No-Space

The mechanical eye

2010-02-04T17:20:00.000-08:00

'Immobilizing these thin slices of time...

2010-01-11T15:54:00.000-08:00

has been a source of continuing fascination for the photographer...

he discovered that there was a pleasure and beauty in this fragmenting of time that had little to do with what was happening . it had to do rather with seeing the momentary patterning of lines and shapes that had previously concealed within the flux of movement.'

(Jonh Szarkowski - the photographers eye)

The decisive moment

2010-01-11T15:41:00.000-08:00

bedside

2010-01-11T15:32:00.000-08:00

I'm in love

2009-12-29T18:27:00.000-08:00

2009-12-29T15:24:00.001-08:00

"Island, IS" by Volcano Choir from Secretly Jag on Vimeo.

AMAZING

2009-12-29T09:32:00.000-08:00

James Turrell - Goldstein Skyspace/Roden Crater Project from Rindermulch on Vimeo.

Sally Mann

2009-12-29T09:07:00.000-08:00

one of my favourite photographers and this video reminded me of the way I take photographs.

http://ryanmcginley.com/photographs

2009-12-20T12:07:00.001-08:00

crewys road

2009-12-01T10:58:00.000-08:00

meg leg

2009-12-01T10:46:00.000-08:00

this was my fault

the distant summer

2009-12-01T10:29:00.000-08:00

FEEL IT ALL AROUND from Northern Lights on Vimeo.

Pin hole roll

2009-11-29T07:37:00.000-08:00

2009-11-29T05:15:00.000-08:00

http://www.nigelshafran.com/pages/ruth_phone_pages/001ruth_phone.html

series called Ruth on the phone [1995-2004] by Nigel Shafran

everyday action become beautiful

2009-11-29T05:05:00.000-08:00

from http://www.itsnicethat.com/
also look at http://www.rob-matthews.com/index.php?/project/if-drawing-were-photographs/

If Drawings Were Photographs

simple idea that works perfectly.
here's an interview with the to creators.

Tom: Rob came up with the idea and then asked me to do the drawings. The book is essentially about trying to recreate my drawings as photographs using anything that Rob could find.
How did you both meet? Had you worked on projects before?

T: We met at University on a trip that the Graphics and Illustration courses took to New York. We hadn’t worked together before as Rob was the year above me.
Rob: But I knew Tom’s work and thought his style of illustration suited the idea perfectly.
How many compositions didn’t make the book?

R: There were quite a few drawings considered that we didn’t end up using, probably around 10. All the drawings we used were taken from Tom’s sketch book, as we didn’t want him to draw them knowing they were going to be interpreted as photographs.
Are there plans to extend the project any further?

R: We’re undecided; originally we liked the idea of leaving it, as we feel the idea’s been done now. Although we do like the possibility of re-doing it with each page being done by a different illustrator and photographer.
Tom, what’s your favourite ever drawing, Rob, what’s your favourite ever photograph?

T: My favourite drawing at the moment is a woolwork picture done by a sailor in 1875 which has a funny Lion and Unicorn on it.
R: My favourite photo at the moment is a really grainy, black and white photo of someone in the rain, by Jack Seigel.

..in france

2009-11-28T20:03:00.000-08:00

(this image by josh walsh)

a summer on the road

2009-11-28T19:51:00.000-08:00

north

2009-11-28T19:43:00.000-08:00

gez olivia nina

2009-11-28T19:39:00.000-08:00

2009-11-28T19:21:00.000-08:00

2009-11-28T19:19:00.000-08:00

2009-11-28T19:05:00.000-08:00

2009-11-28T18:53:00.000-08:00

PARIS

2009-05-06T08:14:00.001-07:00

ok

2009-05-05T15:50:00.000-07:00

essay time

2009-05-05T15:47:00.000-07:00

Compare and contrast the forms of spectatorship and / or participation invited by one OBJECT based and one TIME based piece of art.

Participation in art by the audience is not a new thing, as one might think, but something that has been developing since the 1920. Over the decades, and especially since the rise in popularity of reality TV and Internet viewing, there have been moreopportunities for us to become the ‘participant’. We have to consider the spectator and the participant, and how their roles in relation to a piece of ‘art work’ are completely different.

The spectator usually exists in the makers mind as they construct the work. The spectator is not involved with the work and ‘look at it, rather than experience themselves in it.’(O’Doherty, 2003,page44)
Participatory ‘art works’ are inviting a different kind of relationship and reaction compared to the ‘art object’. The spectator is distant and has to struggle to connect with the work. The spectator,
‘…Not only stands and sits on command: he lies down and even crawls as modernism presses on him its final indignities.’ (O’Doherty, 2003,Page 39)
The spectator must only view the object that has been created by the god figure that is the artist, whereas the participant works in collaboration with the artist. The boundaries that once existed between these roles disappear, and both parties are on the same level,
‘YOU the spectator
Me the artist
Was sensorially reversed by them into conceptual flux:
YOUwillbecoME’(Ricardo Basbaum,1994,page 425 )

Participatory works try to adjust the distinction between performer and audience; their emphasis is on the partnership and the overall social experience. The spectator becomes more and is empowered through collaboration.
An ‘event’ art work is an affective way to engage people and is a method used to escape the limitations imposed by the conventions of other arts forms. The event works more effectively as an instrument to make audiences feel part of something,
‘It would reconstruct or reorganize social experience, critique that experience, and facilitate new experience’ (Stephen C.foster,1998,page5)

These ideas were taken on by the Avant-garde Dada movement in the 1920, the most important and well know precursors of participatory artwork. In Paris April 1921 it was ‘dada-season’, this took the form of a series of manifestations that sought to involve the cities public, included the storming of the winter palace and a mock trial being held of the author turned nationalist Maurice Barres. As Bishop says these events wanted to provoke participants and embrace communal creativeness, and were successful at bringing people together (2006), furthermore:
‘This apparatus is better the more consumers it is able to turn into producers – that is readers or spectators into collaborators' (Benjamin.W, 1999, p.777.)

Event type works that involve participation are closer related to our everyday experiences, they do something that ‘object art’ can only represent and encompass a closer relationship to the real, as they happening in a certain time and place,
‘spectatorship is not the passivity that has to be turned into activity. It is our normal situation. We learn and teach, we act and know as spectators who link what they see with what they have seen and told, done and
dreamt. There is no privileged medium as there is no privileged starting point.’ (Ranciere, 2004, page 24)
These types of works invite us to individually appropriate art and discover aspects about ourselves that their authors may have never thought possible. They provoke situations through art and therefore empower people. Kaprow felt in particular it pointless to limit art to representation, and instead use what is already available .he penned the term ‘happenings’, the collective name of participatory art events organized, of which the most famous of these took place in 1961 to 1962.He asked why limit yourself to a gallery and to art objects when real life is what we are already connected to. Fluxus, Performance art, and Installation art were in turn influenced by his work.

Lygia Clark’s work can be summed up as a radical journey beyond the traditional relationship between artist and spectator. Through different ways she explored participation in artwork, always actively concerned with the viewer,
‘True participation is open, we will never be able to know what we give to the spectator author’ (Clark, 1968.From Bishop 2007)
She started off as a painter in the late 50s, the monochrome painting/relief’s she worked in were followed by neo-constructivist sculptures. This change in the 60s when she started constructing ephemeral or malleable objects that invited with viewer engagement, this is when her work started to take a more conceptual direction. Going on to explore in more detail sensory perception then she finally moved into actual Psychotherapy and healing, something she continued to investigate up to her death.
How we explain the different between Clarks works and other more traditional art works is by her use of objects and how she provokes viewers to interact with them. Traditional artwork presents the artist as the giver of a communication and the spectator as the receiver; Clark’s work transforms this idea. The transition that makes the spectator a participant is made possible by these objects and situation she creates. The ‘art object’ is constructed to be understood and absorbed by the visual sense. The spectator will visually decode the artwork, a representation of a physical fact or life experience that has been encoded by the artist. But this changes when the artist produces something that does not only expressivity encode their own experiences, but also provided some means for the spectator to become conscious of his/her own expressivity, in the role of participant.

The Spectator has to engage primarily with an object visually, but the participant can apply all senses. There is no distant for the viewer, they are connected and at one with the ‘art object’, Causing the roles of ‘artist’, ‘spectator’ and the use of a meditated ‘object’ to change dramatically. In Clarks work the object is no longer a representation; it has no meaning or structure outside the participant’s direction of the present
‘In these works viewer participation becomes the focus of attention. While the object remains secondary, existing only in order to promote a sensorial or relational experience’ (Osthoff, 1997,page 281))
This is predominantly relevant in Clarks Bicho (animal, beast) 1962(fig.1), these striking sculptures invite an intimate relationships between participants and object, the object becoming relevant when an individual participants starts to manipulates it ‘in the act of relations established with the body’ (Wanderley,1993, page 7 ). As a result something meaningful is created leading us to fully ‘rediscover our own poetics in ourselves.’(Clark).
Bichos were early pieces of work, consisting of small structures made from aluminium-hinged plates. Each plate could be manoeuvred so the sculpture would take on different forms. However the external appearance and shape of the object no longer has primary importance as it once did. It would only reach the fullness of its being when engage with a participant, each person interacting with it differently, ‘sometimes the work moves about like an insect, or else the idea of a strange machine for constructing space is suggested’ claimed Mario Pedrosa (Pedrosa, 1960, page 18) .The objects addresses the spectator on an active as well as a passive level. Clark fought constantly for people to be able to continue to handle and play with these exquisite sculptures even after they were passed into public and private collection. If they were just merely looked at they would have none of the personally and meaning that Clark had intended:
‘The Animal has his own and well-defined cluster of movements which react to the promptings of the spectator .He is not made of isolated static forms which can be manipulated at random as in a game: no, his parts are functionally related to each other, as if he were a living organism, and the movements of these parts are interlinked. The intertwining of the spectator’s action and the Animal’s immediate answer is what forms this new relationship, made possible precisely because the Animal moves –i.e., has a life of its own. (Clark, 1960,page 2)

Frank Popper pointed to the new forms of spectator participation as partially responsible for the disappearance of the art object. He named Moholy-Nagy and three others including Clark as pioneers of the viewer participation movement (1975). Clark took this idea further, transferring all her attention on to the spectators act, asking us to rethink the activity of the artist and their role. In a proposal of 1964, she simply invited the spectator to take a pair of scissors, twist a strip of paper and connect it to form a mobius loop and cut continuously along this endless plane. She called this work ‘Caminhando’ (Going), The works meaning was in the act of doing, and the work is a creation of the participants act. The successfulness of this artwork depends:
‘Not on the sensorial outing of the shape nor some quality of the surface, but [on] something that dilutes the notion of surface and makes the object to be lived in…. This is where the frontier is broken between body and object’ (wanderley ,1993,page 10)
The participant and object are physically and psychologically connected through experience.

The idea of the object just being a starting point for an art work rather than the final finished project is once more modified in Michael Asher work, for example In his 1974 exhibition at Claire Copley gallery (fig 2) the art object did not exist. The piece instead was focused on the transitions from spectators to participants .Rather than designing new art objects Asher typically alters the existing surroundings, by repositioning or eliminating artworks, walls for instance. Michael Asher work arises from the idea that no individual art object has a universal meaning, independent of its institutional situation. Asher, and along with other prominent conceptual artists who surfaced in the 1970s, believe that the spaces and practices of the gallery or museum - its system of displaying art works, interpreting and publicizing- condition how we comprehend the art that is exhibited there. Often his work takes on the form of ‘subtle yet deliberate intervention –additions, subtractions or alteration-in particular environments’ (Roudeau, 2008)
Asher has adopted the museum or institution as his "medium". His works call attention to the architectural, design or administrative strategies of the organizations that present art, and help to manage or shape its importance. For his piece at the Claire Copley gallery Asher removed the partition wall that divided the gallery space and the office/storage space. This area that is usually hidden to the public was exposed to the causal spectator, and placed on display. Everyday meetings and general running becomes a performance that could be viewed, ‘copley-the-gallerist’ the gallery owner is now a character. But the removal of the wall also effected the visitor movements and feelings, as equally they are displayed to the owner or whoever is in the gallery at the time, Asher observed ‘in the same way that gallery personnel seemed to become increasingly aware of their activities, viewers also became more aware of themselves as viewers’ (Asher, page 1, 2007) viewers become a fundamental part of the piece, as in Clarks work. Initial reaction to this project were varied , but it defiantly had an effect, one critic related his experience,
‘All that stuff on the walls is gone, along with every bit of privacy. Actually viewers don't intend social interaction. They come to look at art. But without knowing it, they are an integral part of the work they see. How unsettling, and uncomfortable.’(Ballatore, 1974,page16.)

Many unsuspecting participants were often unsure about whether they were at the right gallery or if the show was yet to be hung up. Viewers had to negotiate through mixed feelings and emotions: hesitation, uncertainly and irritation a turnaround to the customary viewing relations. Because of the absence of a traditional art object spectators were unable to settle in to the habitual way of viewing. The engagement of this piece comes from the social pressure of the situations that unsuspectingly viewers are confronted with. The spectator is being asked to perceive their environment as a ‘social, ideological system’. And whether the lasting response is amusement, irritation or just the decision to leave, the work as successful in creating an affective response. As in Asher’s work, the spectator’s placement within the frame was a necessary precondition of spectatorial agency and subsequent social change.
‘ “You” or the viewing subject, had become an integral part of the picture’ (Peltomaki, 2007, page 12)

Equally the works convert the spectator into the participant, and this has to happen so the viewer can fully understand and engaged with the work. Each artist addresses this in opposite ways. In the Claire Copley gallery piece Asher’s challenges the Spectator, throwing them in to the role of participant and this becomes the subject of the artwork. In this piece the spectators viewing situation they are accustomed to is bounced back from the blank wall and absent windows, causing the viewer to individually and collectively consider how they are positioned within the art institution. Asher wants to engage his spectators, but deny them easy gratification. Whereas Clarks ‘Bichos’ invite a more personal engagement, letting spectator ease into this new role of participant. The participant is asked to be more of a collaborator of the piece rather than the subject under investigation. Clarks works aim to dissolve the visual sense into awareness of the body, they ask individuals to gaze inwards, the reverse of Asher’s work. But mutually each artist has an underling belief that a ‘work of art should actively intervene in and provide a model for allowing viewers to be involved in the process of production’ (Benjamin.W, 1999, page 777)

Both works change our understanding of what ‘artist’ may mean and equally suggest similar themes. Activation: authorship: community are three concerns that seem to crop up when it comes to participation. Guy Debord the founding member of the groups Lettrist International and Situationist International (SI) used these terms in his writing about the situationists, they believed that art and politics are faced together and should be one thinking. Both Clarks and Ashers invite these three factors, they provide situation, which empower people and provide more that just a visual experience. These participatory works have many levels and stages (they are set in real time) integrated with real life. For example in Asher work the discussion after leaving the Claire Copley gallery is also very much a part of the artwork. Clark’s work allows an individual to manipulate an object to their own personal fantasy, and they have the knowledge that the article they have created will change again; resulting is a continuous collaboration between many people. Participation work invites discussion, they are an event in time, ‘the event became the basis of renewal: and redefinition of purpose’ the revolution (Foster, 1998, page 3). Through these works we become intensely conscious of every gesture we make – even the most habitual. Participants are integral to both works, the type of role varies but each is equally effective in giving more than the ‘art object’.

Bibliography
Benjamin, W. 'The Author as Producer' in Walter Benjamin Selected Writings Vol.2 1927-1934 (ed.) Jennings, M. Eiland, H. & Smith, G., 1999, Cambridge,Mass., Harvard University Press , p.777.
Contemporary art : from studio to situation , edited by Claire Doherty, London : Black Dog, c2004.
Perform ,Jens Hoffman and Joan Jonas.
Hoffmann, Jens, 1972, London : Thames & Hudson, c2005.
Inside the visible : an elliptical traverse of 20th century art in, of, and from the feminine ,curated and edited by M. Catherine de Zegher.
Published: Cambridge, Mass. ; London : The MIT Press, 1996.
Ranciere The Emancipated Spectator’ (2004) Rancière, The Emancipated Spectator, 20 August 2004 (4/6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k2nXNZ93a0
Frank Popper (In his 1975 book art-action and participation-from lc and ho simone osthoff
Lygia Clark, “Animals’ 1960, “ signals (London) vol.1 ,no 7 ,April-May 1965
O’Doherty, Brian, ‘The eye and the spectator’ in Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery Space, Berkeley Los Angeles and London, University of California Press, 1976, pp. 35-64.
Foster, Stephen. C., ‘Event Structures and Art Situations’ in Event arts and art Events, Ann Arbor, 1998.
Bishop, Claire, ed., Participation, London: Whitechapel; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006. [sourcebook]
“The memory of the Body”
Lula wanderley
1993,unpublished
‘Thinking space’
James Rondeau
Frieze (First published in Issue 113), March 2008
"Michael Asher: Less Is Enough."
Sandy Ballatore,
Artweek 5, no. 34 ,October 12, 1974
“Lygia Clark and Helio Oiticica: A legacy of Interactivity and Participation for Telematic Future.”
Simone Osthoff
Leonardo,Vol 30. No.4 pp.279-289,1997
“Affect and Spectatorial agency: Viewing Institutional Critique in the 1970s”
Kirsi Peltomaki
Art journal ,winter 2007 issue , published 22-DEC-07
‘The significance of Lygia Clark’
Mario Pedrosa
(1960) reprinted in signals London may 1965)

paris

2009-04-27T11:23:00.001-07:00

LYME

2009-04-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

THINK.....

2009-04-13T05:27:00.001-07:00

Im trying to get my thoughts abut the Trinity buoy wharf project together.

The ideas behind the project/performance.

We are living in a maze ,always trying to get meanings out of our surroundings, is similar to something that N.Bourriaud said once. I think this explains the direction and feel of the project at the moment.

I will be travelling on this journey to a calm and serene place, Trinity buoy wharf, through contrasting landscapes. Trying to make sense of the juxtaposition images passing me by deserted warehouses and extravagant skyscrapers.

This piece will be the result of a durational performance process.
The performance will be recorded by a photo/picture taken using a large pinhole camera. The image will absorb every movement. Exposure will end when the journey has ended. Every line and mark created will be fragments of memories and places.

The pinhole will be displayed as an object and take on the role of a sculpture. Will the object have more weight because of the lengthy journey it has taken? It too will have traces and marks from the excursion.

The drawing/photograph with be a record of the places I passed, along with The object (the pinhole camera ) which will also describe the journey and be bound to a narrative.
The action of pushing the pinhole will enable me to connect with the site and to illustrate the journey in a personal and direct way.
By using a pinhole I am trying to get close to the essence of photography.

‘Pinhole pricked in time, a window between past and present , exposing our minds to the ghosts of our lost moments ,mixing memory with desire’

Artist influences:
Walead Beshty- ‘ FedEx’ boxes that describe a journey through the cracks and stamps on their forms. Journeys that took place in large warehouses that FedEx operate in, these unknown non-places.
Robert Morris- sculptures that move round landscapes/ spaces changing then subtlety, but give us a completely new understanding of the place.
Also his time based performances ‘Continuous Project Altered Daily’, were the spectator becomes part of the performance.
Lindsay seers- trying to reconnect with memories from the past. Turning her own body into a pinhole camera and attempting to physically absorb the world around her.
Constructivism- Tatlin corner structures. Used lines and shapes to cut through space and organize it. The structure created was not the focus but the space around it.

Things to think about..
How will people react to this performance, Will there be any participation?
There will be two types of audience, the people who see the action taking place and the journey being made and those who come to view the final pieces as object in the exhibition.
Whether it matter what the final image looks like, the action of travelling is more important.

Possible route for walk with pinhole camera.

View Larger Map

BURBLE london

2009-04-13T04:55:00.000-07:00

each balloon is reacting to the electric magnetic spectrum

2009-04-12T10:52:00.001-07:00

2009-04-12T10:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NBSuQLVpK4

The Almond tree

2009-04-12T10:21:00.001-07:00

fernsehturm

2009-03-19T05:31:00.000-07:00

BIG house

2009-03-19T05:30:00.000-07:00

TRINITY BUOY WHARF

2009-03-10T17:06:00.000-07:00

Trinity Buoy Wharf is a site for artistic and cultural activities – located in London's Docklands area, about one mile East of Canary Wharf.
Trinity Buoy Wharf (TBW) provides space for artists and cultural events, both long and short term. We also have a number of spaces for events and filming, including the listed Chainstore Building.
TBW is currently home to around 350 artists and creative businesses.
http://www.trinitybuoywharf.com/home.html

Trinity Bouy Wharf is a space were the art cluster groups will be holding a exhibition, in two large warehouse spaces and a underground room, between the 18th and 24th May 2009. We have been asked to make work that responds to the site in some way. My primary thoughts have been about the relationship between the sites location and its surroundings. And the journey that I take to get to the site, Particularly the DLR route that circles Canary wharf. And the massive contrast between this area of the city and Trinity Buoy Wharf, which is peaceful and calming, away from the rush of the crowds

2009-03-10T16:46:00.000-07:00

PLACES TO GO, PEOPLE TO SEE

2009-03-01T15:01:00.000-08:00

Images from a book with the above title

Altermodern

2009-03-01T10:10:00.000-08:00

Manifesto
POSTMODERNISM IS DEAD

A new modernity is emerging, reconfigured to an age of globalisation – understood in its economic, political and cultural aspects: an altermodern culture

Increased communication, travel and migration are affecting the way we live

Our daily lives consist of journeys in a chaotic and teeming universe

Multiculturalism and identity is being overtaken by creolisation: Artists are now starting from a globalised state of culture

This new universalism is based on translations, subtitling and generalised dubbing

Today’s art explores the bonds that text and image, time and space, weave between themselves

Artists are responding to a new globalised perception. They traverse a cultural landscape saturated with signs and create new pathways between multiple formats of expression and communication.

The Tate Triennial 2009 at Tate Britain presents a collective discussion around this premise that postmodernism is coming to an end, and we are experiencing the emergence of a global altermodernity.

Nicolas Bourriaud
Altermodern – Tate Triennial 2009
at Tate Britain
4 February – 26 April 2009

ALTER (otherness /multiples) MODERN
Also ‘suggests a multitude of possibilities, of alternative to a single route’

Post modern is over and it is an uncertain future, what era are we entering .

The Tate Triennials is trying to capture the general feeling of a collection of artist work that will give us answers to these questions. And that will help us to understand the world we now live in, in relation to economic, political and cultural conditions.
Nicolas Bourriaud describes the way we live today is similar to that of a maze. We need to really search to get meanings out of our surroundings.
This term ALTERMODERN is a global term (as we live in the age of globalisation) unlike the 20th century term of modernism, which was mainly based on western cultural happenings.
This show is trying to discover what the modernity of today is, and rethinking the results of this.

The 4 main starting points
-The term ALTERMODERN itself
-Travelling
-Exile
-Boarders

I am going to discuses a few artist works from the show that I feel were relevant to my work and me.

Walead Beshty
Two pieces of Beshty work stood out to me, the first were a series of large-scale photographs created by passing film through an airport x-ray machine.
The result is shadowy pastel shapes that seem to float across the paper.
The fleeting marks overlap each other, giving a sense of movement. The other work ‘FedEx’ is a series of ongoing sculptures started in 2005. They take the form of glass boxes sent around the world via FedEx. On their journeys from studio to gallery or museum they pick up marks in the form of cracks and breaks. A result of there constant movement.
Both pieces are formed in non-places and by the actions and movements that are conducted here. The titles of each piece provide a record of origin and a chronology of their movement. These object communicate a journey.

Lindsay Seers (fictional narrative)
Is engrossed with recapturing a condition she had as a child, called eidetic memory (photographic memory) that leads her not to talk. This eventually faded at the age of eight, when she began to talk. And the reason she spoke her first words was the consequence of viewing a photo of her and asking’ is that me?’
This may seem confusing but I can honestly say the sort film in the form of a quasi-documentary, which makes up her work at Altermodern was the most compelling piece of work there.
The traumatic loss of this photographic memory meant see felt the need to ‘become’ a camera. Her journey to do this is a lonely and resilient one. She seems to never quite find what she is looking for. She gives up eventually and changes her self into a projector, emitting images in an act of extramission.

More to be discussed shortly….

pinhole via mouth

2009-03-01T08:42:00.000-08:00

2009-03-01T08:09:00.001-08:00

HUSSEIN CHALAYAN

2009-02-16T09:15:00.000-08:00

‘From fashion and back’
show at the design museum London

Leading the forefront of contemporary fashion design, the twice named 'British Designer of the Year,' Hussein Chalayan, is renowned for his innovative use of materials, meticulous pattern cutting and progressive attitudes to new technology.

This exhibition is the first comprehensive presentation of Hussein Chalayan’s work in the UK. Spanning fifteen years of experimental projects, the exhibition explores Hussein Chalayan's creative approach, his inspirations and the many themes which influence his work such as cultural identity, displacement and migration.

Exhibits include ‘Afterwords’ which explores the notion of ‘wearable, portable architecture’ in which furniture literally transforms itself into garments; ‘Airborne’ - bringing the latest LED technology to fashion design with a spectacular dress consisting of Swarovski crystals and over 15,000 flickering LED lights; ‘Before Minus Now’ a dress made of materials used in aircraft construction which changes shape by remote control and ‘Readings’ a dress comprising of over 200 moving lasers presenting an extraordinary spectacle of light.

http://www.designmuseum.org/exhibitions/2009/hussein-chalayan

I had heard a little about Chalayan before, most have come across the infamous table that transforms into a skirt. However there is much more to this extraordinary inventive designer. His approach is very creative and influences to his work are varied and include genetics, technological progress, displacement and cultural identity. It seems he uses fashion as a way to get across varied concepts and He regularly extents his ideas into museums exhibitions and art installations. While also creating beautiful and wearable clothes that give us a vision of the future. Defiantly one of the best shows I have seen this year.

Here are a few of his works I found partially interesting:

BEFORE MINUS NOW (spring /summer 2000)

These tactile sculptured dresses look like they have been carved into the way you would think of sculpting wood or stone. I later found out these dresses were part of a collection exploring the relationship between mankind, technology and natural forces. These items were inspired by the way it which mountains are formed after centuries of tectonic movement and erosion of the earth. Chalayan started with a shapeless bale of tulle that was curved and cut into gradually to space it into a regular dress shape.

AFTERWORDS (Autumn/Winter 2000)

This collection includes the renowned ‘table skirt’ and is inspired by the plight of refugees from Cyprus, Chalayan homeland, during the ethnic cleansing prior to 1974. The collection explores how people react when they go through the horror of having to leave home suddenly, they want to hide their possessions or the carry them with them as they leave.
The show starts and it’s more of a stage setting than a conventional catwalk, with a modernist style sitting room off to the right of the large white stage.
In a way Chalayans shows are very much a performance, each item part of a narrative that is built up throughout the event. The audience feel something amazing is going to happen and it does!

Within the room the clothes are disguised as chair covers, each one different from the next, as the models pin and space them around their bodies. Chairs become suitcases; folding down in to neat rectangles they become the perfect accessory.

And then the final performance: A single model sashays out onto the stage; she carefully pulls the central part of the table out. Stepping in too the middle she lifts the innermost piece revealing beautiful shaped wood that cascaded perfectly around her.

After the models have clothes themselves and left , the room becomes empty and lifeless once more.

ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN (spring/summer 2007)

This was the most groundbreaking and inspiring collection out of all Chalayans work. The focus of this clothing collection was how much fashion has been influenced and shaped by the last one hundred and eleven years. Including wars, revolutions, and political and social changes.

The final dresses were mechanical (some videos below), so once on the catwalk the dress would start to morph from one era’s style to another. The way the fabric seemed to suddenly pull at different parts of the body and other details would appear was breathtaking. Each dress more carefully crafted than then next, a stunning mix of technology, history and fashion .

2009-02-12T11:06:00.000-08:00

two hours

2009-02-09T11:40:00.001-08:00

pinhole

2009-02-05T15:50:00.000-08:00

new thinking

2009-02-05T13:58:00.000-08:00

This Started when I found the studio space, constricting, suffocating and soul destroying. I needed to change my feeling about this space the solution came in the form of a brief received from my elective class, make a 1 min film called ‘being animal’. I climbed around the space exploring every surface, reacting to the room in a new way.

This is when I found a hidden space

A non-space
An in-between space.
A space that is part of a larger room but has been cut off from the rest of the space by a fake wall. A thin slice of space has been created between the fake wall and the actual wall.
I have adopted this space and used it as the main subject of my work.

My recent work in this space and other work focuses on boundaries, and the construction and breaking of boundaries in certain settings..

In a series of ongoing performance work ‘behind wall /non-space’ I have created a barrier between the masses and me. These works all relate to this certain non-space. I have been conducting different performances and durational events in this space as well as using it for a place to read, write and eat.
I have separated myself from the group.

Since more people have noticed me climbing into the space and are aware I am using it, it is not a sacred hideaway anymore.
But this has resulted in the space becoming my territory
Just like people allocate desks for themselves in the communal space, my allocated area is behind the boards.
This is the space I have chosen and it is mine.

In my space I have a certain power, as I am hidden.
My presents could be felt even when I’m absent.

I played on this idea of my absent presents by recording sounds of me moving around this space.
Then played these noises of human activity back through speakers hidden behind the wall.
The occasional recorded bump or cough would mislead people in to believing I was there.

Did people self-police or regulate them because they think I’m eavesdropping?
Is my hidden self controlling the larger audience?

I captured the duration of this recording using a pinhole camera. With the sound being played while the exposure was taking place, my present is captured in the image.

In both the performance and the photo, I am absent but a presence it felt.
The pinhole camera captures the aura of a being, by the slight change of light and shadow. They are visible even after they have gone. Both the sound and the light are traces of actions. The indication of human existence.

My investigation has dithered between the issues of the non-space and about the relationship between people in the space.

Initially I was interested in this space that has no purpose. This non-space in-between a wall and a room. I wanted to investigate this space, create a new use for it. Give it a purpose.

Cildo Meireles describes corners as,
‘Place where there is no action place of total refuge’

This clarifies how I feel about this in-between space.
It’s a place to hide and be secure

One of Meireles works ‘through’ 1983-9, an installation, Includes a number of barriers placed on a ground of broken glass (every step has a satisfying crunch) The work compels us to enter but also confronts us with the different barriers. The familiar barriers have shifting memories attached to them.

Now I have built up a relationship with this place it seems like it belongs to me. There is a very clear barrier between the actual room and my space.
And the impression I get is that people now associate the space with me.
Would they feel like they were trespassing if they came into my space?

The study has developed into an investigation in to how people react and feel about the place. Through actions I amplify and highlight the divide between them and me.
Who is the audience and who is the performer?
I listen to their conversations and them moving around.
I am invisible to them, but they feel me watching.

‘Fernsehturm’ is an ongoing work, which involves me breaking down boundaries.

The Fernsehturm (German for "television tower") is a television tower in the city centre of Berlin, Germany. The former German Democratic Republic (GDR) constructed this well-known landmark, close to Alexanderplatz, between 1965 and 1969. In the "communist state". It was said that it was built to imply power and also a means to spy over the wall.

I climb over a wall, take a photo, them once printed place the photo on the wall, which was originally climbed.
I like the idea of this photo describing the action that took place so it could exist. The photo acts as a trace of the climb.
I think this project also taps into everyone natural desire to see what behind a wall.

Artists
Joseph Beuys – ‘Like America and America Likes Me’ 1974
Durational performances,how long does it take until the real work begins.
Vito Acconci –hidden presence.
Matthew Barney and Rirkrit Tiravanija – emerging after the black Monday crash (1987) they created art that was about a way of living rather than the production of objects.
Tiravanija wanted to ‘dispose of the artist as a hero to create the artist as a host’ (‘Now is for ever ... Again, essay by Francesco Bonami)
Martin creed- playful and simple to get ideas across.
Erwin Wurm- the impact of the final image.
Robert Morris – ‘the notion that work is an irreversible process ending in a static icon-object no longer has much relevance ‘

Photo Remake
A new series of works, this is a project I have wanted to do for a while. It quite an playful idea. I asked a number of people to email me any photo of their choice and told them I would make a copy and return it to them within a certain time frame.
Rules for this one-day project included: each photo remake must be constructed and completed within 30mins and a certain group of object could be used, none could be added.
The process is hidden from the viewer; they are only presented with a final image.

non-space

2009-01-26T12:32:00.000-08:00

FROM my side to your side

2009-01-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

There is a small window that connects my space to the studio space

I become part of the wall furniture, a two-dimensional image, as I peer through the porthole.

I want to interact with the people (audience?) in the studio.

Do something that makes them aware of an action-taking place, but is hidden.
Something sent from the none-space to the space.

eat / work in non-space.

2009-01-26T09:07:00.000-08:00

I dont have a work space in the studio anymore.
I have decided to adopt this non-space.

A group of people sit eating lunch in the studio.
I’m also eating my lunch
Behind the board in the non-space

I am eating with them, but we are very separate.

I can here their conversations; they talk about a film I have also seen.
I could join in but I don’t.

I work out some ideas in the space,
I can here the murmur of exchanged thoughts,
But there is no other distraction.

I don’t have to worry about other people, this is my space.

reading PERFORM by Jens Hoffmann and Joan Jonas

2009-01-16T08:29:00.000-08:00

Some parts that STOOD out:

LOCATE, EXPLORE and bridge the gap between art and life (kaprows key ideas)

'art that would begin to observe, interpret and engage with the social, cultural and political circumstances of the world it was made for and exposed to'

PERFORMANCE = infinitely open and unrestricted (?)

'The notion that work is an irreversible process ending in a static icon-object no longer has much relevance'
ROBERT MORRIS

Fischli and Weiss

2009-01-16T08:27:00.001-08:00

re-placing objects
giving them new meanings
new relationships

were?

2009-01-14T14:39:00.000-08:00

object noise

2009-01-13T11:50:00.000-08:00

over until next time...

2009-01-11T09:07:00.000-08:00

24th December

2008-12-28T07:47:00.000-08:00

being turkey (elective)

man by pool

2008-12-22T05:24:00.000-08:00

I Climb

2008-12-22T04:58:00.001-08:00

so you dont have to.....

obJECTS

2008-12-20T11:37:00.000-08:00

Thoughts and Ideas:

2008-12-20T11:19:00.000-08:00

as a result of discussions in the end of term crit.

The focus of this crit was considering the direction of my current practice and thinking about how to take ideas further.
The key point gained from this discussion was to focus on forming a strong body of work, now that now I have a central subject I’m exploring.
I need to keep focuses on this idea of reconsidering how we react to the spaces around us. Through investigating this subject I have also started to reflect on how I present and record my work.
Certain aspects such as the issue of the duration of a performance and as mentioned before, how the final piece is presented are subjects I have been think about more carefully recently.
Considering the ‘time’ a performance exists in, is very important. The length can make or break the piece. A piece of work that is performed only exist for a few moments, there are a limited number of witnesses or sometimes none, to the actual event. It exists in a completely different way to other art. By giving duration to a performance is has more of a chance to progress, the longer it goes on for and the harder the action gets. And this is when the real work begins. Or is it something that happened so rapidly that only the traces are left.

It was also mentioned that often my work only exists as a final product. The viewer does not get to experience the process, but are presented with one final image or an edited film. For example the series of images titles ‘I climbed over so you don’t have to’ present only the final product of an action, in quite a controlled way. The viewers can form their own ideas about what actions took place from the one image they are given. The documentation of the work is never going to be the same as the actual event. You can never re stage the event as it was at first. I must consider carefully what ideas I want the final piece to convey.
Conviction in the work is still something I must persist with, if I want it to be successful and believable.
.

These aspects informed ideas for new pieces of work:

Continuing ‘I climbed over so you don’t have to’.
Climbing over higher walls/ barriers and possible making a book from images. Its very important that all images follow the same format.

A two-week exploration of the ‘space in between’.
Reinvestigating at the thing that instigated this line of study. A durational performance/investigation about this space. Actions that could take place vary, but are all linked by were they will take place. Ideas included:

-Holding an event in this space, a party, meal and club meeting.

-Spending a day in this space, unknown by people working in the studio. Recording the sounds and movements from their point of view.

-Drawing /making work for the space that is labour intensive, then boarding up the entrance and inviting people to view the work that they now can not really see.

-Try to fit everything in the room/everyone in the class in this space.

-What could escape from this space? Bubbles, smoke, noises, people.

-Sounds from behind the space, of climbing /drawing, could be amplified, by using microphones fix to walls. Sound traces of the actions are played back after event.

Relationships between objects.
An ongoing enquiry in to what happens when objects are grouped and placed together. The noises created between them and the relationships that are formed.

Restaging photographs.
Offering a photocopying service, a photo is given to me and I will and remake the image with the material and equipment surrounding me. This process will have a time limit and only the single image of the restaged photo will record the procedure.

reflect the space

2008-12-15T08:38:00.001-08:00

crit

2008-12-10T09:59:00.000-08:00

Crit- ‘over the wall’ photos and ‘traces of climb ’ video piece

-Context/conceptual ideas- I want to change the way I look at space. Investigate it using my body. React to space differently to what is expected of you. This was first realised after a brief from my elective- to make a one minute film called being animal. I wanted to climb/explore and investigate the space the way an animal may. To seek out the no-spaces.

-How work has developed. I’ve become much more interested in how I can document the exploration of a space. Rather than just filming the climb, what traces are left? How can this action be expressed, through marks, sounds, drawings etc. This piece of work is a re-edit of a piece of work I had previously done. The viewer is only given hints of a human present, slowly making there way around the room. ‘Over the wall images’ also follow this idea of an action that has taken place, and has been missed. Focusing on one idea has also been a hard; although I feel more committed to this work then I do to most. When the struggle begins so does the real work?

-Artist / theorist you have looked at-Rirkrit Tiravanija (events that leave traces) Matthew Barney, Lucy Gunning, Richard Dedomenici, George Perec.

-NEXT- climbing over walls-higher ones.
Performance that is controlled by viwers:

plan...
Duration- 1hour
There will be a room; it will have just a chair (maybe more objects)
The room will be shut
There will be a mouth piece that can be used for communication. Using a map viewer’s instruct my movement around the space. I will trace my steps using tape/charcoal/ pencil…
After an hour the room will be opened, and the collaborative drawing reviled.

Also. Re staging photographs /study of a group of objects (over long period of time).

Michel De Certeau 'The practice of everyday life'

2008-12-07T12:31:00.000-08:00

'.... From TV to newspapers ,from advertising to all sorts of mercantile epiphanies, our society is characterized by a cancerous growth of vision, measuring everything by its ability to show or be shown and transmuting communication into a visual journey'....

The lines used to depict this space create tension and interaction, between subject and setting.

2008-12-02T17:09:00.000-08:00

Rirkrit Tiravanija

2008-11-27T10:26:00.000-08:00

Look for what it is that is important to you, something that you need to make other people think about. Always ask ourselves if what we are doing is really necessary'

(Interview by Lauren Harkrader in ‘making contemporary art, How today’s artist think and work’)

were to go from here

2008-11-25T16:54:00.000-08:00

MUST

2008-11-20T09:13:00.000-08:00

provide more conviction and enthusiasm to practice

whats left....

2008-11-19T09:16:00.000-08:00

I revisited the footage taken during the climb performance and have created the following piece. it explores a different aspects of the climb, the viewer is only given hints of what occurred.

it happened, you missed it.

2008-11-18T16:01:00.001-08:00

I climb so you dont have to

2008-11-18T15:54:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been exploring the ways in which my performances are documented. The elective programme has informed me hugely on this subject. Following is a piece I wrote after visiting the ‘Live art development agency’.

I have never really fully considered how I document my performances. Just used the normal ways of recording a moment: photos, film, and objects/relics that were used in the performance. But the discussion we had on Monday opened my eyes to how carefully I must consider the ways I document my work. This becomes the trace that is left of that moment. This becomes a record of your work and its what you are left with as an artist.

The thing to do is document your work in as much ways as possible, video, photo, sound recording, writing about it, drawings, relics, objects. Then you have a choice afterward and lots of material to work with. Every little detail must be considered, as the person that is viewing the work will read into everything.
Quality of the work is important. Printing off a few pictures on a bit of old paper is not enough. These things have to be considered as they all add and take away from how your work is portrayed.
You can control the documentation of you work. The performance could have been shit, but the pictures could make it look incredible. Does is have to tell the truth?

Could I record this activity of exploring space (climbing/crawling without presenting the actual act? What are the traces left behind?

As result I made the following works. Which hint at the performance. The viewer can imagine the action that took place. They have missed the main event. What they are left with is a memory.

re-edit

2008-11-18T14:41:00.000-08:00

inconvenient conveniences

2008-11-17T11:20:00.000-08:00

I started off thinking of this space I want to explore exclusively as a kind of hidden/small/private world. However after reading a number of text (some of which are listed below) this idea of non-space has been expanded. I have become interested in places that we have to use as part of everyday life And the Systems we have to go through in theses ‘non places’.
The ' inconvenient conveniences' that we come across everyday… like motorway service station/bus stops/ huge department stores (ikea!?)

All these non place sites: supermarkets, chain hotels, airports, motorways, bustops, phone booth are associated with the tedium of everyday life but they all have there own unique histories,/technologies and landscapes.
In ‘reading the everyday’ by Joe Moran he describes one of these non-place environment, motorway service stations as ‘terrains vagues’ were strange liaisons can occur. Different rules apply.
The squat concrete building, harsh neon lighting, the cramped shops filled with things nobody really wants. You buy postcards in the shops to the towns that are being bypassed. All has poetry of it own.

Once glamorous environments. They were filled with young people who would drive to them taking full advantage of the 24hour opening times. They had extravagant Bridge restaurants (peculiar form of sightseeing watching speeding traffic) and other amusements.
But this change, the service station, as we know it is far from being a destination in its own right. But something we visit only more convenience.
Motorway stops have become no-frills services, they had a heavy use and wipe clean appearance. Tables and chairs bolted to the floor, plastic knifes and forks, lino floors and hardwearing carpet. This place in not trying to impress.
Alain de Botton says
‘They are lonely, but in a nice way. They are ugly but in a fun, interesting way. There is a special quality about them’.

Part of what is interesting about these places is the sense of relief; you are invited to surrender to the environment. Signs tell you were everything it, sometimes-even arrows on the floor direct you from beginning to end. There is no need to even thing about which direction you should be travelling. In airports you are even relieved of your identity as you check in. Then Sent off in to the departure lounge were you can wonder around the isles and counters of food/drink/perfume/toys/brightly and cleanly set out for you viewing pleasure.

A feeling of loneliness may be felt but it’s a communal experience. You can just walk aimlessly around and this in completely accepted.
Auges suggests this is a positive aspect of these Non-places. Because although we are in the company of others they make no demands of us.
He talks about these places having ‘faceless,contractual obligations replace human interactions’ like ‘get in lane’ / ‘queue this side’ /key in your personal number’

expanding grow, become/make larger, become/make bigger, increase in size, increase in scope, upsize; extend

2008-11-17T11:12:00.001-08:00

Artist: I have been exploring and my thoughts on certain works

Roi Vaara

Lucy Gunning

‘ Climbing around My Room’ 1993
Video piece. Close to the ceiling Gunning moves precariously around the room. Dressed in a startling red dress. Her concentration unmistakable and as a result you the viewer become transfixed, waiting to see her movement. Quite often her work is about ‘acting out’, she has reacted to her room is an unusual way. This piece has a nostalgia sense, evoking memories from childhood. It’s a very engaging video work,because of a few simple aspects.

Pawel Althamer
Video work(not sure of the name)
But it took place in Ljubljana in 2000.
The performance staged is a seemingly everyday scenario in a busy square in the city. Different characters included a couple kissing, a boy on a skate board, an busker playing music, an old man sitting outside a café.
The same actions by these characters are carried out everyday and you would have to view it on a number of days to notice the intervention/performance.
These interventions interest me because the public become part of the performance, without realising they are characters. The space has been altered, everyday activities are scrutinized. We are asked to consider these places and people around us.

Ducha.
A Brazilian artist who uses stiunationists like intervention in the routine of everyday life. In a particular performance He crosses a very busy road junctions carrying a large bag of oranges. As the light changes back to green for the cars, he appears to accidentally drop them. As a result they roll everywhere and chaos breaks out. The end result is people trying to help pick them up; traffic starts to move and lots of confusion. The drama is intensified in an already chaotic city.
A Small intervention (a few oranges!) can bring efficient junction to a halt. Suddenly a place with an carefully prearranged system has nothing .
It doesn’t take much to upset these apparently solid structures that are everywhere in the city.

Rachael Whiteread
Her work considers transient spaces
She explores the inner life of rooms and objects. What cannot be seen and yet exists.
She looks at the In-betweens /emptiness.
The tiny details that are overlooked.
Describing her work as
‘Mummifying the sense of silence in the room’.

Her works asks us to reimage our relationship to the space in which we live.
How can I examine the spaces I live in and inhabit?
Get close to the walls?
Investigate every crack and corner?

Alex Hartley- In ‘LA Climbs’ Hartley comes up with alternative uses for architecture in LA. The city is approached from a topographical perspective of the rural climber. He explores geo graphical routes over exterior of buildings; he offers a fresh approach to a city. We are asked to consider the correct way to respond to modern architecture. What are the different approaches? Surely sometimes these extravagant structures are begging to be explored?

Atelier bow-wow
Wants to offer people an experience/a feeling.
They like to surprise, and they take delight in what Marcel Duchamp called the ready-made.

In pet architecture guidebook(2001), they act as urban detectives in Tokyo, small even tiny buildings that frequently inhabit the left-over spaces and gaps in the city are systematically catalogued as readymade architecture, fans, windows, signs etc these spaces are all used for something
They also produce something called ‘micro public space’. Micro means small but at the same time individual, so the smallest public space might just be for one person.
Before they make something in a city they go beforehand and observe the people and the city and respond to that.
Their work ‘life tunnel’ was at the Haywood ‘psycho buildings exhibition’.
This focuses attention on the perceptual and sensorial role of our bodies (you must alter your poster to enter the space) this prompt us to explore the space in a much more playful manner.

Our relationship with space is changing. The Internet has been a huge part of this, it’s a whole other realm of space that keeps growing and growing.
We spend hours logged on t spaces that aren’t ‘real’.
‘Impalpable realms of electronic communication’
Do we only think of space as a visual thing? And no longer use our other senses because of this.
We can now see the world as a picture due to the Internet. We experience it as a picture and no longer a space.
I want to re-examine our notions about the relationships between the individuals and our surroundings.
What spaces change the way we act?
Why must there be rules of behaviour in certain places?
What changes when we break these rules?

what to do in non-places....?

2008-11-16T12:15:00.000-08:00

everyday

2008-11-16T03:24:00.000-08:00

‘Reimagine the parameters of our spatial experience'

'Rediscover more active ways of placing ourselves in the world'

My work requests people to more clearly grasp the architecture of our everyday behaviour and thought.

AND

'the line between art and life should be kept as fluid and perhaps indistinct as possible .'
Allan kaprow

should be

2008-11-12T13:17:00.000-08:00

The uncommon life of common objects

2008-11-12T13:14:00.000-08:00

Everyday objects

2008-11-11T09:29:00.001-08:00

Collage/Assemblage
I must respond to what’s in front of me, Play games. Make quite decisions. Use found objects/images/material.

I started by thinking about the traditional method of college. However the result was images that were quite contrived and dint seem to have much relevant other then being pretty.
Instead of this 2-week exploration being separate from my personal work I furthered ideas I was exploring using the strategies that had been suggested in the brief.
By constructing a physical/interactive/moveable/changeable/three-dimensional college.
Rearrange objects , slightly alter them, change relationships between things. As Marcel Duchamps did with his ‘readymade’
Erwin Wurms 1minute sculptures expanded this idea of the 3d collage.
He explores the concept of sculpture through performance; sculptures are not static there is no fixed form. By introducing the idea of process and action the living body becomes a sculpture like others before him, (for example Bruce Nauman , Richard Serra, Charles Ray )Spontaneity and brevity are key elements in his artistic vision.
Anyone can follow his instructions (press up on cups/asparagus nose) . Everything is possible for a minute.
He brings the awkwardness and limits of the human body to our attention.

Everyday objects, how can I react to these differently. How can they be placed/arranged to produce different meanings? What changes when I reject their normal uses and find new way to engage with them?

List of objects use:
• 2 oranges
• Glove
• Tea cup
• 2 books
• Photo album
• 2 glass jars
• Straw bag
• Jumper
• Metal tea pot
• Shoes
• Postcard of the last supper
• Mice pie
• Found slide
• Glass bottle
• Feather
(Objects added for video piece)
• Chair
• CD rack

non-space

2008-11-09T10:27:00.000-08:00

-Places that normally go unnoticed,
-Places that are left alone
-Places that are small and in corners
-Places that have no real use
-Places that no one inhabits

I wanted to react to my studio in a different way.
My feelings toward the studio were unenthusiastic.
I felt it was sucking away my thoughts and inspiration.
When I sat down at an empty desk my mind became as blank as the walls surrounding me.
The room felt distance, a space I couldn’t feel anything towards but annoyance.
I wanted to change this.

Then I noticed a space in-between. It wasn’t part of the studio, bit it wasn’t a separate space. Boards had been put around ½ a metre away from the actual wall of the room. (For last years final degree show?)The space was use for nothing (only dumping rubbish). The greying walls was no longer visible, freshly painted white boards had hidden them. What could this space be?
This inspired me to interact with the room differently.

Adding to this ideas I had to make a 1min film about ‘being animal’. So the film ending up being a combination of reacting to the room how an animal would and trying to engages with the space in another way.

After reading an essay by Ralph Rugoff (taken from the book ‘Psycho Buildings’ that accompanied the exhibition of the same title at the Haywood gallery). I few point stayed with me

-Re-define the uses we make of out surroundings.
-We must confront and respond to the spaces in which we live.
-How does built space function as a social/psychological and perceptual environment?