Ludic Objects

Thinking about making spaces.

Its one week since the end of my residency at KARST.

Activities continue out of the studio, at home, on the sofa and back at the charity shop.

The objects are being returned to be recycled. This time to another charity shop: the hospice shop or pony sanctuary.

I want to be enabled to periodically access another environment, away from home that allows me to capture things. I use the word capture because that’s what I wanted to do via the residency – to capture video but I’m thinking here of capture in a wider sense – more like gaining better control of the work or this idea of ‘ruliness’ as discussed in previous posts.

I’m not saying I won’t be working from home, because I will always work this way and I find that interesting but I think there is potential in exploring additional environments for production.

It was useful to talk to other artists while in the studio. In a conversation with Hannah Jones we spoke about a need to sometimes get in a space temporariliy to test out ideas. Sometimes that space doesn’t meet expectations in terms of outcomes produced and we spoke about a more mobile approach to making spaces.

In terms of development, perhaps I can think of this sensitively in terms of site specifics or simply in terms of bookable spaces, whether that be formal studio space or somewhere like the village hall.

Captured my video today.

It’s very simple and took just one take.

Working with my old DV camera positioned on the floor surface, objects were introduced to the frame one by one. Clear plastic tubs, red oversize brandy glass, navy blue plastic tub lids, pale blue frilly glass dish and clear glass scalloped platter.

Composition was made within the frame one by one and co-ordinates established from found marks on the floor. I suppose this is the game and I’ve been reading about the origins of snakes and ladders and need to write about this another time.

Having traced a long line of objects, I wanted to make the objects disappear behind the brandy glass through careful positioning and repositioning.

My legs, arms and hands appear, fragmented, positioning the pieces. Legs enter horizontally, arms pass down through the top of the frame vertically.

Brandy glass occasionaly moves of its own freewill – it breathes.

Feel this video needs no edit, just a simple fade in and fade out.

I’m thinking this is a looped video piece for a monitor installed on a floor surface. I’m wondering where this might go and perhaps this piece will form part of a proposal to share the work?

Surprised at how quickly the video work came together and already feel the benefit of participating in this residency opportunity at Karst.

I do like to keep on working on the floor too.

———————-

Started my residency yesterday. I have keys to a studio for the first time since making use of my incubator space at Exeter Phoenix in 2010. I can’t afford a studio and it works OK for me at home – on the coffee table, in front of a television, with a cat and ever-so-simple tools: scissors, sticky tape, glue-stick, paperclips, i-phone, webcam, copier paper.

This home environment for making is what Joanna Drucker describes as unruly – in terms of the ergonomics of production (how it will be made) and the environments of labour and production (where it will be made). Sets of domestic conditions orientate the spatial and temporal nature of the work. I quite like that idea of unruly and wonder how unruliness might be tamed in the studio.

I’ve cleared a trestle table and a chair from the space so that it’s empty.

I’m looking for a broom to brush the floor.

I want to tell you about the doors.

There are two doors that unfold in the studio.

1. heavy metal exterior, rolling shutter pulled opened and closed with a heavy chain (like a bell ringer).

2. MDF, concertina, zig-zagging, fold-out door – with a weeny wheel and bolt.

There’s no window.

A single line of flourescent light above.

Light pours in when the shutter door rolls open. This opens out to the street. There’s a sheer drop – just a few feet here to street level.

It feels useful to reflect on the doors to the studio space. They are doors that invite energetic activity. Pulling and unfolding. I’ve been thinking about doors recently:

Cat Flaps

(as in I want to make a giant cat flap from cardboard that I can crawl in and out of)….I like things that flap. There is something about the movement – like the lid of a swing bin for instance.

mindfulness – when you pay attention to the present moment.

The moment you walk through a door is a perfect time to be mindful of passing from one environment to another.

———

I’ve brought the glassware and the lidded, plastic food containers along.

With the shutter door open the objects are lit.

I’ve looked at the objects in sunlight.

Scraped off the price stickers from the charity shop.

Pulled off bubble wrap.

Wanted to wash the objects in soapy water – like the lady in the bric-brac shop in Boscombe – see Instagram.

Made a list of cameras and drawing equipment.

Made Instagrams – still and moving images.

Played with shadows.

Tried to push a projection of coloured light onto the wall via the glassware.

Found a dip in the floor to allow a giant red brandy glass to gently rock.

Pushed the glassware around the concrete floor with the tip of my plimsol.

Had to go to work.

——————–

Following a successful application to KARST’s Artist Residency Programme, I am spending a week developing a new video piece in an individual studio space at KARST.

KARST is a non-profit contemporary art venue in Plymouth, which comprises a public gallery and artists’ studios. The gallery is dedicated to showcasing current and experimental visual art, through an international exhibition programme

The residency is enabling me to have time and space to test a new performance to camera. This experimental project forms part of a body of work exploring the movement of objects to create compositions devised through ludic co-ordinates.

Objects for this new work were acquired from a charity shop earlier in the year and comprise of:

1 x over sized, red, ornamental brandy glass
1 x frilly blue glass platter
1 x clear, flat, glass dish
a quintet of Ikea ʻSue Pryceʼ blue lidded plastic food containers

I’m planning to use this testing space to devise and capture a performance to camera – the objects being arranged and re-arranged for the lens. The charity shop remains significant referenced in the context of archive and supplier of stuff.