. This is a difficult one. But then I remember how I used to dress myself in multiples of A0 paper back at university – something of making my own drawing space that no one could see until I had finished and cut myself out at the end. I might tell her there is to be a lot of cutting and a lot of pasting – Kimbal can go off and perform somewhere ‘wow the crouds’ and I’ll just make a drawing act.

Another thought I have had is to use the audience as drawing tools – enforcing them to pair up – be tied to the back of one another: one blind folded with charcoal, paper and easel to hand – the other to see the subject (but not the drawing) and to enact the movement of drawing. The contraption will suffice in transferring one’s vision to another’s movement on the page. A conference in process. Kimbal will be the subject as I take photographs by way of remote. 

Hidden space - travelling, thoughts and communication-ist

# 33 [12 April 2010]

This stem of blogging can also be read here - ArtEvict - hidden space and revealing performance

I was contacted on here from someone in an office on Buchanan Street - or somewhere close to thereabouts. In fact the whereabouts of this office are as equally as hidden to me as my whereabouts are possibly hidden to them. I was also contacted not too long ago by an old friend (a friend who likes to hitch hike and remain in a non-place, or live in a room made entirely of MDF). This friend he asked me to recall a performance piece we did together back in 2008 at the Carriageworks in Leeds - we called it "Bring your own Pencil" - we tied people up with electrical tabe and did a live interactive life drawing session with elements of forcibility.

ArtEvict. My friend Kimbal Bumstead has asked me to re-stage a performance we did together in 2008 - this time in a wearhouse in East London. In fact these ArtEvict guys, they seem to take on the semblance of organising a rave - the location always follows the notion of perfomance, it remains hidden until a mail out is sent - and there is never a singular location - every month it changes. The rave may be something to do with 'cultural' tenancies in wherehouses and other spaces - such tenancies that at times meet disagreement: ArtEvict follows along the same lines - it moves from one space to the next relying on the ephemeral approach that performance art installs in an artists work. (More information of ArtEvict - www.artevict.com/abou-us.php)

There has been multiple projects between Kimbal and myself, notably a curated site-specific exhibition in an old church and bell tower near Leeds Central Station. This was as the clocks changed for Daylight Saving (the exhibition took this name as a timely device for conceptual applicability). We facilitated each other as the works were installed and thus we were inbuilt in to one another's work as much as the space itself. My hidden space came from the relationship between public display (the exhibiting of a work) and the work-done behind the scenes. I was commuting from Glasgow every month or two in the 7 months prior to the opening - each time I re-visited the site and re-allocated my installation. The ideas grew as I began to realise how the (hidden)space could be used as a studio. With a set of keys and a torch I explored the bell tower and set up shop in the top most compartment just below the time keeping device. I was hidden from view but from there I could look down upon the world (or the city centre of Leeds anyhow). (More information on DAYLIGHTSAVING - rich-taylor.co.uk/archive/daylight-saving)

This Blog will follow the cohesive approach to facilitation and performance in the build up to a collaborative work between  Kimbal Quist Bumstead and myself (Richard Taylor) for the May 2010 installment of ArtEvict.

# 32 [22 March 2010]

::DESCRIPTION}{FICTION::
www.rich-taylor.co.uk/collection/museumproject

The new museum compositions and development of sculptural form: or a thought of housing a sculptural form, through arrangement within studio setting and site specific time of day. This is a dialogue with arrangement and anticipation of installation through cropped environment and sunlight and 'photographic composition'.

There is here a relationship unfolding. There is here a dialogue embellished. There is here a context for further composition and interaction through three dimensional and re-visited forms. Circularity is then sharp against what seem to be shadow I guess.

THERE IS ALSO TEXTUAL INTERVENTION - THROUGH DESCRIPTION AND HOW DESCRIPTION IS FICTION ::DESCRIPTION}{FICTION::

This documentation is integrated in to the work - it is ongoing and will be a part of the work as a project, an architectural experience unravelled and cited in multiple localities, through travel and in final destination and then onwards in publication too.