ThE ReFLeCTiVE NaTuRE oF CoNScIOuSnEsS

As the final degree show approaches, it is difficult to believe that this process has lasted nearly three years. Generally, apart from the blog, the written component is finished and the show is all that stands between ‘us’ and that venerated accolade we call a ‘degree’ (at least, hopefully!). On one level I wonder what that desire for a degree was all about in the first place? Why as a society do we value such a marker? It seems that there are various ‘rites of passage’ that we are expected to go through and that this is one of them. Why do we, as human beings, allow ourselves to be constrained and defined by these expectations and pressures in life?

In some ways I am personally lucky; I am nearly fifty-eight and I do not feel that the rest of my life will be particularly affected by the outcome of this degree. I took it on as a challenge, but not a challenge that will particularly change the direction of my life or one that my future is dependent upon. I really feel for the younger members of my cohort, who I feel do believe that this is a defining moment for them (which it may actually be and probably is….)

Over the last few weeks, whilst reflecting on this, it has made me feel like ‘stepping back a bit’ from decisions around the ‘Final Degree’ show and the making of the catalogue etc. I realise that this isn’t ‘my’ show, or even ‘ours’….. I feel that it is predominately ‘theirs’. Initially, I had quite a few ideas around doing things differently, with a more ‘anarchic slant’….. But I have quickly had to re-assess these ambitions. The younger members of my cohort do not want to rebel or say ‘F@ck It’ to the system; they are fully aware that they are potentially paying a lot of money for this degree and that their working lives and aspirations will probably be affected by it. So with all of this in mind, I have tried to bite my tongue a little….. I have agreed with ideas that have occasionally seemed a bit ‘glossy’ to me and ‘conformist’. But this is not too major a problem and I know that the practice of ‘letting-go’ is good for me, (even though it hurts sometimes and challenges my difficult ego!)

I have made one major stand for myself though, and this was around my two pages in the Final Degree show catalogue. I was given 100 words and a space for a picture. I realise that my 100 words are going to look odd, to say the least, as I have asked for an almost dyslexic jumble of capital and small lettering, outlining what may appear a slightly incoherent description of my art. There is a deeper reason for this, which I feel only I understand! For years I have been intrigued by such a writing style which I have adopted as an inherent way that I wish (at least at present) to portray myself and my work. It is inherently childish and quite mad, and I guess that is how I see my work….. It is crazy and childish, but I like to think that anyone who takes the time will see that it has some depth to it and is an attempt to portray facets of the difficult human condition (at least from my own perspective). Unfortunately, I had to make a stand for this as it was suggested that it was incongruent with the catalogue as a whole. I am afraid that in my 100 words my ego won, although I am still waiting to see if someone will try to ‘clean it up’ and ‘sanitise’ it (for the sake of the many).

I have already been told by a young fellow student that my method makes my statement difficult to read………… I had to explain that ‘ThiS Was aLL PaRT Of My CuNnINg PLaN……

As our final degree show draws nearer and the pressure should be increasing, I find myself really ‘letting go’. My ideas for a large zen-inspired garden installation have been curtailed due to a lack of a large enough space, but fortunately my ideas have always been flexible, with a number of options always sitting in the sidelines. A conversation with our fantastic technician Danielle, opened up a whole new vista for me and it was a little like having an art-based counselling session…..  During the conversation, in a flash of recognition, I realised how all of my current pieces told an auto-biographical story of a life changing event in my life. I had not been able to put some pieces together as they appeared unrelated, but after the conversation with Danielle, they all fell into place. 

 

It was probably around 1979 / 1980 and I was employed digging holes in the road for Thames Water in London. I had begun the process of cutting out intoxicants and had started meditating. The process of digging holes (often on my own) seemed like a meditation in itself. I began to watch the wandering mind and would keep bringing it back to the task in hand of ‘digging’ (only to watch it go off again!) Perhaps due to the acts of  digging, meditation and focus, I began to enter into very concentrated, contented mental states; unusual perhaps for a young London Trenchman…. I was digging into the earth with the smell of freshly dug soil in my nostrils and I had an excuse to be still in the streets and roads that were busy with pedestrian and motorised traffic. As I continued with my digging-meditation I found myself reflecting on the nature of consciousness; How was it possible that as earth-based and earth-made beings, we had this luminous experience of ‘consciousness / awareness?’. This experience took me down some very strange avenues, but it was a life changing period for me. 

 

My conversation with Danielle (the technician) made me realise that my Degree was finishing with the telling of this story to myself…. big voluminous balls of earth….. earth-covered beings soaring with reflective heads (consciousness). It’s not a linear story with an understandable beginning and an ending, but an internal psychological story re-emerging, ….. a remembering. Perhaps with a flavour  of ‘Nachtraglichkeit’ or ‘Afterwardness’

 

 

 

 

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Trying to stay ahead of the degree game really helps minimise my anxiety. I always promised myself, that if I ever returned to education I would try not to make the same mistakes I made when I was younger. My mistakes were mainly around not giving myself fully to the process and leaving everything until the last minute; in doing so I came out of school with really poor results. During my time on the degree I have tried to work with the tendencies I still have in these areas and ‘thinking ahead of the game’ has, I feel, paid off.

Preparing for our end of degree show has not been an exception. A few months ago I was in anxiety over what I could do as a final piece and I also felt a lack of inspiration generally. Due to this, instead of waiting for inspiration, I just started making the ideas I had put in my sketch-book, without judging the results too harshly. This turned into a more positive period of making and along with various influences (as described in earlier blogs), led me to my spheres which I then saw as having installation possibilities for the final show.

I found having some ideas early on, extremely grounding, although I am still working out the exact nature of the presentation of the work. Thoughts regarding positioning them outside have subsided due to my doubts as to how they will deal with any bad weather. I have become much more excited at the idea of positioning them inside on either a bed of small stones or alternatively on fake grass (astro-turf). Small stones seem to create a Zen like effect, which I really like, but it is quite serious. Astro turf appears to add a surreal quality to them. The combination of white walls, fake green grass and giant and small earth-balls seems to work for me. I want to throw the viewer into a mix of visual shock, an experience of the ridiculous and into a state of uninhibited, childish fascination.

Whilst considering moving away from the more serious Zen experience, I would still like to hold onto the idea of a thread of religiousness or sacredness, within the work. When I have been on holiday, looking at large granite tors on Dartmoor, I have been struck by having a combination of reactions; joy at the bulbous shapes and their almost ridiculous positioning on the landscape, like large granite ‘blobs’ of cake-mix dolloped off of a giant spoon, along with feelings of history, pre-history, of ancientness and possible mysticism. In Phaidon’s ‘Vitamin 3D’ Anne Ellegood discusses this area of art and states,

Although artists remain sceptical of the notion of art as idolatory or the supposition that individual works of art can carry an aura of subconscious universal appeal, it is not unusual today for artists to create sculptures that seek to have some relationship to veneration and ritual. This sacredness is not necessarily linked to specific ideologies, but rather to an exploration of the ways in which sculptural objects have functioned in earlier periods in relation to activities that surpass the quotidian and extend into the extraordinary. (Vitamin 3D / Introduction by Ellegood, 2014, p.12)

I find Ellegood’s ideas on surpassing the quotidian (or everyday) inspiring. In creating my large (and small) spheres I have wanted to create an emotional affect on the viewer, rather than a cerebral one. I do not want viewers to think about ‘what the work is about’ in an intellectual way; but rather as in the analogy of the Dartmor Tor, I want them to ‘feel’ the piece. I want them to have a natural reaction to the sight of many spheres together, covered in soil, with little or no exciting colours to tempt the senses. I want the viewer to struggle with notions of ‘adult meaning’, finally giving up to a more childhood sense of ‘just feeling’. I want the viewer to glimpse into the LSD experience where size, shape, ideas, smell and taste all become confused. Where there is a sense of message, but nothing is clear, where the world stops making sense, but where there is a strong aura of something unexplained.

Perhaps due to being a fifty-seven year old student undertaking a degree in fine-art, making a blog seemed quite an alien idea to me. I have a smart phone, several email addresses and go on Facebook; this I felt, was enough of an immersion into the world of online technology. The course, though, required this and I found myself reluctantly drawn into what I considered was a much younger person’s, world.

I had little choice and so I dived in. Initially, I found the ‘a-n blogsite’ quite difficult to get my head around; it didn’t seem to have an easy drag and drop option for photos and I found myself also opening up a new blog, rather than a blog post, which I then couldn’t seem to delete. I also found the steps to get pictures onto the blog ‘clunky’, with the need to initially set up a gallery of pictures / photos to choose from, rather than a straightforward transfer from my own picture gallery on my computer via a simple ‘copy and paste’ process.

With time though, I have managed to get around the site and have found the blog process rewarding. I have found that it helps to see my ideas ‘out there’ and away from myself, so that I can then look at them more objectively; the blog process really appears to help with this. Due to my self-doubt that I am in fact an artist, the blog also creates a platform where I can see my own ideas amongst others and the result is that I tend to have more faith in myself. My blog is psychological and physical evidence that I am one amongst many aspiring art-beings and that I am in the company of like-minded souls, on an equal basis.

The blog has also aided me in reflecting on my own creative process. Scrolling through the blog gives me a reminder of the journey and a kind of ‘bird’s eye view’, with an enhanced and sharpened focus. Although I obviously like to have a sketchbook, it gets a bit tatty and it is a very personal document and evidences all of my messy handwriting, smudges and spilled materials (and tea). The blog looks good, crisp and clear and obviously has the massive advantage of being a document that is ‘out there’ for others to see.

In conclusion, I have become a reluctant convert to the art-blogging process. The ‘a-n blogsite’ is actually straight-forward to use with practise and I would suggest students ‘play’ with the site early-on into their course, so that by the time any possible assessments of their blog entries start to happen, that they already feel comfortable and relaxed with the process. I put off the task of blogging and then had to deal with the desire to bang my head onto my laptop when I couldn’t understand how to use the site! With reflection, I should have got on with it, but at fifty-seven I have many ingrained habits that are difficult to overcome……procrastination being one of them!

 

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Caton, S (2016) ‘Rainschemes for Insomniacs’

Marina Abramovic, (1974), ‘Rhythm o‘

 

 

In October 2016, I had the opportunity to assist an artist called Shaun Caton present one of his performance works at the Spill Festival in Ipswich. Spill Festival has gained quite a reputation since Robert Pacitti created it in 2007. The festival is held in London and Ipswich, alternating each year. Pacitti originates from Ipswich and is committed to bringing high quality performing arts back to the town. Spill is a festival of ‘Performing Arts’ and features video work and live performance staged both inside and out. Shaun Caton has built a name for himself through creating extremely strange performance art which he generally films and which is then available online. Shaun also paints and at present has a studio in Homerton NHS Hospital in London.

‘Rainschemes for Insomniacs’ was a rehearsed piece of performance art with three shows, but was being performed as a world premiere by Caton with the help of five UCS students (as his assistants). It involved the use of bizarre props that he had made, alongside animal exhibits loaned by Ipswich Museum. The show itself was in a gallery annexed to the museum, which museum staff ran and curated. The work was stated by Caton as being possibly post-apocalyptic, although he is keen not to tie his work down with ‘definite meanings’ and seems to revel in each observer taking away their own impressions and understanding of it. The production had many strange props that he had made himself, including preserved (wax) babies in jars and weird and grotesque masks. The production was also accompanied by his assistants (myself included) playing singing bowls and primitive instruments, and also interacting with some of the objects. See part of this production at https://vimeo.com/189566768.

Taking part in this production was extremely exciting, but it also led me into different areas, that I had not yet touched on in my degree course. There was a level of responsibility in assisting Caton with the project, as it relied upon all involved to make it successful. Generally up until this point, I had been responsible for my own individual art-work; if it in any sense failed, it would only reflect badly on me as the artist and no one else would suffer. As this work was reliant on all of us, there was quite a responsibility to Caton and the group. There were also some minor issues with the ‘dynamics’ within the group and although I hadn’t expected there to be issues, there were some obvious differences between us that began to emerge over the few days we were together. Generally, this did not impact on the production over all, but it was interesting to personally reflect on this element later, after the event.

I consider the piece performed, as an example of ‘outsider art’, and Shaun Caton himself refers to it as possibly having prehistoric and ancient influences. He discusses it in terms of having possible connections to a, “parallel world in which reality is distorted…” and states that although the performance is practiced and there is no script, that it “osmotically” works (Caton, S, 2016 / https://vimeo.com/189566768 ).

There are many examples of performance art and performance artists, and Marina Abramovic is a well-known female example who was born in Yugoslavia in 1946.Abramovic’s performance art is very different from Shaun Catons, in that where Caton’s art can imply violence and danger, Abamovic will actually put herself in extremely threatening and dangerous situations. Her Rhythm works in 1974 were an example of this and in Rhythm 0 Abramovic laid out various items on a table and invited the audience to interact with her using the items. Particular items included a functioning gun and a live bullet. In this performance piece, Abamovic ended up having the gun pointed at her head. The Artstory website states that,

In Rhythm 0, the audience divided itself into those who sought to harm Abramović (holding the loaded gun to her head) and those who tried to protect her (wiping away her tears). Artstory, (n.d)

(Available at: http://www.theartstory.org/artist-abramovic-marina-artworks)

(Accessed: 23 March 2017)

 Reflecting on the area of performance art, I feel that I gained a great deal by working with Shaun Caton. It was a fairly difficult experience at times, as I wore a hot mask for hours during scriptless rehearsals and also for the shows. But, I was not in danger at any point and my participation was purely as an assistant. I am unsure how I feel about creating performance art myself, although I think it is something I would like to do at some point. The nearest I have come so far to a performance piece has been to walk around Ipswich with a very large painted ball made by myself (see my blog entry: Balls Project: Painted Ball Walk).