Fieldwork as Practice

Field research is defined as, Direct Observation, Participant Observation and Qualitative Interviews. DO involves the initial approach to understanding a setting (context), PO involves recording the details of social life in a setting (ethnographical), QI involves informal/conversational, semi-structured, standardised/open-ended approaches. (www.researchconnections.org)

Here, I will be discussing the field work of Loraine Leeson and Gavin Renwick whilst relating particular concepts to my own practice.

In chapter 6 of Art, Process, Change: Inside a Socially Situated Practice (2017), Loraine Leeson discusses how addressing the ‘need’ for artistic activity is pertinent in enabling both artist, collaborator(s) and participants to work together to realise the project, ‘it enables the artistic activity to become part of a movement towards change rather than standing outside of it.’ Leeson goes on to describe the various ways need might be expressed within a community, focusing on the negotiation aspect and asking the right questions which ‘remain central to the building of any collaborative project’.

Gavin Renwick in the article Artistic Research and Fieldwork as Social Practice (2008) describes how he was invited into a community as a visitor not as a researcher. The people he planned to work with laid down the rules, they wanted to know if he was the right person to work with them. According to Miwon Kwon in One Place After Another (2004), ‘the objectives and identity of a coherent community are seen as determined by its members before any encounter with outside individuals or groups, including community artists’. In my work on Broadwater Farm estate, I have taken an embedded approach to developing projects by attending community meetings and developing conversations with residents and community leaders over a period of time. Renwick suggests ‘willingness to follow one’s own nose is quite important as opposed to sticking to a concept’. I would agree that research and work in situated practices, requires an openness to any change in direction.

Lesson develops the idea of negotiation as ‘this conscious sharing and meeting of needs that forms the backbone of the negotiating process, together with respect for the different positions of others’. My project has developed this year to include collaboration with a poet/ spoken word artist, during our process of working together we have negotiated our roles so that both of us feel we are supporting each other in getting what we need. Leeson advocates ‘when a person is getting what they need from a process, they give off their best’. We have also been clear with resident participants in the project what their role is too. Kwon (2004) suggests the identities of those involved ‘are in the process of continuous negotiation’. Renwick discovered that the community and its project collaborators ‘needed to define their idea of habitat on our terms to facilitate the negotiations process’.

The quality of listening and responding is as important as asking the questions according to Leeson as it ‘enables the hopes and desires of each to become embedded in the project’. Dialogue with potential collaborators and participants helps to develop the artist’s intentions, ‘it is only through the collective needs being properly fulfilled that it is possible to realise one’s own.’ Renwick describes how the First Nation community wanted him to ‘explore their notion of home and articulate it in a Western way.’ Similarly  my work has explored notions of home in the context of a housing estate which is under threat of redevelopment. During the conversations between collaborators and participants, residents personal stories inform the work of the artists, which create a framework thus ‘the process of listening turns into the structuring that will enable the production of the artwork’ (Leeson 2008).

Renwick discusses how he uses art and research methodologies in relation to what is appropriate at the time, ‘there is one section that is entirely visual which would be “through art”, it utilises and works with the potential of visual narrative and communication’. He is more concerned with research through art as a method. Leeson states how forms of narrative run through traditional frescoes by Giotto and her own work. She describes how those who interact ‘become actively engaged in customising their ‘journey’, in making their own sense of the narrative, which they create or navigate for themselves’.

Another important factor which Leeson refers to in her work is communication in relation to the difficulties which can arise when working collaboratively. ‘Issues can also arise in collaborative projects where there is dependence on a collaborative partner for their skills and knowledge.’ My work with the poet involves this reliance and we have to support each other through the process so that the project continues to feel alive and well. Lesson comments on difficulties which arise out of ‘lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities’ and how it is important ‘to keep communication open and positive’.

In terms of outcomes, Leeson suggests ‘in some projects the activity is the totality of the work, however where there is ‘product’, this can also be seen as part of the continuum’. For Renwick, the outcome was ‘research: communicable, transferable knowledge, with part of the outcome being art/practice’. For Leeson there can be multiple outcomes relating to the needs of those involved ranging from engagement in an activity or participation in an event to shared ownership in the final work, ‘how each participant, partner, teacher or participating artist feels about their involvement also matters’.

To conclude, fieldwork as social practice can be understood in terms of need, collaboration, participation, negotiation, dialogue, framework, communication, making, narrative, engagement, process and outcome. Renwick prefers to place his practice in the context in which ‘the very act of planning a community can be a revolutionary act’. Leeson succinctly describes the role of art ‘as an intrinsic part of social engagement’ she continues to say ‘its processes are fluid’ and recommends ‘it is better for institutions to support and learn rather than assume greater knowledge.’

 

Writing As Practice

The Welsh Dresser: An Atlas (2003) is presented as an essay by Jane Rendell, based on her encounter with a Welsh dresser belonging to her great aunt. Rendell describes herself as a ‘scene-maker’ in writing about this piece of furniture, she equates this with ‘childhood memory’. The ‘site-writing’ approach in which Rendell photographs the objects, writes about the memories attached and provides dictionary definitions is then reflected upon as ‘historiographical perspective’ which are construed as events. The Welsh dresser as an object acts as a ‘keeper’ protecting the fragile objects that it holds. Rendell suggests that ‘the material of the archive rearranges childhood memories in the present’.

In reading this text, I am reminded of a cabinet situated in the dining room of my childhood home. It is a 1970’s large, heavy, dark wood bureau with Jacobean influenced design there’s a larger lower shelf with two doors which open to access the objects inside, above each door there are three drawers, above these a shelf and another unit on top set back also with two doors. Above the top section of the cabinet sat family photos and ornaments, inside housed bottles of booze and glasses, one of the drawers held cutlery only to be used on special occasions, paperwork could be found in the other drawers, the lower part of the cabinet contained various types of crockery, again mainly used when entertaining. As a young child, I would find pre-Christmas chocolate treats hidden inside cabinet and as a teenager, the alcohol became a source of intrigue and entertainment. Inquisitive hands had to work quietly and dextrously to open the sliding door latches so as not to be heard. I relate in humour to the point Rendell makes about the Welsh dresser as being ‘a difficult thing’ because the cabinet was untouchable and used to rattle whenever we went near it.

Rendell makes reference to Joseph Kosuth’s work One and Three Chairs (1965) which is a chair, a photograph of the chair and a dictionary definition of the word “chair”. Objects contained within the Welsh dresser are provided with dictionary definitions ‘which attempt to define the objects housed by the dresser with words that represent them.’ The objects are photographed along with the definition, here Rendell is attempting to provide ‘possible narratives and extended reflections’ which act as ‘new scenes’ allowing ‘unexpected connections to be made’. Both Kosuth and Rendell highlight the relationship between language, picture and referant. They are using semantics to define what is real, as if without the definition the viewer would not know what the object was.

    The Welsh Dresser  Jane Rendell           One and Three Chairs  Joseph Kosuth

In relating to other examples of works which intentionally work across both visual and written language, I will refer to the Dada artists as described in the chapter L.H.O.O.Q: Dada Words in the book Writing on the Wall: Word and Image in Modern Art by Simon Morely. The Dadaists,

‘Melted down and recast as a seemingly meaningless material entity, words would be deliberately impoverished by focusing attention on the rhetoric rather than genuine expression, and by playing on already constituent and clichéd meanings rather than on new and original content’.

Dadaist poets invented words which delivered cryptic dialogue, absurdity and unclear links between words or themes. Obscure phrases and single words would be used to represent extensive meanings and deliberately confuse language. Juxtaposition of rhyme, words and phrases with nonsensical meanings were preferred over description and meaningful narratives.

‘The Dadaists would rob language of its metaphoric range, autonomising it and emphasising opacity over transparency – in the case of speech, attention would be focused on the acoustic dimension, while in writing the visual, material qualities of letters were brought to the fore’.

One of the themes I enjoyed from Rendell’s text that I can relate to my own creative practice is the use of photograph, definition, descriptive narrative and factual notes. I use a wall mapping approach to my studio work which involves displaying photographs, drawings and documentation of site-situated practice and adding text in the form of lists or descriptions. The text is written in chalk so that it can be erased and updated as can the images the wall acts as a visual illustration of the project’s process and development.

Joseph Beuys’s blackboards are an influence here, I also use this approach in my home studio environment. In I Am Searching For Field Character (1977) Beuys sets out a manifesto which are quotes made during his writings and lectures. He promotes the idea ‘art is now the only evolutionary-revolutionary power’ capable of dismantling a repressed social and political system. Beuys suggests that every human is an artist and democracy will be fulfilled when every person becomes a creator in their own right. He also advocates ‘the teacher takes equally from the taught’. Beuy’s uses writing as practice within his blackboards lectures, the writings are accompanied by drawings and symbols. The function of the blackboard is as a tool to demonstrate the thoughts and origins behind an idea, ‘if I produce something, I transmit a message to someone else. The origin of the flow of information comes not from matter, but from the “I”, from an idea.’

I chose this text because I identify with Beuy’s work both as an arts educator and artist. Beuy’s work sits under the 1960’s genre of FLUXUS he has a multi-disciplinary approach involving drawings, writings, paintings, sculpture and performance. Beuys advocates the idea that art can be incorporated into daily life and that human action matters. The importance of his work resonates in my own practice; the involvement of people as both participants and collaborators is paramount to what I do.

In a current project residents from Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham enter into a dialogue between myself and a poet, the resulting conversation is then written into a poem or spoken word piece. Audio recordings are made of the poetry/spoken word then selected extracts are placed with film. The effect provides an illustrated third-person narrative. The work is then compiled and will be presented at a site-situated live event involving film projection and poetry performance, the audience are residents and the wider public. My art practice revolves around socio-political themes in which the social is the person the political is the personal, the stories, the unseen and unspoken voices are heard. Beuy’s states, ‘I think art is the only political power, the only revolutionary power, the only evolutionary power, the only power to free humankind from all repression’.

 

 

Archives and their use in contemporary art practice

In the article An Archival Impulse, art critic and historian Hal Foster (2004) refers to works by Thomas Hirschhorn, Sam Durant and Tacita Dean as ‘sharing a notion of artistic practice’. Using the term ‘archival artists’ who ‘seek to make historical information, often lost or displaced, physically present.’ Foster makes reference to archival art practice produced with material which has been sourced from mass culture to make visual narratives. Here, he has chosen to focus on archival art practice which is more ambiguous and as he describes ‘retrieved in a gesture of alternative knowledge or counter-memory’.

Tiernan Morgan (2014), in the article Art in the 1980’s: The Forgotten History of PAD/D discusses the political art archive of PAD/D (Political Art Documentation and Distribution). Morgan is a journalist and former producer of art forum Hyperallergic. He refers to PAD/D’s archive which is based at Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) library as a ‘rich treasure trove of documents, prints and ephemera from political groups and organisations around the world’. The archive began with a call-out at Some British Art From the Left exhibition (1979) on ‘socially concerned art’ by artist Lucy Lippard. The PAD/D organisation which formed, ‘rejected the pursuit of gallery representation and sought new economic strategies for artists’.

Foster describes how the archival art practices of Hirschhorn, Durant and Dean are concerned with the making of the work and require human interaction to apply meaning. He goes on to say ‘these artists are often drawn to unfulfilled beginnings or incomplete projects’. The arrangement of each artist’s materials and processes relates to the ordering system of an archive thus Dean refers to her method as a ‘collection’, Durant refers to his as a ‘combination’ and Hirschhorn to his as ‘ramification’. Foster suggests ‘perhaps all archives develop in this way, through mutations of connection and disconnection’.

As a political art collective, PAD/D has an immense archive however their work has largely been written out of history despite the well-documented career of its founder member. The archive consists of the publication UPFRONT arts and activism magazine, exhibition project documentation and other material. Their themes explore issues on gentrification, sexism, racism, ecological damage and any other human oppression. The group is described has having a non-hierarchical approach and as being committed to action and were successful ‘in raising awareness of the artist’s sociopolitical role in society’. Morgan describes how the archive is now a reference for research and has been catalogued by Gregory Sholette on his website darkmatterarchives.net

Hirschhorn’s work is described as “direct sculptures”, “altars”, “kiosks” and ”monuments” and according to Foster ‘manifest an eccentric yet exoteric engagement with archival materials.’ Dean’s work is multi-disciplinary using the archive as a narrative within the work, Foster suggests ‘her archival work is an allegory of archival work’. Durant, also multi-disciplinary ‘presents his archival materials as active, even unstable – open to eruptive returns and entropic collapses, stylistic repackaging and critical revisions’.

Unlike the PAD/D collective which mostly displayed work on the street choosing not to show in the gallery space for political reasons, Hirschhorn, Durant and Dean’s works are site-specific and/or gallery made pieces and/or interventions. PAD/D’s work has been challenged as being aesthetically problematic as it presents more as museum piece rather than art exhibit, ‘politics is a contentious business in the art world, and critics often have a hard time reconciling aesthetics with political persuasions’.

In relating archives to my own art practice, similar to the PAD/D archive I have folders of slide image documentation, photographic stills, a computerised system and online archive of work created since 1988. This requires regular re-organising as images are continuously added, labelled and filed within the system. I also recognise an archival art practice in relation to the Hal Foster article in the form of research and making of the work. Having a multi-disciplinary approach I would describe this material as photo-stills, writing, journals, documents, mapping, drawings, film footage and audio recordings. Particular archives which I am currently looking at for research purposes in relation to themes in my own work include Southwark Notes and May Day Rooms London Housing Struggles archive.

References

Hal Foster (2004) An Archival Impulse

Tiernan Morgan (2014) Art in the 1980’s: The Forgotten History of PAD/D

 

 

Art as Social Practice: The Visual Poetics of Protest

An action can be seen as symbolic if it is not a targeted intervention in a system or procedure and does not directly demonstrate the desired changes, but instead publicises the specific demands with the aid of various tools – banners, verbal slogans, music – which are either already symbolically charged per se or become so through being employed in the protest. (Weibel, 2015, p.284)

As a Social Practice artist I have been working on a project involving protest against the social cleansing of estates in Tottenham and Wood Green area of North London. In September 2015 I created a series of altered estate agent signs installed ‘guerrilla style’ around an area of greenbelt parkland which had been included in a regeneration proposal. When I first heard about the council’s plans to go into partnership with a property developer (Haringey Development Vehicle – HDV) and acquiring public parkland for building temporary housing on I was moved to act. Whilst waiting for an idea to emerge I stumbled across a bunch of discarded estate agent signs on my own estate and decided to use these as objects of protest. As Feigenbaum (2014, p.35) comments, ‘the power of the object world to propel us into action’. By using letter stencils to subvert messages already on the sign I created new slogans such as “Sold to Social Cleansers – Your 21st Century Estate Agent”. In Disobedient Objects Feigenbaum (2014, p.36) suggests ‘objects acquire meaning in their assemblages, or the ways in which they are arranged with other technologies, bodies and environments’. Thus by placing the altered estate agent signs in an area such as parkland their satirical messages suggest public land and homes are under threat. People walking past were also driven to act by signing the petition via online technology. Disgruntled councillors who were present in the park that day for an outdoor event were driven to act by demanding the signs be removed. However this had to wait until after the weekend due to the council’s own cuts there were no park staff to remove them.

SA62- Home installation 2015 by Wendy Charlton

These objects of protest have since re-appeared in other local areas which have been designated for demolition under the HDV. Housing activists have re-purposed them for community events, public meetings and protests, even as props in a theatre performance. Another London artist who uses text and statements to alter estate agent signs as visual protest is Tinsel Edwards. Her work takes a satirical look at how artists who have contributed to the creative culture of London are being priced out due to high costs of rented accommodation and property.

Mirzoeff (2015, p.295) discusses ‘visionary organising’ as a ‘form of visual activism’ suggesting ‘people around the world are coming to similar conclusions and finding new ways to engage with how to imagine change’.

The estate agent signs can appropriated to the placard as protest an iconic symbol used globally in demonstrations for all range of issues. Instructions on how to make a placard can be found on the internet or multiple ordered from a company. People are creatively designing text slogans and using colour, symbols or designs to make DIY placards, ‘it reinforces the recognition value and fosters a feeling of affiliation with a group’ (Weibel, 2015, p.286). Placards used at a recent demonstration outside The Royal Courts of Justice with anti-HDV protesters symbolise how the people are having a voice about an issue where they feel silenced by a council and a corporate property developer. I assisted with brainstorming slogans along with housing activists and making placards which could be used outside or easily taken inside. The scuffed and stained placards continue to re-appear at resident meetings reinforcing the messages of collective action and solidarity.

SAMSUNG CSC

SAMSUNG CSC

Photos by Wendy Charlton

In Disobedient Objects Feigenbaum (2014, p.38) discusses the tent as a ‘signboard’ suggesting ‘tents act akin to more traditional political signs, directing us to vote or donate to a campaign’. In a similar way to placards tents can be decorated with slogans and messages of a movement, they also act as a temporary home for people occupying the land on which they are situated.

As architectural structures, they themselves occupy space, claiming their site of erection as home. Yet unlike recreational camping, the challenge protest camps pose often lies in their refusal to ‘go home’. It is this disobedience that move tents from symbols of resistance to objects of defiance. (Feigenbaum, 2014, p.38)

Banners can also be appropriated to placards and tents as symbols of collective protest. Historically banners are attributed to Trade Unionists, the Suffragettes, labour and workers movements. Banners range in size are usually attached to poles so that they can be easily rolled for transportation and are made using a variety of techniques such as paint, print or embroidered.  One type is commissioned commercially by unions and societies usually at a cost and longer lasting, the other is a quick DIY job put together by whatever materials are available. Banner messages can be powerful and emotive, visibly reflecting the strength of feeling behind a particular movement or issue.

Photos by Wendy Charlton

I found the section on disobedient kitchens in Disobedient Objects interesting in relation to protest camps and it is an area. I would like to explore more in my own work, ‘it serves as a locus of communicative interaction’ (Feigenbaum, 2014, p.41) through the development of a partnership with a community kitchen on one of the estates first in line for demolition under the HDV. If this controversial re-development project goes ahead it will be a 20 year blight on the community. As a collective force we would deliver creative arts and cooking related social installations which encourage and empower people to get involved with the campaign as Feigenbaum (2014, p.42) describes ‘domestic spaces become political’.

In visual activist projects, there is an alternative visual vocabulary emerging. It is collective and collaborative, containing archiving, networking, researching and mapping among other tools, all in the service of a vision of making change. (Mirzoeff, 2015, p. 297)

References:

Feigenbaum, A. (2014) ‘The Disobedient Objects of Protest Camps’ in Disobedient Objects London: V&A Publishing

Mirzoeff, N. (2015) ‘Afterword: Visual Activism’ in How To See the World London: Pelican

Weibel, P. (2015) Global Activism: Art and Conflict in the 21st Century Karlsruhe, Germany: ZKM Centre for Art and Media

Art As Social Practice: From Interaction to Collaboration

Instead of supplying the market with commodities, participatory art is perceived to channel art’s symbolic capital towards constructive change. (Bishop, 2012, p.13)

For 25+ years I have been working in community arts (social practice) facilitating workshops, project management and for 8 years teaching in arts education. The political era of New Labour (1997-2010) fostered a belief that the arts needed to be ‘socially inclusive‘ (Bishop, 2012, p.13). As an arts practitioner during this time, political policies reflected on the delivery of the work. A range of people from different demographics of the community participated in projects which were subjected to huge amounts of scrutiny in relation to justifying government funding. Evaluation consisted of tick box paperwork, feedback forms and in some cases a full blown document with graphs and charts showing proportions of families with number of children, employment status and ethnic origin etc. This particular method of data collection determined whether projects would continue to receive this funding coming from central government.

Bishop (2012, p.14) argues, the social inclusion agenda is less about repairing the social bond than a mission to enable all members of society to be self-administering, fully functioning consumers who do not rely on the welfare state and who can cope with a deregulated, privatised world. I am inclined to agree with this statement as the community arts I was involved in delivering often felt like it was driven by a more sinister government agenda than actually wanting to make any real social change.

‘Contemporary art’s ‘social turn’ not only designates an orientation towards concrete goals in art, but also the critical perception that these are more substantial, ‘real’ and important than artistic experiences. Bishop continues to point out that ‘the difficulty of describing the artistic value of participatory projects is resolved by resorting to ethical criteria.'(Bishop 2012, p.19)

Before, during and after a project I reflect on the ethical approaches in participatory works questioning if any of the participation felt forced. Varying degrees of what participation and collaboration mean socially engaged art can sometimes upset the balance of what is being experienced and artists are increasingly being scrutinised. ‘Consensual collaboration is valued over artistic mastery and individualism, regardless of  what the project sets out to do or actually achieves.’ (Bishop, 2012, p. 20)

To illustrate this point Bishop (2012, p.21) makes reference to Oda Projesi collective who describe their work as collaborative with the community delivering workshops as a comparison to Thomas Hirschhorn’s collaborative practice which involves him paying the participants. The comparison question refers to which one is better than the other.

Bishop (2012, p.26) next develops her discussion of ‘the aesthetic regime’ noting ‘the tendency for advocates of socially collaborative art to view the aesthetic as (at best) merely visual and (at worst) an elitist realm of unbridled seduction complicit with spectacle.’ In a society driven by criteria which is largely target led and outcome based the art market has become very object obsessed. Artists working in social practice often have a dilemma around the need to fulfil their obligation as an artist by making an objectified piece.

SA62-Home 2016 a project which involved interviews with participants from a housing estate under threat of demolition, a yearlong piece of work presented as an installation in the form of an incident room. Transcribed interviews were available to read with extracts inserted into large scale drawings, accompanying archival documents and documentary style photographs.

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SAMSUNG CSC

SA62-Home (2016)

With reference to ‘relational aesthetics’ a term coined by Nicholas Bourriaud, writer and Art Historian Grant Kester (2011, p.29) discusses how artists ‘sought to reorient artistic practice away from technical expertise or object-production and toward processes of intersubjective exchange.’ In Mark My Words 2016 a dialogical piece involving 3 parent/carers with disabled children and myself in conversation with 2 academics, the work was intended to be less about the object and more about the exchange between participants. The work can be re-created as an event which can be set up in community environments where parent/carers wish to engage in these conversations.

Mark My Words (2016)

Art of resistance can be related to a community of residents fighting demolition and social cleansing in Haringey. For the past few years I have immersed myself in the world of social housing activists helping to deliver leaflets, make placards, attend meetings, a court hearing, protest marches and campaign events. Kester (2011, p.37) cites ‘ we discover practices centred on immersive interaction and a referential orientation to specific sites of social production.’ Through this reflective positioning the activist artist is part of a collective identity formed by various people coming together fighting for the same social injustice. ‘Art may perceive itself as existing at some remove or distance from the social, but it also, always, imagines that it retains a casual or reflective relationship with the social world.’ (Kester 2011, p.37)

Banner making workshop for StopHDV protest

 

References

Bishop, C. (2012) ‘The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents’ in Artificial Hells. London: Verso, pp. 11-40

Kester, G. (2011) ‘Autonomy, Antagonism and the Aesthetic’ in The One and the Many: Contemporary Collaborative Art in a Global Context . Durham NC: Duke UP, pp.19-65

 

(Im)print: The Synaesthetic Index

Synaesthesia – the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body

In the essay Tension, Time and Tenderness: Indexical Traces of Touch in Textiles, Claire Pajaczkowska discusses how the semiotics of textile as a culture and practice is still evolving. Referring to the handling aspect of cloth or textile she describes “material meaning in textiles is founded on embodied knowledge and affect and that these exist as indexical traces of the touch, handling and holding that are the presence of an absence of the body”. Pajackowska refers to the materiality of textile and its cultural meaning in this instance as linked to the unconscious mind and its ability to evoke memory particularly as the body is adorned in cloth most of the time.

Making reference to Saussure and sign systems Pajackowska relates “the sign is a relationship between the signifier, which is the materials substrate, and the signified, which is the ideational content.” The connection between the two creates meaning which in itself is a sign. Pajaczkowska also discusses the stitch as a sign in relation to the “functional quality and the ideas that it connotes”. The type of stitch signifies meaning as does its decorative use which can be linked to language as “an active materials system in which matter is inextricably imbued with meaning.”

I am reminded of Suzanne Lacy’s The Crystal Quilt 1985–7 a participatory, collaborative and public artwork exploring how the media portrayed ageing and the role of older people. The project incorporated a range of artistic practices in the form of exhibitions, lectures, community organising and a leadership seminar for older women, culminating in a performance installation on Mother’s Day in 1987.

In Minneapolis, 430 women over 60 years old performed in a live piece lasting an hour which was shown on TV also live. Tables were laid out on a large square rug designed by Miriam Schapiro, participants sat four to a table, laying their hands on the coloured tablecloths which changed every 10 minutes to echo the shapes of different quilt blocks (the quilt being an emblem of the traditional sharing of North American female experience). Performers discussed their experiences and reminiscences, whilst a soundtrack by composer Susan Stone played involving the voices of 75 women talking about ageing ‘personal observations, their own memories, and sociological analysis of the unused potential of older people’.

Pajaczkowska comments further on the link between matter and its ideational content, “the craft of stitching may also function to join together the disparate elements of a self that needs time ‘to oneself’, or may serve to bring together a number of people for a specified time and place as part of a ritual of sociability, such as the quilting circles, sewing bees and knitting groups thathave functioned in a range of social, historical and cultural contexts”.

The Voice as Uncanny Index in Susan Hiller’s The Last Silent Movie by Alexandra Kokoli makes reference to Hiller’s linguistic film which uses recorded archival voices speaking in endangered languages and is accompanied by a series of indexical sound wave etchings, “in recording, the voice has its intrinsic uncanniness simultaneously amplified and repressed.” The people whose voices can be heard in the film are mostly dead suggesting their ghosts are being set free through being expressed and listened to by the audience. In this case the meaning of language signifies identity and the viewer is positioned so as to hear the voices as “they reach out to their audiences and touch them within the intersubjective space created by the work.”

 

Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jasper Johns

Altars of Sacrifice: Remembering Basquiat Art in America (June1993) by Bell Hooks

Starts by asking an audience about their emotional response; what ‘feelings the work evokes’. Hooks also questions the views of mainstream art critics who often saw his work as ‘primitive’ and were “unable to speak meaningfully about the work” instead they usually focus on his hedonistic lifestyle and career “while insisting that they are in the best possible position to judge its value and significance”. Basquiat’s work contains hidden codes and symbolism which challenges the viewer to look deeper into the meaning this created a wall between himself and the art world he was trying to establish himself with. Hooks suggests Basquiat’s recognition came through his connections with Warhol “or some other highly visible white figure” he is rarely seen as an artist connected to African-American art history. Although Basquiat’s work might be influenced by the white male artists of his time the content also separates him from them, “even when Basquiat can be placed stylistically in the exclusive, white male art club that denies entry to most black artists, his subject matter–his content–always separates him once again, and defamiliarises him.”

Boxer Rebellion

When looking at Basquiat’s work the viewer is confronted with imagery related to street art and graffiti Hooks suggests looking at the work from an inclusive rather than a ‘Eurocentric’ perspective whereby, ” we are all better able to see the dynamism springing from the convergence, contact and conflict of varied traditions.” Basquiat’s imagery grapples with black African traditions of art verses white Western traditions articulating the distance created between the two. Symbolic gestures referring to colonial views of black mind and body take on political points which challenge the “ugliness of those traditions”. Hooks remarks on how Basquiat “takes the Eurocentric valuation of the great and beautiful and demands that we acknowledge the brutal reality it masks”.

Irony of a Negro Policeman

Hooks describes how the black body is “commodified, appropriated, made to ‘serve’ the interests of white masters, the black body as Basquiat shows it is incomplete, not fulfilled, never a full image”. By not representing a whole person the image becomes objectified and dehumanised through racist assimilation and stereotyped references. The crown as a recurring symbol in his work could be a mockery of Western rule or as Basquiat’s own lost identity as suggested by critic Thomas McEvilley “the king that he once was in another world”. Hooks suggests he had an obsession with the idea of fame and glory which was in relation to self-interrogation and that the crown is not an unambiguous symbol. “While it may positively speak the longing for glory and power, it connects that desire to dehumanisation, to the general willingness on the part of the males globally to commit any unjust act that will lead them to the top”.

Crowns (Peso Neto) 1981

Basquiat was encouraged by his mother to enjoy and appreciate at from an early age she suffered from mental health issues and was institutionalised when he was 13years. Although his mother was an important person in his life Basquiat makes little reference to female influences in his work. Hooks refers to Basquiat’s masquerading in his personal life suggesting he “used painting to disintegrate the public image of himself that he created and helped sustain”.

Jasper Johns: “Take an object. Do something to it. Do something else to it.”RA Magazine (September 2017) by Barbara Rose

Johns mixed media paintings and assemblages make visual references which connect art and food, his passion for cooking is reflected in his work; the use of encaustic wax, his portrait on porcelain plates as in Souvenir and Souvenir 2. Objects are deprived of their original function so that they become part of the composition. As elements they encourage the viewer to feel curious about what might be on the other side, “objects are transformed into images through various forms of reproduction, allowing them to be deconstructed, reordered and grafted on to other surfaces, as well as displaced into a variety of contexts that alter their meaning in surprising combinations and juxtapositions.”

 
Visual play between object and image resides throughout Johns work whereby elements of a painting appear to be objects but are painted to look like objects. In other works objects are applied and painted over to appear like a two dimensional image, “this oscillating definition is typical of the course Johns would pursue of flipping back and forth between object and image, and employing illusions that can be read two different ways fighting for priority.” Printmaking and painting were early techniques Johns employed to create spatial effects with dimension and experiments with overlapping imagery.

Illusion and reality a theme which connects all of Johns work “is the storyline of his art”.

 

 

(Im)print: What is an Index (for)?

Index

• a sequential arrangement of material, especially in alphabetical or numerical order
• something used or serving to point out; a sign, token or indication

In Tracing the Index in Art History and Media Theory 2012 the index-concept is a semiotic term coined by Charles Sanders Peirce a sign-theory ‘based on the trichotomy of signs between likeness, indexicality, and symbolic meaning, which he defines as icon, index, and symbol’. According to Peirce, an index is “a representation, which refers to its object not so much because of any similarity or analogy with it, (…) as because it is in dynamical connection both with the individual object, and with the senses or memory of the person for whom it serves as a sign”.

Rosalind Krauss in Notes on the Index: Seventies Art in America 1977 discusses the collective art movement and the “multiple options now open to individual choice or will, whereas before these things were closed off through a restrictive notion of historical style.” Krauss documents her points with a numerical list, she uses an example of work by Vito Acconci 1973 ‘Airtime’ in which the artist talks to his own reflection. There is reference to ‘the shifter’ (Jackobson) to ‘I’ and ‘You’ as referents whose places shift across the conversation space. ‘I’ refers to the person who is speaking which becomes ‘You’ when someone else is speaking. In point number 4 the meaning of the work starts to unfold with regards to the ‘mirror stage’ (Lacan) – a child’s self identification through the reflected image at age 6 – 18 months. The child begins to recognise his/herself as a separate object through the mirrored image in which a ‘primary alienation’ is experienced and thus where the imagination develops. At this stage it is through acquiring language that the child then develops a historical sense of self which previously did not exist in the ‘Imaginary’ this is described as the ‘Symbolic’ (Lacan). Point 5 takes us back to the index as a reference and objects that the symbols signify “as distinct from symbols, indexes establish their meaning along the axis of a physical relationship to their referents”. Krauss demonstrates further with an example of work by Duchamp titled ‘T’u M’ (You/Me) in which the index finger of a pointing hand serves to connect the referent with the shifter, “his art serves as a matrix for a related set of ideas which connect to one another through the axis of the index”. Duchamp’s alter ego becomes the shifter in his self portraits as Rrose Sélavy suggesting a double identity. Similarly in ‘Green Box’ the labels MAR and CEL appear in a sketch contained in the box.

The papers and sketches in this piece accompany the artwork ‘The Large Glass’ they can be read in any order and describe meanings behind the elements which Duchamp referred to as linguistic forms. There’re also references to the male and female form in ‘Large Glass’ suggesting an interaction between the two possibly in relation to violence through symbols such as drilled holes, toy cannons and targets. The words MAR and CEL are a signature hidden within the labels bride (mariée) and bachelor (célibataire) make indexical links to the male and female.

In photography light is reflected onto a paper surface to create an imprint, Krauss refers to this as “a type of icon or visual likeness which bears an indexical relationship to its object”. Krauss suggests Duchamp could have been referring to ‘Large Glass’ as a type of photograph due to the “suspension of of the images as physical substances within the field of the picture and the opacity of the image in relation to its meaning.”

Roland Barthes in Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography 1993 discusses the referent as different to other representational systems “I call ‘photographic referent’ not the optionally real thing to which an image or a sign refers but the necessarily real thing which has been placed before the lens, without which there would be no photograph”. According to Barthes it is the pose which defines the nature of photography, unlike film whereby the image becomes animated and passes, the photograph remains forever. In describing a photograph of a corpse “it is the living image of a dead thing”. Barthes was a French literary theorist and philosopher amongst other things which comes through in his description about photography. He discusses his personal views about not being fond of colour as it distorts the essence of the black and white photograph, “for me, colour is an artifice, a cosmetic (like the kind used to paint corpses). What matters to me is not the photograph’s ‘life’ (purely ideological notion) but the certainty that the photographed body touches me with its own rays and not with a superadded light”.

Ándre Kertész: Ernest. Paris 1931

Kertész was a revolutionary photographer who was adept at using composition to express a mirror image and reflection of everyday life in his images. He worked as a photojournalist in Paris ‘he captured the poetry of modern urban life with its quiet, often overlooked incidents and odd, occasionally comic, or even bizarre juxtapositions.’ International Centre of Photography

Barthes suggests the photograph says ‘what has been’ and that “it never lies: or rather it can lie as to the meaning of the thing”. He also refers to the lifeline of the photograph and that the only way it can be transformed is for it to become refuse due to its perishable format. “Attacked by light, by humidity, it fades, weakens, vanishes; there is nothing left to do but throw it away”.

Site and Situation: (Not) At Home

Lesley Ferris discusses ‘Cooking Up the Self’ by Bobby Baker and Blondell Cummings “Do” the Kitchen she outlines the way both artists use performance in an autobiographical way set within the home as a stage space. Ferris specifies her interest in ‘the notions of public/private, outside/inside, masculine/feminine, reconfiguring of space and drawing on their own lives as source material’. She also draws upon historical aspects of ‘classical space’ in relation to Greek drama and notions of gender stereotypes; the exterior representing the patriarchal, male with its imposing architecture as symbols of power, the interior as representing the women contained, domesticated where the play and violence usually happens.

Both Baker and Cummings “play the self in which both enacts and ironies a series of feminised roles” their performances involve the body and the physical which draw upon a lived moment. In ‘Kitchen Show’ by Bobby Baker 1991, the artist’s home is the venue and the kitchen is the stage, Baker is the main actor dressed ‘ready to work’. An audience is invited to engage with the artist in dialogue as “invited guests/spectators” through having a cup of tea or coffee. ‘Kitchen Show’ seems to be full of symbolism equating to female stereotypes and media representations of women at the same time it plays on these associations with irony, sexuality and satire. For example she describes passionately how she loves to peel the carrots under running water while the expression of anger is demonstrated by throwing an object at a cupboard door. Baker plays on the stereotypes and the dark sides of women’s role in the kitchen in a humorous way “comic madness” through juxtapositions of food and cosmetics such as applying butter like cream to her face and a wooden spoon to hold the hair in place. There are also references to association and memory “shared tips for perpetual improvement and elaboration of cooking rituals”.

In ‘Chicken Soup’  by Blondell Cummings 1988 Ferris describes how the artist performs with sign and gestural movements around an imaginary kitchen table. Blondell reflects on family history and storytelling with grandmother, mother, aunt through a shared experience and sense of community, “her own body situated in relation to family’s female bodies”. Blondell also draws upon rituals associated with memory in a similar way to Baker her gestural movements can be equated with flipping through a photo album, “documenting herself and foremother’s”.

In Katy Deepwell’s essay on artist Fran Cottell’s ‘House: from Display to Back to Front’ 2012 she discusses how the display of sculptured works has moved away from the traditional ‘white cube’ gallery format to spaces which challenge and redefine our perceptions of the artwork. Fran Cottell has explored the home as gallery space for installations, “the notion of art as a form of display is central to the art-making process”. In these works the viewer is positioned and encouraged to reflect/ change their perspective on the work by thinking differently about what they see in front of them. Cottell relates her ideas to feminist ideology and identity politics “where boundaries are accepted, formed and then disrupted”. The installation which involves mesh walls and walkways through various rooms in the house give the spectator a voyeuristic positioning into the family home, “interrogating ideas of display”.

  Fran Cottell

Home is typically defined as a place where people live as individuals, solo or collectively, as a family, a shelter, a refuge, ‘a roof over ones head’. In China the term ‘nail houses’ is given to homes owned by mainly the older Chinese generation who refuse to accept compensation or to move when their house is under iminent threat of demolition. Defiant owners will live in their home without any water or electricity until they are offered an agreed amount of compensation. There are political reasons behind this defiance which is about being forced out and disregarded by government, some owners have become celebrities through the national media.

 Wenling, China

The texts share similarities in the way artists have used the site of the home to deliver their messages about feminist theory. Baker and Blondell’s works play on the idea of the kitchen as traditional female territories for their stage space. They are speaking from their own experience with their own bodies to explore where the boundary between mundane repetitive housework becomes art. Ferris describes Baker as “the creator of meaning and carrier of meaning” turning the idea of stereotyped perfect, domesticated female on its head as “defaced, soiled and stained by kitchen work”. The nail houses in China create and convey meaning through their refusal to move claiming their territorial right to be there.

 

Site and Situation: The Street

‘Symbiotic Postures of Commercial Advertising and Street Art’ Stefania Borghini et al 2010 discusses the relationship between street art and advertising drawing upon visual examples to argue it’s point. There is a shared common interest or ‘visual rhetoric’ which uses “elaborate communication structures to inform and persuade audiences”. Street art operates through “paradoxical thinking, associative ability and novelty/risk taking”, advertising borrows some of these ideas from street art to sell it’s products. Both methods require an audience to interact/engage and are publicising the artist/product. Borghini et al researched street art and artists over a 3 year period identifying themes and patterns which link to cultural trends. They discovered a blurring of boundaries between commercial messages in street art which are associated with fashion, film, sports, gaming, advertising etc. Although street art has it’s roots in rebellion an ‘intertextuality’ exists between street art movements and advertising practices. This involves ‘playfulness’ to grab the attention of an audience, ‘aestheticisation’ giving value to everyday objects, ‘manipulation’ whereby the meaning is subverted, ‘replication’ advertising through logos, tags, unique space etc. ‘stylistic’ through communicational codes, ‘rediscovery’ using overlooked and forgotten spaces in the urban environment.

Street artist Nuxuno Xan in Fort-de-France, Martinique

“Advertisers aim to reduce the consumers’ sight-scope to one single purchase option – street artists strive to extend the capability of passersby to observe normally unobserved, invisible urban lands”.

Situationist International Anthology, ‘ Definitions’ 1958 lists ideological meanings behind The Situationist movement consisting of collective organisation, game of events, constructing situations, psychogeography, derive – experimental behaviour linked to conditions of urban society, detournement as propaganda culture, decomposition.

‘Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography’ Guy Debord 1955 discusses psychogeography in more detail, the study of urban environments through the method of ‘drifts’ (derive), “the study of precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviours of individuals”. Psychogeography encourages the participant to experience the elements of an urban setting in relation to sensations for example lighting, sound, time, ambience etc. “people assume generally that elegant streets cause a feeling of satisfaction and poor streets are depressing”. The text refers to contradictions that occur when the media encourages more use of public transport, cycling, walking whilst promoting the selling of car ownership through advertising.

‘Jazzmen’ 1961 describes the work of Jacques Villegle a French mixed media artist linked to the New Realists a collective of European artists working with mass media, salvaged objects, satire and sociological reality. Villegle removed posters from Paris walls to create decollage pieces which were mounted on canvas in layers creating compositions of colour and typography. The process he used implied the deterioration of civilisation, densely layered surfaces suggested social, political critiques and reflections of society.

All texts seek to explore a relationship between art and the urban environment, discovering the overlooked and abandoned, connecting with our feelings and emotions. There is a social/political ideology operating within each which challenges the dominant ruling class and capitalist/consumerist society. Common interest exists between collective organisations such as The New Realists, The Situationists, Street Art Movement  and for example The Loiterers Resistance Movement a Manchester based collective of artists, activists and urban wanderers interested in psychogeography, public space and the hidden stories of the city “we can’t agree on what psychogeography means but we all like plants growing out of the side of buildings, looking at things from new angles, radical history, drinking tea and getting lost; having fun and feeling like a tourist in your home town. Gentrification, advertising and blandness make us sad.”

The article on street art and advertising describes “street art as an emerging template for commercial advertising and its associated rhetoric with the double nature of creativity as product and process”. Research could have considered the inevitable issue of corporate vandalism which is occurring as a consequence of street art becoming fashionable due to it’s edgy and urban format. Street artist MadC is currently suing British Airways for using her work in one of their ads without permission. The Evening Standard article suggests “corporates must co-operate with the artists to make it work”.

As with street art and advertising there is a similar paradox between the view of urban environment as once decrepit and ugly is now being seen as edgy and desirable. Brutalist architecture is back in fashion with planners, politicians and private developers cleansing the working classes out whilst moving in the artists to make an area up and coming, a term known as ‘artwashing’.  The Balfron Tower in Bow, East London is an example of this particular exploitative practice, “it was very clear to me from the start that all was not well with the decant of Balfron Tower, and the stories I heard were heart-breaking, but consistently told of ruthless and nefarious tactics to clear the building so that the homes could be redeveloped by a luxury property developer and sold off with zero percent social housing.” Rab Harling Balfron Social Club

Site and Situation: The Street the idea of seeing beauty and value in the urban environment and everything that exists within it such as street art, community, decay, nature. Advertising and capitalist consumerist society needs to respect and acknowledge this rather than exploiting it. In the film Estate A Reverie by Andrea Luka Zimmerman, a moving piece about the regeneration of a Hackney housing estate there is a scene with tourists visiting the run down estate as part of a Open House event. One particular visitor asked permission to take a photo of one of the residents standing in from of the home he was being evicted from there was no conversation with the resident only a thank you for the photo as if he was a souvenir not a person. What is this obliviousness and ignorance which pervades our modern day society?