Seecum's final draft
Ωhms & Ωhmens Ohms & Ohmens Ωhms & Ωhmens
Power structures, societal imbalances and inequality have been persistent and ongoing themes in my work, with the political serving as the agenda, and purpose of my practice. The year was underlined with a struggle, to find a way to understand the distant links that are formed between political matter and the manifestation of the work itself. For the past year, I’ve wrestled with my practice and tried to find ways to develop a dialogue which negotiates a non-didactic or over-simplified conversation with its audience. As a result the work produced is a series of subtle statements, with political messages that are quietly (and near invisibly) woven into the work.
My Myopia is a series of sculptures, assembled with collected items from the streets, to detritus in the sea and shop bought items such as lights and wire. The sculptures at first appear as a small island of objects, charged with coloured light and wrapped in both dried natural and synthetic substances. A combination of clutter and order, it is a tenuous balance of duality where objects merge in and out of one another.
A neon toucan sits atop a raw wooden plank with palm and banana leaves resting atop, alongside animal skins, rigging slings, plastics and a bright pink neon tube light. These objects are bound to the plank by a series of synthetic coloured wires and strings, positioned precariously but with a sense of logic. The sculpture floats in the space, highlighted by neon lights which set the sculptures aglow but masks the clarity of the objects. The viewer has to come closer in order to understand what the objects are. Upon the easels are cascading reams of hair, woven broken pieces of glass and a large bulb with the words ‘Aye’ painted onto the bottom, suspended within a woven plastic macramé basket.
My Myopia was generated from a need to discuss immigration issues amongst a rising political front of nationalism. Aspiration, 'the better life' is associated with the instantaneous delivery of consumer goods. These objects can perhaps be seen as homages to aspiration - mixed with cheap materials from both the East and the West. "The increasing deterioration of human relations with the socius, the psyche and 'nature' is due not only to environmental and objective pollution but is also the result of a certain incomprehension and fatalistic passivity towards these issues as a whole, among both individuals and governments."[1]
The work brings an uneasy meditative pause - by transforming the space with light it invites you to focus on these islands of clutter. The objects are at once both significant and insignificant, the work asks no more from the viewer, other than to share it’s space of meditative apathy.
Club Autonomie is series of double sided printed posters, with statements that reflect the anarchist movements of the 1890’s when Martial Bourdin made his name as the first international terrorist. When a bomb blew up in his hand near the Greenwich meantime observatory in 1894, the only thing that could be found on him was a calling card for the infamous ‘Club Autonomie’ - the central meeting point for the international anarchists in London. Soon after the explosion, the club was raided and the members interrogated leading to the final closure of the club a few months later.
The installation consists mainly of posters which are in black and white, with one side featuring photographs of buildings and factories - and on the other it features illustrations of targets and anarchist statements such as ‘Abort Labour’. These posters are suspended in the space with wooden poles and string, and others are attached to the windows. Small spotlights strung up with black cable, fall behind the posters offering some light to see both sides at once. Upon the floor, rests a series of folded posters, broken metallic coated glass, brass and clocks parts which are assembled to construct a series of clock like sculptures. One ‘Club Autonomie’ business card is placed amongst the broken assemblages, gesturing to Bourdin's one piece of evidence that gave away his purpose on the day of the bombing.
This installation is an attempt to see where anarchistic voices occur, and maybe to understand the futility in making protests, slogans and symbols. The posters are designed to appear and disappear and due to their quiet nature they can go unnoticed.
Soft powers and the touch, confirmed is an installation with a suspension of materials over the height of a room, constructed out of copper and black rubber wires which extend across the central gallery space. A plastic dust sheet, painted with lucid colours lined on its outer edges with copper, becomes the main piece which hangs from the centre. The materials are largely found on domestic and commercial construction sites, but are softly lit with white neon and LED light. It is a quiet, transparent and chaotic work, with elements of order finding it’s way through the materials.
The copper and rubber wires act as the central conducting grid which operates as the main hanging device for the work. Plastics, chicken wire, nets, rubble from construction sites, fruit wrappers, neon lights and led bulbs are balanced and suspended in the space. They are either bound to the grid, or balance from the first floor to the second. Each object has it’s own equilibrium, all supported but not glued or fixed - their permanence is provisional. Alongside these objects is a cascading 4m print which shows the text ‘Conducting Conduct’ digitally composed across it, pinned to the wall with black netting and strings. The images on the print are of recent war photos, interrupted with a dense layer of ‘+’ and ‘-‘ symbols over the top, accompanied alongside are the dates in which the photos were taken.
I’ve been a frequent flyer in the month of March, and with this i’ve had more opportunity to observe various cityscapes from the sky. They behave and resemble grids and circuit boards, the road systems operate as sprawling veins which connect and disconnect across the surface. It is a natural sprawl and we all connect to it like tiny fleeting molecules. If we were to consider ourselves as electrical currents, then we can discuss resistance, conducting, circuits, loops, disconnection - in a metaphorical way. I’d like to experiment further with this language, to manifest a discussion via drawings, sculptures, and photographs by using these electrical symbols.
Afterthoughts - A lightly held conclusion
I know now that I have a material logic, that much of my work manifests itself when I work to assemble and collate these collected objects together. They become environments of excess mundanity - strung up and balanced, with gravity pulling them into a form of equilibrium. In it’s abundance - the objects are placed into positions which do not privilege the presence of one over the other. A level of equality becomes key, a dichotomy of balanced positive and negative symbols - or the gesture towards a stasis of apathy or non movement.
These materials are collected over time, mostly over years - some found objects are picked up from walks within the cityscape, along the shorelines and inside parks. Through walking materials such as discarded nets, cuttlefish, chunks of burnt out charcoal, torn fabrics, used drainage pipes, industrial food cans, rubble and ropes are collected. Other materials are bought from hardware stores - metals such as copper tape, chicken wire, garden rope, washing lines, wood. Inexpensive Turkish or Chinese trinket stores - where odd bits/tit bits can be found - mostly plastics, fake hair, fake nails, vinyl flooring of variable textures and prints. The urban detritus becomes the source of my material manifestations. The objects are never glued, fixed or fully secured down. I suspect this non-commitment is due to my affinity with the temporal, supporting the logic that most action leads to incremental gradual change.
I feel close to Genzken's work, Fuck the Bauhaus 2 for example shares a similar 'cheap aesthetic' and personal logic; 'they disrupt the foundations of an authoritative and ordered notion of the visual and spatial world, opting instead for a provisional state of precarious uncertainty voiced with an all-too human eloquence."
This world of cluttered objects and abundant aesthetics have orientated themselves into a world of bricolage, with disconnected materials manifesting in both digital and sculptural form. Our generation appears to float, suspended and influenced by choice and options which can at times cloud our judgement and our direction. Our attentions are spread farther afield, and this can at times impact to thin out our focus. What I make is never what I intend it to be - and I believe this may be a result of this condition. Though a more precise statement, would be that my commitment is sabotaged by my lack of optimism for one singular sculpture to embody everything that I would want it to say.
These environments though are the closest that I can get to making sense of the landscape.
My practice is evolving though at times I feel like I am stagnating over a pond of political representation, action and didactic communication. The analogy of electrical currents and systems, has at this point a logic which I would like to explore further - it may possibly lead to a more succinct discussion, or offer form to the chaotic assemblages that I have been making thus far. In addition to this I would like to test myself by working more intensely on individual pieces - a singular sculpture, painting, drawing and text which I’ll be able to work upon over the Summer months. The work will most likely continue to be surrounded by other things, but I hope to centralise my efforts into one single channel first and then build it out into these environments.
Perhaps this focus, will charge these items and move them into a state of action and transference - and tip the balance away from the dualities of a static conflict.
Resistivity. Electrical resistance. Volume…if the ohm is high enough then it’ll disconnect the power circuitry.
[1] Guattari, F (2000) The Three Ecologies, English Translation by The Athlone Press
[2] Cotter, S (2011) Defining Contemporary Art - 25 years in 200 pivotal artworks, Phaidon Press Limited