Oracle: photos of maquette 2

Taken after I had completed the drawing. There are well over one hundred images and I have chosen nine, not for their aesthetic, formal content but for their ability to convey information and ideas that take me beyond considerations of the sculpture alone.

Relic and Ritual

The first maquette for ‘Oracle’ dried and broke up. Removing the wire armature broke the pieces further. Recycling the remnants of the idea, composting them for future use is the usual way. Early humans buried their dead. Where lay the transition point from composting to burial? Humans have thought that somehow the preservation of the body allows it to transition to another domain and built myths and religions on this notion. The idea embodied by the maquette has moved on and evolved into something different. To ritually preserve its remnants is to keep the idea alive for transitioning. From clay to clay: each iteration encased may foster an evolution towards something else. 

The box is made carefully with attention to detail: it is imperfect, rough, not quite symmetrical; housing incompleteness, impermanence, transition, and the now absence of what was. Wabi sabi  is the embodiment of such ideas. Much of what I have done corresponds with this aesthetic principle, particularly in the case of small works. Subtlety and contemplation are rewarded with a sense of understanding the world in a profound way. The ritual of preserving the maquettes, time consuming, onerous, is a ritual that builds significance. The Confucian idea of ritual through deliberate action and repetition, turns the practical into symbolic action, into physical reality, back to idea into action. If an idea is conserved, it remains alive, if it is alive, it has potential, if it has potential, it can metamorphose. This is one way of my moving forward with what I consider an ambitious project. 

I can see how this approach is endlessly expandable and scalable. But would that go far enough in my view? I think not, it would be to alight on one of the first ideas and stay there. That is not the purpose of this exercise which is about deepening and connecting rather than producing in the first instance. However, having said that, I intend to make each stage a document in the journey towards new work.

Oracle: Maquette 2

Studies: graphite on paper, 316 x 237 mm. From the maquette

Not everything has to have a reason. As I work, an internal dialogue continually debates, interrogates, plays the devil’s advocate: what is this for, is this more effective, where will you go from here? At times I need to cover my ears from these voices that stop me from travelling to, I do not know where. The place does not matter in the doing, but here lies the rub, how do I mark the path by which I have sleep-walked to this clearing in the fog of work? Experience follows me on the trail to a new place, it is she that leaves the marks on the walls of the maze I have wandered into. The journey made familiar, I can follow my way back without minding the why. I need to find my way back, because I cannot stay where I am and sometime I might want to return.

Not everything has to have a reason. Only on the return journey might I encounter the why of something I did. Moments after, or years, unencumbered by thoughts of purpose, ideas that once were awkward come together and show me a different place, the significance of peculiar details. Details in a myth built from once cloven thoughts rejoined. These maquettes are such confections, wrought to be returned to dust, their image grasped with camera and pencil as they dry and crack and crumble before me, they become the memory that builds the life of the idea. Accreting to one another their weight is felt inside me, and the work is done under their gravity, reflection having been done so that feeling and understanding cause the motion and my mind moves to the next place I do not know where or for what reason.

Skype Chat 1.6: Coding

Yesterday we were introduced to the intricacies of coding in java, by Paul Abbott, with a little html and css thrown in just for fun. It was difficult to follow at times, particularly juggling four different windows at one time, thank heavens for a large screen. It felt like having to catch four piglets and trying to put them into a shallow basket… with boxing gloves. However, I survived and took away some valuable ideas that will help me, particularly when I look at the video recording of the session again. These notions can be summarised in a very cursory way as:

  • Types of coded information are kept in discrete blocks.
  • One block of information tells another what to do and the different functions and variables in each one has to correspond to those in another block.
  • The process is like constructing a flow chart in your head. For that matter, drawing a flow chart when planning code is not such a bad idea. 
  • Brackets hold different types of information.
  • The syntax of the code has to be precise.
  • Practice by copying and pasting existing code and alter one parameter at a time and see what happens. Make sure all corresponding parts match one another. 
  • It is no good just reading about code, you have to do it as you go along to understand anything at all. 

I do not know how relevant coding is to my practice. It is immensely satisfying, though, when a piece of code works. I know from my scant experience with html and css. However, it is a totally different language and I struggle enough with words. So, although I may tinker with some code and perhaps even build a rudimentary something for the internet, I think I shall leave this one to those better suited for this activity. One thing, as Paul mentioned, it does help when you can converse in the same language with someone if you need something doing or collaborating on a given project.

Oracle: Maquette 1

Studies: graphite on paper, 316 x 237 mm. From the maquette

Today I made the first maquette for the work I am currently calling Oracle.  It is a continuation of the sketches in Drawings 1 and Drawings 2 in unfired clay and metal wires. Although the final intention is quite the reverse, I am thinking about how language is digested and deconstructed through the alimentary canal of human behaviour. Starting as incoherent noises a comprehensible message emerges at the other end. The Oracles of ancient Greece and Rome worked on this principle and functioned as political spin, from the personal and local to the national and imperial, ambivalence and ambiguity almost always the mode of interpretation. Has it ever been any different for those in power, regarding today’s politics? Is this not what religions do when interpreting the numinous in a bid to acquire and keep hold of power? Take an unexplained phenomenon and make of it what you will.

However, as I mentioned at the start, this work is intended to reverse the process: converting a comprehensible message into an incomprehensible babble in real time. Words are deconstructed as in a form of Chinese whispers from the initial utterance to a final noise. Along the way different iterations of this deconstruction are audible adding to the confusion… all in real time. Is this not what happens to what is said as it passes down and away from its source? This is at the heart of the process of collective assimilation of individual attempts to communicate. 

The maquette is already cracking and breaking up. It disintegrates as do so many thoughts that need be transcribed into a more durable form for retrospection and reflection. This disintegration is part of the cycle of things… I envisage the sculpture being held up by iron rods and suspended from above with iron wires. I can use other materials as I look into different configurations while I research the sonic component. But the things is to always start with what is at hand: plaster, air drying clay, paper mache, metal, stone are all considerations. Eventually I shall make a more permanent scale model to resolve difficulties in making and installation; I am sure that new ideas and solutions will meet me along the way. And as I work on this I will consider it holistically with the other works in mind. Language, myth, ritual, group, self, absence, disintegration, unification, permanence, transience…

As the maquette disintegrates, its container is made: the rests of an idea.

Drawing 5: Ennoia

Studies: graphite on paper, 316 x 237 mm

I am drawing as a way of originating an idea. The word idea has its roots in the Greek Ennoia which literally means “act of thinking” as well as “form” and “the look of a thing”. Related to this is idein, Ancient Greek for “seeing in a creative manner”. How fitting it is that a drawing should be a creative way of seeing an idea: a visible manifestation of thinking. This is such a powerful tool for origination.

Images and words are starting to merge; not as equivalents but as different expressions of an emerging idea. My use of words follows drawing, as reflection on the act follows reflection in the action. This process is leading to ideas related to what I said at the start, that I see my practice as a stage on which a play of sorts is enacted. 

The narrative I alluded to in a previous post, started to emerge in drawing 4 and these sketches have crystallised this a little more, particularly in the context of drawing 3. I do not want to say too much at this stage; to keep the revealing in motion and not cut the process prematurely. The creature stands as I, on the threshold of something broad and unknown. Through this metaphor I have seen a glimpse of a transformative process leading to a collection of existential works. It is the origination of a personal mythology.

Impetus

The worn graphite pencil glides to and fro searching form, trying to enter the flat surface bounded by the small parcel of paper. Changing faces, it deftly leaves a trace that grows careful not to mark the paper indelibly with a false word. Thought is suspended in the uncertainty of emergence, I keep quiet and let the form tell me what to do. I am in its embrace, as the pewter carbon slates off the point until, it asks me, what shall I do next? We are now partners in shaping this tiny world. For now it must be all the world, no distraction except for breath. Time does not count in this place, movement reckons change: too much and life is extinguished, too little and we are left wondering what if. Imperfections must be left behind; corrections will unravel all that has been done as lines coalesce into form, light and shade becoming sensible with words of recognition. And so the meaning passes onto me as I hear the other’s voice grow faint in this world. My hope is that it waits for me in the next.

Drawing 4: Some Sort of Story Starts to Emerge

Studies: graphite on paper, 237 x 316 mm

Today has been the darkest day of the season; rain and cloud but it is not cold. Does the weather influence work? It may do but what it most certainly does is influence mood and interpretation. If interpretation is part of the work, particularly in-action reflection, then the weather must in some way influence the work.

These sketches unlike the previous ones are more of a sequence than a series. It appears to me that one sketch led to another and that by the time I had reached the final vignettes a narrative had started to emerge. I really was not trying to create a narrative but it seems to have come about spontaneously. Is this because subconsciously I look for a narrative or is it that having completed the previous series of drawings, I am becoming more fluent and synthetic? Is it that I am linking the images despite myself?

I was not aware of any particular theme at the outset but during the course of the sketches, a familiar notion has started to show its face.

Skype Chat 1.5: Unit 1 and Project Proposal

Today Jonathan talked about Unit 1 and the Project Proposal. 

Deadline for first PP is week 10, last week of this term.

Unit 1 Assessment Evidence

. 1  Project Proposal
. 2  Practice based research – this is my art practice – making the stuff
. 3  Reflective journal (blog)
. 4  A formal research submission: started in May

Top tip: small regular amounts better

Project Proposal

Word count:

not specified but around 1500 is suggested. It should be of use to me and easily referred to as a guiding post for future work. If too long it becomes cumbersome to read.

A living document

Constantly  changing, evolving, acting as a pathway from origins to destination at any given time.

Format

The PP can take any form so long as it is visible on the blog journal, easily found, and accessible.

It can be in any medium or format. For example, writing it on tablets of clay comes to mind or in Harvard style layout. It does not matter as long as it has the necessary content and can be viewed online.


Content

Working Title:

will change over time. It should say something about the work, perhaps state a hypothesis or research question

Aims and Objectives:

  • 2-3 aims max; more objectives
  • Aims give a reason; objectives state how
  • Aims are about destination; objectives how to get there
  • Try to avoid too much vagueness when stating aims: try to be specific.
  • What is the purpose for the research?
  • Mentioning mediums might be a good idea

Reverse the process by looking at the objectives first and then ask why you are doing them. Make work, reflect, aims become apparent.

By stating A & O helps make the work more intentional and promote in-action and on-action reflection.

Context:

  • historical, contemporary and theoretical contexts – other artists, thinkers, ideas. 
  • potentially a contribution of new knowledge.
  • e.g. historical and contemporary influences with regard to theoretical framework I am working in (thanks Pav)
  • demonstrate:
    • awareness of field I am working in
    • that proposed research will be distinctive and potentially original
    • form the basis for links with other research work you contribute to or build on

Methodology:

including action research, methods and reasons why those methods 

Outcomes:

will change over time; can illustrate with images, videos etc.

Work plan:

timetable – keep the next 2 to 3 weeks detailed, more general for weeks and months after.

Bibliography:

  • is additive;
  • in Harvard style;
  • includes sources planned for consultation (incentivises and acts as a check list for how things are going);
  • if list is long, can divide into sections for clarity;
  • bear in mind some references have a higher level of importance than others. 

Leaving Breadcrumbs and Getting Lost in the Process, Outcome and Acceptance

I am constantly leaving breadcrumbs as I wander through the forest.

The process of this MA is very much about that, process. I am willing to get lost in it as I search for a path towards finding new things and ways. I am consciously entering unchartered domains despite my having established a practice over the years. I feel to not have done so would have been complacent of me. Instead, I have elected to relearn. The drawings are emblematic of this, the way I feel about doing them is an acceptance of being in the process and allowing myself to get lost. It is also a return to origins, to what I did first. However, the point is that each time I explore and find new things I am in danger of getting lost to such an extent that to find my way out again might prove costly in terms of my relationship with my work. What I am in fact doing is looking to create small outcomes along the way, as in Post Truth Hurtling, and the drawings. These are signposts I am planting as I map unknown territories. Each marker keeps me located and the path taken made retraceable. That is one purpose for keeping a journal. To keep everything in the head is not good for my own sanity: the exploration may be conceptual in nature but the outcome is the concrete ballast that keeps me from capsizing against the storm of ideas that I face.