Sophies Kool Page

TEXT ONE 1) Describe the texts (text, media, art).

3) Why are these texts is of interest to you?

4) What is its relation to your self-directed research?

5) How can the questions and issues these texts raise become work?

6) List research strands suggested by your peers

1)The media I showed was a youtube video of a hamster that pretends to get shot and die. It's lasts a few seconds and looks quite real. The hamster is faking it brilliantly. I chose a text I was currently reading which is an essay by Georg Simmel called The Handle (Georg Simmel, Two Essays: The Handle, and The Ruin, Hudson Review, 11:3, 1958, p.371) that I came across while reading the Cabinet issue about containers. The text goes through the history of the handle and its formal aspect (utility, decoration) as well as its conceptual implications (the movement, the body) Soup (1964) is a painting by latvian-american artist Vija Celmins. It's a small realistic painting representing a porcelain bowl where what could be hot dumpling/meatballs soup is being poured with a big metal spoon.

2)3)4) I chose the video quite randomly and i'm not sure how it informs my practice. Maybe i could fantasize on the fact that it's about faking and bluffing and that it could relate to the way I use the idea of representation, mimicry and playfulness in my sculptures. The way the essay on the handle was thoroughly investigating what could seem to be a trivial subject really interested me. I try to work that way myself, believing that nothing is banal enough to not notice it/spend time on it. Apart from this research method I also really enjoyed learning things about the handle, its history and formal variations as I am currently working on baskets, bowls, bags and other kind of containers. I've always been interested in the handle because it's such an easily understandable shape. You instinctively know you're supposed to grab it and how and in which direction. I wasn't necessarily formally inspired by thoses references, but more by what it could mean to refer to the handle and what it implies in terms of use, containment, and physical interaction. Studying the handle led me to another feature of some containers which are feet. In the same way as the handle they can be useful and decorative, and sometimes useless and decorative. Now I want to make feet for some upcoming sculptures.

Soup makes me feel warm and hungry. This banal moment is so well depicted that you could almost smell it and feel the warmth over your face as you're about to eat. It is modest and strong. As for the handle essay, I enjoy the amount of care in representing a common situation. And as I said previously it is something that I am personally interested in. Spending time on something random and making its banality matter. This painting is part of a serie that refers a lot to cooking. I also use it in my work because it is something so easy to relate on. the only representation of it can make you smell or taste it very easily. I like this very intuitive way to physically react to something you see.

TEXT TWO A reoccuring thing in those three texts: thoroughly observe and study the common, the banal, the daily. Spending time on it and making it matter. Those unnoticed moments of life that are so much part of its functionning that we don't notice them anymore. The point is not about making those moments or objects more precious but about pointing out how important and relevant they are as banalities. Being able to reflect on how structural they are to people. How they quietly and modestly shape experience, encounters, interactions.

don’t write a lot, I have a hard time reading, hard to focus, easily get board. The biggest part of my writing is making lists and making schedules. This grows empirically as the day grows. This may be a way I get the the impression I am ordering things.

I have a general interest in language, however. The titles of my work are important, they I take words and phrases from found text; I have a calalogue comprised of fragments from …. And write them as a dictionary [database]. One example: “unwritten law of dry cleaning” (from Curb your enthusiasm) ; “Drunken Master” (Jackie Chan Movie title). Some phrases are still pending others are now connected Drunken Masters is used by sculpture comprising [describe] one very human another less so; they kind of look alike. The titles in my data base have different languages. I like to play with bias and connotation in my sculpture, but also in the texts I work. More specific about tempering bias: gives different readings of sculpture: sometimes sometimes to situate the sculpture and sometimes to add another narrative or location. Resin sculptures: The Blade Spares None (another Chan movie) this allows for an understanding of the sculpture as a weapon. In most cases I am not writing it but using pre-existing material. I enjoy displacing words; my work is also about discplacing.

Steve: I see the resin before I read the title.

I also use sketches along with the titles Taking all the titles could create a narration: For example: if I made a solo show with a list of the titles this would provide an autonomous narration which could provide a more general reading of show overall.

Future: how to make work from this resourse: this depends on how I want them to be connected (as a (a) mass or (b) as a series of characters in dialogue)

(a) linking them together as one narrative (b) different stories The second might need more imagination than the first.

What out of the course: Would like to practice more [Steve: maybe recognise this as a method which situates the text and creates a particular reading of work, the titles orientate the viewer.. Leads me to spak in a system of relations] Interested in what the words evoke without foreknowledge. Don’t use typographical conventions “…” or italics.

There is a methodological link between the sculpture and the texts (titles): The sculptures refer to pre-existing objects that are mixed together with something which is independent and autonomous from its references. I do the same with the titles. I want them to be read in relation to the sculpture and not in relation to where they are taken from.

[the gallery is a place where references are suspended: ] I use a household appliances and the bias they contain and how the expectations shift in the context of the gallery. Because the level of expectation is different. Because you are supposed to be in front of an art work. [S: do they need to be in the institution of a gallery]

I play with the bias implied by the exhibition space in general.

Re writing: I sometimes misunderstand and miswrite things: I tend to use this, I will use grammatically incorrect elements and mistakes. It gives a personality to the text or the reading to have those mistakes [maybe, they have your accent]