Progress on mask

 Made a bunch of progress on my mask today - going to make a 'death' mask as a test, but with the potential to use it in performance art later, I guess... 

I've improvised a method of creating rough shapes by folding and bunching kitchen roll, then soaking it in diluted PVA glue, and apply it as a sort of 'fillet' to start building up the features in a patchwork of sausages, triangles, squares... When it all gets too messy, I apply a big patch of glue-soaked kitchen roll over the top, and start again ;)

It's funny, I've added a huge amount to the mask above, but it's hard to see - but so much paper mache that I actually thought firstly that it might all just spontaneously fall off again under its own weight, and secondly that it might NEVER fully dry out... In the end I devised a quite good strategy of putting it in the oven at 70C for fifteen mins at a time (sorry planet) and then taking it out to refine and smooth and adjust as it dries. 

The approach above is a bit weird, and is creating a fairly uneven surface (despite all my loving caresses as it dries), but is a way I can visualise the shape, and secondly allows me to work slowly, correcting and building-up as I go - I can sort of 'block out' shapes, let the set a bit, squint at them, and then add more and more fine detail.

Next steps are 

1. Wait to 2027 for it to dry out (or maybe Thursday) 
2. Critically examine what I have and add some (hopefully small) fillers e.g to flatten the middle of the brows, maybe better define the eyes, and level out (and up) the cheeks
3. Apply a layer of newspaper to help smooth it and hold it all together
4. Apply a layer of wood filer to hopefully fill the holes and create a sandable surface
5. Carefully sand to try to get the smoothest surface I can
6. Apply silver leaf and washes to simulate corrosion

Study Statement

Completed my first version of my study statement, ready for my Unit 1 assessment. I've linked to it from the static menu, so hopefully the staff can find it that way, but it's also linked below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p5J0CpsRDTop7IY8rQfUydsaQH4IHmka8qxwzXe-5v4/edit?usp=sharing

Mask making

 When I was a kid I got into making papier mâché masks for a while. With my strange surge of interest in making physical art (WTF!), I've been thinking about masks again. I'd love to make some masks again, maybe even leading to other stuff. I'm wondering about the (largely discredited) 5 stages of grief - a mask for anger, a mask for bargaining, a mask for acceptance etc

For now, I've started making the base for a mask which I might turn into a sort of 'death eater' mask because it's fun, lower stakes, and I can work on all the problems first:

So far I've bent sculpting mesh around my face to give the basic shape (that stuff cuts you like a bastard) and then applied a single layer of kitchen roll soaked in glue

iPhone face Scans and "Rivers of Silver"

 Somewhere, I can't remember where, I got the idea that I could scan my face and incorporate it into 3d renderings - I think it was because I was thinking about masks and 'virtual fabrication' (i.e. making a 3d art work before I (potentially) make a real art work).  I want to incorporate them into a broader series of artworks with the working title "rivers of silver", which was inspired by seeing the light catch the streams on a marsh beside the road on the way to see my son - that made me think of simulating rivers and texturing them silver, probably inspired by my experimenting with gilding... And because I was driving, I remembered my 'caught on camera' series (which I need to revisit) and I thought of the 'rivers of silver' being tears... I'm imagining doing liquid simulations, but also making masks and silvering the tears...

Anyhoo... My phone camera is broken, but after some research, I realised I could use an app on a friend's iPhone. I imported the resulting PLY file into blender, added a nice silver texture, and got this:

Pretty amazing, right?

Next stop will be a liquid simulation or two, but in the meantime, I did this:

Which Catherine liked so much, she offered to paint it! Very cool :)

Gold Leaf

 I'm experimenting with using gold leaf - it's not real gold, which is good because I don't feel so bad when it goes absolutely everywhere... I've bought PVA glue pens, and I'm trying lettering, but I also gilded (?) one of my wax heads

Performance art is not theatre - quote in "Seven Days in the Art World"

 Good quote in 'Seven Days in the Art World' from Chris Burden:

"The name 'performance art' is a misnomer, it is the opposite of theatre. In Europe they call it 'Action Art'. When a performance artist says he or she is doing something, the predominant feeling is that he or she is actually going to do it "

It's a helpful distinction - I guess in theatre, the 'art' is the illusion and the story telling, in performance art the 'art' is the act itself.

Little (Cheese) Wax Heads and reflecting in the moment

 For a while, I've been collecting cheese wax from my daughter's mini-cheeses. I had a vague idea to use it in a physical version of "Secrets", but it truth it just felt wasteful to bin it! I recently started melting it into neat ingots:

And that made me think about casting it, so on a whim (with a vague idea to use them in another possible art work) I bought a silicon dolls head mould from Amazon and started casting little wax heads:

Aren't they cute? I cast a few more and suddenly had an epiphany - I cast them to almost 'record' the fact that I was there, and alive - their existing shows that I exist... So I think I want to make an art work with them that reflects that, something that is a record - my first (slightly dangerous) idea is to make a mental health diary for a month using them - or maybe abusing them... Each day I will take a head and attempt to decorate/damage it in a way that reflects the state of my mental health on that day. If it goes well, I'll by a 'calendar shaped' (i.e. 7 slots wide and maybe 5 slots deep) display case for them.

Started "Seven Days in the Art World"

 I've started reading "Seven Days in the Art World" by Sarah Thornton. 

Not got far, but very interesting so far. Each chapter is a 'day' and each 'day' is a different aspect of the art world. So far I've read "The Auction" and I'm reading "The Crit". Interestingly, through it I've discovered the idea of Critical Practice, which I find very interesting, and sits with my feeling of my practice being "concept led" - I need to read more.

Creepypasta is truly a new art form (viral user-driven collaborative story telling)

Creepypasta is, at first blush, user-generated horror fiction on the internet. However, I was reflecting that some of the better creepypasta is actually a distinct art form of participatory art. Moreover it's actually quite a complex phenomena that would only really be possible on the internet. Some things that fascinate me about it:

• It's participatory - consumers of the fiction are involved in the story, not passively consuming it - they don't know in many cases if they are consuming a story, or discovering a dark or scary truth
• It's collaborative - people build on the stories and reshare
• It's viral - a lot of the best creepypasta is creepy because it's not presented as a story - the viral nature of social media is used to amplify and build the story
• It's subtle - the best creepypasta is creepy because it's JUST ABOUT believable - you sort of know it's fake, but you aren't 100% sure

In short I think it's a distinct form of art, and one that's 'social network native' - it couldn't really exist in the same way before social media. It harnesses social media, and I would love to find ways to also create art that harnesses and exploits social media as part of the art, not just as way of spreading.

Uncomfortably exciting idea - Is my final output a book?

 Finally starting to get my study statement to un-jam a bit... Still claiming it's a collaboration, but only going with one title, and if I'm honest, my heart's not in it in quite the same way... Writing 'we' and 'our' feels increasingly awkward and superfluous... 

One big break-through was in the outcomes section - I thought about all the material I'm planning to gather (better get to that, eh? eh?) and I suddenly thought "I'm writing an art book"! I LOVE the idea, although it makes me very uncomfortable, which tells me it's probably worth sticking with! 

By 'art book', I'm imagining something like a 'coffee table' book collecting together all the images, photos, interviews, notes etc in once place. I'm hoping it can be a beautiful object in it's own right, but I'm also hoping it's something that can easily be reproduced so I can make a few copies to give away, and maybe even explore having someone publish (gotta push those boundaries, right?)

Submitted "Alone" to Royal Academy Summer Show

 Submitted without any real expectation... 

Interestingly, I had to do quite a lot of work to the image before submission - in a moment of common sense, I created a high-res version of the original, and examined it on-screen at around "life size". Doing so revealed that the image looked ok small (pretty much identical to the image above), but at "life size", lots of artefacts showed up - the tree-line the background looked terrible, and the hedge to the left looked like a primary-school level fractal art project... I spent around 4 hours adding more trees to the treeline at the back, adding trunks to the trees, adding randomness to the branching, and making the grass less regular. At the end of it, you couldn't see much difference when looking at the whole image, but when you zoomed in, when you could see a world of difference!

Lesson learnt - ALWAYS make sure you can produce a hi-res version of exhibition, and always check it close to 1:1 size before printing - even digital art has a natural 'size', and that size is often a lot smaller than you would print for an exhibition.

Metamodernism

 Interesting article on metamodernism. I'm not sure if we need more 'isms' but like all classification systems, it did help me to think about how my work relates, and how I would see myself fitting into such a framework. Broadly as I understanding:

• Modernism: Inspired by scientific thinking, the search for absolute truths - focus on the whole, and the 'true' nature of things
• Postmodernism: Reaction to modernism, rejecting the search for absolute truth on the basis that all truth is relative - the search for absolute truth is seen as simplistic and perhaps dangerous - focus on the connected nature of things, and the futility of making absolute statements
• Metamodernism: Reaction to both modernism and postmodernism, rejecting both the search for absolute truth, but also the denial of subjective truth. A recognition that while truth is subjective, it is nevertheless true for the person experiencing it - your reality is all you have

Assuming I've understood it correctly, I really like metamodernism, and I would say a lot of my work is perhaps metamoderist.

Submitted "Brave Mr Fox" to VIOLENT BODIES: Open Call

 Submitted "Brave Mr Fox" to the VIOLENT BODIES: Open Call with the following statement:

Digital Picture - to be exhibited as a print, or in any other form if more suitable for the space e.g. projection

Title: "Brave Mr Fox"

As my wife of 25 years was dying of cancer, I promised I would raise our two children with disabilities to the best of my ability. Many well-meaning people told me I was an inspiration, but I wanted to die. Pinned to life by my wonderful children and my promise I felt like the fox: horribly injured in the gutter, but trying to stand, not to inspire, but because what other choice did I have?

Is my art an image? Or the stories I can build around that image? Aura, spectacle and conceptual art

 Trying to write up, make sense of, and record a bunch of things that have been coming together in my head recently. I would say it was a breakthrough but it's too messy ;)

I started this MA because I wanted to make beautiful and compelling images that made people think. As the course has got underway, and I've read and talked and thunk and thought, I've come to a much wider sense of what art is for me: It's the concept and the experience that's the art, the image is just a mechanic. I don't think I want to make art that's defined through images. I think I want to make art that is conceptual and performance based, but mediated through images. Put another way, I think I want to make art that is, in a sense, a 'happening' that's triggered through some image or object, perhaps framed/mediated by it, and perhaps recorded by it... But it's the act that's the art:

    If you burn a flag in protest, is it the flag that's art? Or the ashes? Or the flames?

I'm coming to think it's the flames, and the sweat, and the smoke, and the anger. The ashes are the record. I places the ashes (perhaps in a nice urn, perhaps in something more shocking to draw attention) in a gallery, not because they are 'art', but because they are a proxy for the art - a proxy for the flames and the sweat and the anger. They hold the aura of the flames, the sweat, the anger.

More tangibly, I have spend a lot of time getting some (hopefully nice) designs together for my mental health postcards, but the designs are just designs. I will probably exhibit the (hopefully used) postcards, not because they are art, but because they are a proxy for the spectacle I hope to create around them, the spectacle is the art:

• The pain and effort i put into drawing on my own experiences to create them
• The effort I put into the designs such that they are accessible and usable
• The meetings I hope to have with people who will take them
• The bravery of people to share the cards they have filled in
• The stories those acts of bravery and sharing will tell

By immersing the little bits of printed A6 card in that's rich bath of experiences, I hope they will be patinated with a little bit of the aura, which they can then carry forward to new people, and new encounters. Specifically, I see those bits of A6 printed card as:

• Initiators - they start the process of make the 'real art' because they provide a physical/concrete thing to show/share
• Containers - the format and words on the postcards defines the 'rules' and 'space' in which the art is happening
• Records - the human stories are recorded in the postcards and (potentially) the stories that go with them

My current thinking is that for the interim show, I share:

• Example of completed postcards, perhaps photographed with/by the people to 'use' them
• The postcards themselves with the open invitation to take part
• Myself as a place to have the conversations in the moment

Afterwards, I hope to gather the 'art' by having people show more examples of the postcards, and they become my first substantial 'piece'...

Reading (free sample of!) "Pope.L Showing up to withhold" - meaning in art, and the limits thereof

 Very interesting book on Pope.L called "Pope.L: Showing up to Withhold" - at least, the free sample on Google Play Books was interesting - I can't afford forty-odd quid for a copy, and I can't find a library copy... Several interesting snippets:

"part of the aforementioned tension can be explained by way of reference to what has been historically possible for black art in the u.s. there has always been, for artists of color, a conflict between a desire for formal play and individual expression versus a duty to legibility, audience and political efficacy."

Which again, speaks again to me about my own worries about expression vs legibility - is it more important for the work to express my authentic 'spirit' or is it more important for people to understand it's message? Clearly it's a balance, but for me, right now, that balance is hard over towards the side of legibility - I want to make art that hinges on meaning, so to hide that meaning to the point that nobody can reasonably find it, annuls the point of making it... 

Of course, the work has to be compelling, and to be compelling it needs to be interesting, and to be interesting it needs:

• To present itself in an interesting, quirky, distinctive way
• To offer some meaning that is relatively easy to obtain
• To offer deeper layers of meaning that reward further analysis

However, should a piece be 'all about meaning'? Consider:

“In the case of pull!, pope.l sets out the clear goal of getting the truck from one place to another to make room for the experience of the unclear—to create a space in which meaning isn't determined, or refused, but made, lost, and remade”

This ties up a sudden deep insight I had literally in the shower:

 To make every element of a work have a meaning is to turn it from 'art' into a mere puzzle - to change the viewers goal from exploration to 'solving'. By deliberately spiking a piece with elements that do not immediately have a 'meaning' (or which have only half-seen meaning), you nudge the viewer back into exploring, and offer them the chance to build their own meaning - rather than presenting them with a puzzle to solve for your meaning, you present them with a puzzle to solve for their own meaning. BUT you honour the promise to share elements of your own journey and exploration - maybe there is virtue in "bring your own meaning" art, but it's not for me.

The book further expanded on the idea of humour in art as a means to infiltrate:

"bringing such a private and banal activity to a public forum [turning an art gallery into a toilet] is at the very least funny—and humor, having a value in and of itself, is often an entry into pope.l's work. you laugh, thus opening yourself up to this thing that has an unexpected gravity—and now you actually might have to deal with it."

And I love the way that's put - by opening yourself up, you are forced to engage with the darker 'sting in the tail'.

Finally the book had some interesting things to say on 'labour' vs 'work':

"a lack of product differentiates the activity of labor from that of 'work,' which is practically and etymologically tied directly to the identifiable product it offers. while work can be considered accumulative and public, to be a laborer means to be limited—bound to a private and cyclical activity of necessity that is used up as quickly as it is produced. but what if the never-ending, never-beginning cycle of labor could be a valued choice or public activity?

But what if the“nothing”of labor has everything to do with the meaning of life? and what if meaning itself, like life, disintegrates as regularly as it is constructed? these are questions that pope.l might not have an interest in answering specifically, but i believe he poses them continuously in his work."

Which was mostly interesting because it left me thinking how much of my life as been merely 'labour' and how I've come to value true 'work' - every fulfilling thing in my life had some sort of identifiable output.