26/11/2008. Wolverhampton. Or, 'Study Governed by Chance (after Richard Long and the Boyle Family)'

The first in a series of walks. The starting point and end point are determined by sticking two pins in a map at random. The experience is then documented in whatever way seems appropriate. What you read here are snippets of conversation:

Start. What? Come on. Which way are we going? Memorial: 'Their name liveth for evermore'. S.I, Lefebvre. Drop your reasons for movement to experience the city in a new way. The Planet really is a dump. Need faster film. Found a pen. Are matches relevant? Where's the Post Office? I want to go see the reindeer. Where are they going? Cactus in the window. Princes Street. We're also on a project, another project. Get that one. Princess Alley. That's really bright. Look at the amethyst. Bag fallen off the van. I've never been down here before. You're in my way. Walkabout. Manhattens, whats that? Used to be chiggi rock. Want to see the reindeer. Hang on. Failure is interesting, but failing because you're cold isn't. That's two lame franchises. My bum's cold. Carpets. Look at this. New watch? Bell Street, TKMaxx. The Beach? What's this? End.

Below are images shot by Helen, who came with me:

Statement October 2008 (extract)

Heres a section of a statement I'm working on for my creative enquiry module:

The major turning point in my development as an artist, crucial to my practice, is the realisation that the process is equally important as the exhibited work. This illustrates a shift in position and understanding, a shift away from any notion of finality; from understanding artworks as ‘end products’ to reading them as documentation of a process. A recent article on the MA Fine Art show at the University of Central Lancashire addresses this very issue. In it Chris Young refers to Site specific art in the late sixties/early seventies and Lucy Lippard’s 1972 book ‘Six years: The Dematerialisation of the Art Object’. Young poses the question of how the process of engagement and exploration, which is where the interest lies, can be communicated to an audience?

‘Thirty-six years on , the case of process-based work takes the issue further still – where the outcome of a project is uncertain there may be no physical end product at all. The interest is in the exploration of ideas and the process of investigation. How can this be communicated to an audience expecting and deserving an involving visual experience?’ (Young, 2008, p6)

With regards to my own practice this question is crucial, and one which, at this stage in my development, I have yet to find a satisfactory answer to. The important point is, to reiterate, the shift from reading the artwork as an ‘end product’ to reading the artwork as documentation. Two bodies of work from my practice highlight this shift, work that illustrates crucial points in the development of my practice. The first of which is a large body of photographs of the various studio spaces I have worked in over the last couple of years. The practice of photographing my studio and work in progress was one I picked up at foundation level and continued through my undergraduate degree. The photographs often depict unfinished art objects (paintings), and as such are documents. The essential point is that these are, at the same time, also ‘end products’. The major revelation was that these photographs of my studio were to be valued as much as ‘end products’ as the paintings they depicted were. They are ‘end products’ in as much as they are produced by a process, but it is a process that is theoretically endless, and so they are also documents. The defining factor is finality. The difference between the two terms is the degree of finality inherent to the work: An ‘end product’ has a heightened finality as it is the end point of the process. A ‘document’ is its polar opposite having little or no finality, as it comes during the process, a process which, theoretically, may have no end point.

The second body of work I produced for my undergraduate degree show. It consisted of a series of paintings, drawings and a video/performance work that utilised the Dadaist/Surrealist technique of the automatic. The paintings were made by covering the canvas in one or more layers of automatic writing. Whilst there was a certain amount of chance involved in this process, it is a controlled amount as there were conditions (Number of layers, size of text etc). This marks a major shift in my practice, in that the work actively privileges the process over the ‘end product’: As there is little aesthetic interest in the finished works (many of the canvases were completely covered in either black or white paint, a deliberate choice to minimise the aesthetic value of the works), the artworks as ‘end products’ approach redundancy, as the art objects exhibited become interesting only because of the process. While this work was produced at undergraduate level, it is only in my current practice I am able to fully comprehend the implications of this shift. My current practice centres on the word ‘Psychogeography’, a word that has a long history but whose major touchstones, for my own practice, are the Situationist International and the revival psychogeographical practices had in 1990’s London by authors such as Iain Sinclair. This work consists of going on walks and documenting them through film, photography, drawing and writing.

Review at Rhubarb

A selection of images I took for review:

Review at Rhubarb

Today I went for my portfolio review with Rhubarb Rhubarb. I had mixed feeling about going - Rhubarb Rhubarb is very much a photography agency promoting photographic work from the West Midlands, yet I don't really see myself as a photographer despite my current work being largely lens based. In the end though I figured it couldn't do me any harm so I went.

It was actually really useful, the woman reviewing my work (Lorna, I think?) immediately spotted my problems, namely that the work I was producing wasn't what I wanted it to be, the things I'm trying to convey are getting lost somewhere between thought and image. There is a lot of potential in my work, I knew that already and she seemed to pick up on that ('a good start' I thing her words were) but, again same problem, that potential is getting lost somewhere. At the minute I'm struggling to figure out what exactly the work is: I know its not painting, and I think it might be lens based, but i lack confidence because I don't know what I'm doing. The solution suggested is to experiment, play around with cameras, film, printing the photographs myself and to go out more with my camera. Once I've done that and my work has progressed some I'm to go back for another review session.

While I'm feeling a lot more positive about my practice than I have been as of late, I know a PhD, which must come out of practice, even if it's a theoretical research project, is further away than I thought.

Notes on 'Ways of Seeing'

Notes on ‘Ways of Seeing’ (1972)
by Berger, J. Blomberg, S. Fox, C. et al


Chapter One

- The essay seems to take the central ideas from Benjamin’s ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (loss of ‘aura’, displacement of notions of ‘the original’) and situate them in a structuralist context

- Berger seems to be, much like Benjamin, be writing from a Marxist perspective. A lot of what is said seems to connect with the Situationist International. A lot of Situationist tactics are alluded to throughout the essay (e.g., detournement: ‘Because works of art are reproducible they can, theoretically, be used by anybody.’(p29) These could also be connected to postmodernism and, more recently, postproduction. The text is essentially Marxist, not postmodernist however.


- The premise of the essay, and indeed the book, divides up the world, like structuralism does, into signifiers and signifieds. Connections can be made with Lacan’s ‘mirror phase’ ‘Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen. The eye of the other combines with our own eye to make it fully credible that we are part of the visible world’ This notion of the other can be connected, and indeed is present in, (post)structuralism.

- ‘Adults and children sometimes have boards in their bedrooms or living-rooms on which they pin pieces of paper: letters, snapshots, reproductions of paintings, newspaper cuttings, original drawings, postcards. On each board all the images belong to the same language and all are more or less equal within it, because they have been chosen in a highly personal way to match and express the experience of the room’s inhabitant. Logically these boards should replace museums.’ (p30). Sums up the essay. Art should be appreciated for its use value rather than its originality, or uniqueness. This position is shared by postmodernism, neo-avant-garde and the Situationists (and etc). It is an essentially Marxist statement in this instance as it is directed towards removing the bourgeois hierarchy of modern museums and open up art to use by the lower classes.


- The comodification of art a major theme, especially painting. After mechanical reproduction any notion of originality lies in the work being the original of a reproduction, its value lies in its quantitative value not what the image contains; ‘The meaning of the original work no longer lies in what it uniquely says but what it uniquely is’. Central idea from Benjamin’s essay.

Chapter Seven

- Publicity: The colonisation of the everyday by capitalism. This is the central premise of this essay

- Publicity sells the past to the future; ‘Publicity images also belong to the moment in the sense that they must be continually renewed and made up-to-date. Yet they never speak of the present. Often they refer to the past and always they speak of the future.’ (p130). Again the debt to Benjamin is prominent, notions of mechanical reproduction are central.

- ‘Publicity is about social relations, not objects.’ (p132). Publicity is about potential: when you buy a product you buy potential for what you could be. The product embodies your relations to others, this is why publicity is never about the product itself, but potential.

- Publicity’s use of history significant: presents history as something to ‘dip into’ (again Marxist, links with postmodernism, situationism). Art and history lend the product a sense of authority and speak of social mobility. Again, the potential for what you could be.

- ‘Publicity turns consumption into a substitute for democracy. The choice of what one eats (or wears or drives) takes the place of significant political choice. Publicity helps to mask and compensate for all that is undemocratic within society. And it also masks what is happening in the rest of the world.’ (p149)

updates and ideas

I've had a few ideas for work recently so I thought I'd post them on here. Basically, this is what Im up to at the minute:

I'm working with a local poet/writer called Emma Purshouse. We plan to produce some work to submit to the open exhibition at the riverside gallery in London, the theme being 'Age and Memory'. I dont normally do things like this - I hate themed open submission things - but this seemed like a good common ground for us to produce something, and the deadlines the end of November, so that gives us a good timeframe to get out and produce something. I'd either like to produce a film or photography/text/sound stuff, somewhere between Patrick Keiler's film 'London', psychogeography and 'Nadja' by Andre Breton.

I've also had an idea for a sort of site specific work, based on the idea of desire lines. The idea is to use lines painted on the floor to mark out routes across Wolverhampton. I've contacted the council and have been referred to Wolverhampton art gallery, so the next step is to email them and see if this is possible. What I'd like is to get a dialogue going between people to work out what the project could be.

Theres more but those are the two things at the forefront of my mind at this juncture.

Lets play at being lecturers

today was my first day teaching the undergrads. Its unpaid work experience of course - I'm still a long way from being good and experienced enough to get a job as a lecturer - but hopefully doing this will help me develop skills that will help me get paid to do it when I'm finally ready. I'm helping out with the second year drawing elective module: basically its a series of workshops introducing them to an 'expanded field of drawing' as it was refered to today. Then they'll have time to develop their own 'drawings' - used in the expanded sense, whatever they may be - for assesement. I'll also be giving a talk/lecture/presentation on my own work and how that relates to the stuff they're doing, and really this is exactly what my work is about. The idea that drawing - or any form of practice - can be a moment, or a document of an event was what really came across, for me at least (It'll be interesting to see how many of the students picked up on it).

It's been really usefull actually because its given me a new perspective on my practice; I've been thinking about giving the presentation and how I can relate that to this expanded field of drawing and this has made me realise that drawing in the expanded sense is what I do, its all drawing: my video's, photographs, writings (and etc) are all documents of various events, moments, processes, (and etc). This very blog, the words you are reading now are a drawing. I was reading an article today about the problem of presenting 'process based' art. This really struck a chord as I've been saying for a long time that my practice is process based. As I understood it, the problem seemed to be about finality: when is something finished? What is the end product? The problem being that with a lot of these process based practices, the project is never finished, and there isn't any 'final piece' - a horrible term that I've fought against for years because of this very issue - these things are part of an ongoing process. Yet when this work is exhibited, it is read as being an end product, and doesn't really provide enough of a 'way in' to allow us, as viewers, to read the work as part of an self-perpetuating process, which of course it is. With this kind of work there are never any conclusions, only more questions, never any end products, only documentation.

Back to School

First day back at uni today. We had a group seminar with our second year group and the six full time students from the first year group. It was mainly a session of introductions and updates, but it was really good to see everyone again and talk about art. I find the support a group of fellow students provides extremely helpful.

We've also had a change of studio, our old MA room has been given over to the undergraduates and instead we've got a space on the ground floor that was filled with third year undergrads last year. Its a really good move as the room is bigger, the light is better and we've even got a desk area for seminars. I will miss having a pc in the room though, as a lot of my time spent in the studio was using the computer. It's still going to be rather cramped in there, as there's ten part time first years as well as the six full time students, and along with the ten or so in our group that makes 26, so board space is going to be at a premium. We have, however, decided to keep one wall free for displaying work, so those who don't/can't use the MA studio as much as others have somewhere to put their stuff up. I suspect I might be one of those people as I dont know how much I'll be able to use the MA room. Having a space at eagleworks will probably mean I'll spend the majority of my studio time there and use the MA room for displaying work.

I've also arranged with Maggie (one of the lecturers on the undergraduate course) to do some teaching, unpaid of course, but its valuable work experience and looks pretty good on the cv. So then this coming friday I'll be helping run a drawing workshop with the second years (I think),then maybe doing some work with the undergrads doing the dissertation module. should be fun.

one thing to tick off my list

I've just booked train tickets to London for the super 8 workshop at Nowhere Lab. It still amazes me how it can cost so much to travel relatively short distances in this country. I have Latvian roots and I've been there a few times. Over there you could probably travel half way across Russia for the same price as a return ticket to London. Still it feels like I'm finally getting things done.

updates, studios and more things to do

I spent some time in my eagleworks studio yesterday, I moved some books and cameras over there. I remember watching the long way down/round - Ewan McGregor and Charlie Borman's motorbiking trips that were on BBC 2 a while back - in particular I remember the office they had, filled with various documents, maps etc. Thats the kind of space I want my studio space to look like, a kind of office like base, (or rather my half of the studio space as I share it with Beckie Mayers).

I think I may have to make eagleworks my main studio, because with a new group of first year MA students moving in, space in there is going to be limited. I would still like to maintain a presense in there though, still keep things on the walls, so an idea was to turn my 8 foot of wall space into a free exhibition space that everyone can use. It would have to be curated, but I think it could be really useful for a lot of people, particularly people who mainly work elsewhere. Another option would to be to share a space with my sometime collaborator Matt Black, although I'm not sure how he'd feel about that; it was suggested a while back and he didn't want to do it.

I need to give Emma Purshouse a call sometime today. Emma's a writer and she worked with a fellow MA student back in our first semester, and I, allong with our tutors, really liked the film he made (Emma provided the voiceover, reading a poem she wrote for the film). Since then the idea of using fictional narratives has been lodged at the back of my mind and over the summer Emma and I started exchanging emails and, I think, both would like to work together.

Also I got an email back from my brother, Dan. He says its ok for me to walk to his house from brum new street, should be able to get some good pictures and do plenty filming. Plus he's just bought guitar hero 2 for the wii!

To Do List

As I'm feeling motivated I thought I'd post my current to do list. I write these all the time: I find that they are a good way to keep track of what you are actually acheiving with your practice on a day to day basis and to keep yourself motivated, because as you tick them off the list, you feel as if your getting somewhere - or at least getting things done.

• book train tickets for super 8 workshop. I'm attending a workshop at Nowhere Lab in London on shooting and processing super 8 film. As I've said previously I've recently been experimenting with super 8, but without any real knowledge of how, hopefully this will show me how to use the camera properly.(www.no-w-here.org.uk)
• Prepare images for portfolio review. Also in October I have a portfolio review with Rhubarb Rhubarb's Rhonda Wilson. I dont see myself as a photographer as such, not in the way some on my MA course would; I studied fine art at degree level, so I feel like I'm coming to this review from a very different position. Although photography and lens-based practices are important to my current work (central even, as almost all my work is now done through a lens of some sort), I dont see myself as being connected to or part of any photography industry, and Rhubarb Rhubarb are very much in the photography industry. Its fine art photography - no wedding photographers here - but it still feels different to what I do. Having said that my knowledge of photography as a practice is still limited, so hopefully this review will give me some pointers as to where to go with my practice.(www.rhubarb-rhubarb.org)
• Spend at least one day per week at eagleworks. After giving up painting (maybe temporarily, who knows) the time I'm spending in my studio at eagleworks has dropped dramatically. This needs to change, as eagleworks is probably the only creative group in Wolverhampton and its a real privilage to be part of it. There is also a really good gallery space that can be used by members of the group - this means regular solo exhibitions, which I've always thought of as vital. My plan is to use my space less as somewhere for making, more as somewhere for thinking, so I'm planning to turn it into a kind of office/study space, somewhere to plan walks, think through ideas, read books etc. Dropping painting has brought about some major changes not only in my work but in the way I go about making work. Hopefully I'll be able to work through this, then when I feel as if I'm using my space like I should I can arrange my first exhibition there.(http://www.smfrancis.demon.co.uk/eagle/)
• Go on more walks/journeys and film/photograph. An idea I'm trying to work through at the moment is that of psychogeography. My walk from wolves to brum was very productive, even though my plan to make a film of the experience went tits up. I'm planning more walks: one from Birmingham New Street station to my brothers house in Harbourne, one from Birmingham city center back along the canals to Wolverhampton. I'll have to borrow an SLR from uni for a couple of weeks though, as mine is playing up at the minute.

So thats pretty much what I'm planning. Uni starts up again next week so I'll discuss all this with the group and get some feedback on it. Thats all for now, I'll try and post again soon

Psychogeographical Experiments

Here's a section from an essay/article I've been working on, titled 'A Psychogeographical Experiment: Wolverhampton train station to Birmingham New Street Station'. If all goes well it will be published in Nat and Chris's book ( see http://ourfineartma.blogspot.com ) -

The first question I come to – a pretty major one that needs answering - what is my position on psychogeography? What is this psychogeographical experiment/ stupid idea aimed at? Am I aligned with Guy Debord and the Situationist International in feeling out the psychological contours of the city through the derive? Or am I closer to Will Self and his eotechnical world-view? Indeed, the Selfian approach (if I can call it that) was the inspiration for this first foray into the world of psychogeography. After watching on YouTube Will Self’s lecture at Google[i], promoting his recent book documenting his own psychogeography, I became fascinated with the division between psyche and place that ‘modernised’ methods of transport bring about. ‘Walking to New York’ is Self’s attempt to bridge this divide. In the modernised world of machine mediated travel, London and New York exist separately, with no physical relationship in space, or indeed psyche as, Self argues, perceptions of space are registered by the body on a physical, not a mental, level. Self’s chosen method for bridging this divide is walking, thus re-registering his spatial perception of London and New York, and destroying his London and New York micro-worlds as he puts it. His route took him across London to Heathrow airport, from there by plane to JFK airport, and then on foot again to his Hotel in New York. The plane journey across the Atlantic, in terms of physical exertion, isn’t recognised, and so, as far as his body is aware, he has traversed one continuous landmass, as I’m sure his legs would concur.

Late capitalist society creates for us an illusion, argues Guy Debord, to whom Self, in his psychogeography, is indebted. This illusion, encompassing daily life, roughly comprises work, home/leisure and consumerism as, according to late-capitalist society, these were the only things we needed to live[ii]. Self’s notion of micro-environments, is derived from the Situationist’s concept of spectacle: Our experiences of place and spatial relations, registered on a mental level become ruptured by modernised, non-eotechnical modes of transport. Our experiences of place then become subsumed under the spectacle of late-capitalist society. Put simply, we don’t know where we are, and this is just the way late-capitalist society wants it. These concepts of spectacle relate back to Henri Lefebvre’s ‘Critique of Everyday Life’. Indeed, Lefebvre was at one time aligned with the Situationists, and his concepts of alienation and mystification formed the theoretical basis for Debord’s ‘Society of the Spectacle’. Lefebvre insists that the transformation of life, and indeed its critique, not only must take place on an everyday level, but that the everyday as category, crucially, retains the possibility of its own transformation. For the Situationists and Will Self, psychogeography provided just such an everyday act.


[i] Authors at Google Lecture: Self, W (2007), Mountain View, CA (accessed 27/06/08). Also see: Self, W. (2007) ‘Psychogeography’ London: Bloomsbury

[ii] Debord, G. (1995) ‘Society of the Spectacle’ New York: Zone Books (Originally published in french in 1967 as ‘La Societe Du Spectacle’)

Notes on Montage

'The film Sense' - Sergei Eisenstein

Montage is a fundamental principle of film. The principle of montage consists in the juxtaposition of fragments (shots, visuals, sound, dialogue etc).

Montage is a creative technique: fragment A placed in relation to fragment B does not simply create fragment AB but fragment C, a third element. This third element, in Eisenstein's theory, is an image in the mind of the viewer;

'Piece A and Piece B, derived from elements of the theme, in juxtaposition give birth to an image in the viewer's mind in which the theme is clearly embodied'

Eisenstein theorises the fragments in montage as representations which juxtapose to create a subjective compound image of the theme in the mind of the viewer.

Eisensteins theory of montage s directed to literary narrative uses. However montage as a principle (the juxtaposition of elements and fragments) runs much deeper and reaches much further than film and literary uses. Further, I suspect, than Eisenstein suspected.

Introductions

Welcome to my blog

I've never done one of these before, so It'll be interesting to see what comes of it. I've never been very disciplined with things like this - I've never kept a diary - but a few fellow students have had success with keeping blogs, so I thought it was time to give it a go, plus I love the idea that a blog can be sort of like a sketchbook; something to record ideas, to keep a record of the processes of creativity and thought.

I'm currently half way through my MA in Fine Art that I'm studying for at the University of Wolverhampton. I graduated from the BA course there in 2006 then took a year out to think and figure out where I was going, then started the MA the following september. A year on and I think it was one of my better life decisions as my practice and ideas have developed no end since BA. My BA was largely painting: for my degree show I produced a series of paintings using text that I overlayed I was interested in things being half hidden, partially legible. I also made a video where I stripped off and covered my body in writing. My mum hated it but it did gain me a bit of noteriety in the university (when i went for the interview for the MA, Matthew, the course leader, remembered me for my video). That all seems so long ago now, because my practice has shifted so drasticly, and all for the better. This past semester over the summer (you get no holidays as an MA student) - which, admitedly, hasn't been the most productive - I've, for the first time, given up painting, maybe temporarily, maybe less so, and I think that has thrown me. I've shifted towards film and photography, I've spent a large part of my summer playing with cameras (just to define a few terms: when i use the word 'film' I refer to the format I've been using rather than anything narrative based, although there are narrative elements). I bought a super 8 cine camera a while back, so I spent my summer filming with that. I had ideas of fragmented naratives in my head, ideas developed from my painting practice that I'm trying to translate into a medium that will hopefully allow me to explore them and articulate them more fully. I tend not to start off with a clear idea of what I want to do when I work; I tend to just go out, play around and see what happens then go from there. I don't like saying 'I let my practice develop organicly' because I can't really see how you can fail to let your practice develop organicly, lets just say I try not to force things and I let my ideas take me where they will. At the minute that seems to be towards film.

I also work with photography. when I was making paintings I would always photograph my studio space, any canvas' I was working on etc, but photography became an important part of my work when I realised that the photographs I was making were just as interesting, if not more so, than the paintings I was making, which at that time were what I was focused on. My current photography centers on ideas of psychogeography; spacial practices that try and get to grips with place and space. I photograph my flat, the journeys I make every day, I look for details. I try not to overly complicate images, I try to record things as I see them.

Hopefully that serves as an overview of what I do. I plan to post lots over the next few weeks while I have the motivation. I'm hoping it'll keep me organised and motivated to produce work.