User:Sighlebc: Difference between revisions

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WHAT?

1. ‘THERE’ 2. ‘EXAMINATION’ 3. ‘(FUTILE) FACILITY

1. ‘THERE’ – An intervention taking place on the express bus route from Belfast to Larne. The target audience was the unsuspecting passengers on the left side of the bus. Forty participants wearing identical clothing (a red woollen hat, a grey t-shirt, black trousers and black shoes), were located along the route on the left side of the road. They performed various actions to be seen by any passengers looking out the window. As the journey progressed the type of actions changed. They began as casual individuals, then appeared in groups, in the middle became theatrical and then finished by again behaving casually.

The project was part of Catalyst Arts Live Art Bienalle ‘FIX’. We gathered the forty participants using social media sites using limited information so the bus route would remain unknown to the public. On the day of the intervention all forty participants met at Catalyst’s gallery at 3pm. They were each given a map with their location, a time to be there, an outfit and a driver if necessary. The FIX ‘writer in residence’ and I then got on the bus - acting as inconspicuously as possible. I secretly filmed out the window through a small hole in my handbag. Directly following the bus in a car was a photographer and an assistant, to document the participants and then text them to let them know they could now leave their position.

This intervention was inspired by taking the bus to Glasgow from Belfast countless times. I wanted to experiment with the captive audience that regular passengers on express bus journeys could be. It was essential for me that they would be an unsuspecting audience, and that they would not easily be able to find an explanation for this elaborate spectacle (why?) The form/content (i.e everyone being dressed identically) of the intervention was based on the idea of reverie. Daydreaming whilst gazing out of a window, projecting yourself onto a passing landscape.

2. ‘EXAMINATION’ - Outside the gallery is a waiting area. A receptionist asks the audience to fill out a form, with information such as marital status and national insurance number. They are invited into the gallery, alone or in small groups. Six framed drawings resemble inkblot tests and distorted female genitalia. A CCTV monitor shows the waiting area. A tall bearded Scottish man in drag, wearing a doctors coat, asks True or False questions relating to shame, morality, disgust and secrecy (taken from tests such as the MMPI-2 which is used by courts and employers to ascertain the mental state of an individual).

How???? Why? The installation attempted to prime audiences with simultaneously sexualized and clinical imagery. The questions themselves never directly referred to sex, but questioned the participant’s moral opinion. By only allowing a TRUE or FALSE answer to questions which are purely subjective, the test (something about people answering the way they think they should, the being viewed/tested in social and institutional settings).

3. ‘FUTILE (FACILITY)’ – A beige bedsit with four zones (bed, kitchen, living, office) was constructed in the Ulster Museum. For 28 days I inhabited it. I wore only beige clothes and ate beige foods. I constantly watched documentaries on televisions built into the furniture units. The public were allowed to enter the space and converse with me. The space began ordered and became progressively more chaotic as I made drawings, diagrams and maps on the walls and fabricated ‘people’ and objects using only beige materials. A daily blog recorded my activity using the headings ‘television viewed’ ‘food consumed’ ‘gifts received’ and ‘knowledge gained’.

How???? – Artist in residence? Why? – Experiment on myself – investigating colour, stimulation, media, discipline, interiors, learning.

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 .	‘THERE’ – An intervention taking place on the express bus route from Belfast to Larne. The target audience was the unsuspecting passengers on the left side of the bus. Forty participants wearing identical clothing  (a red woollen hat, a grey t-shirt, black trousers and black shoes), were located along the route on the left side of the road. They performed various actions to be seen by any passengers looking out the window. As the journey progressed the type of actions changed. They began as casual individuals, then appeared in groups, in the middle became theatrical and then finished by again behaving casually.
+The project was part of Catalyst Arts Live Art Bienalle ‘FIX’. We gathered the forty participants using social media sites using limited information so the bus route would remain unknown to the public. On the day of the intervention all forty participants met at Catalyst’s gallery at 3pm. They were each given a map with their location, a time to be there, an outfit and a driver if necessary. The FIX ‘writer in residence’ and I then got on the bus - acting as inconspicuously as possible. I secretly filmed out the window through a small hole in my handbag. Directly following the bus in a car was a photographer and an assistant, to document the participants and then text them to let them know they could now leave their position.
-.	‘EXAMINATION’ - Outside the gallery is a waiting area. A receptionist asks the audience to fill out a form, with information such as marital status and national insurance number. They are invited into the gallery, alone or in small groups. Six framed drawings resemble inkblot tests and distorted female genitalia. A CCTV monitor shows the waiting area. A tall bearded Scottish man in drag, wearing a doctors coat, asks True or False questions relating to shame, morality, disgust and secrecy (taken from tests such as the MMPI-2 which is used by courts and employers to ascertain the mental state of an individual).
+This intervention was inspired by taking the bus to Glasgow from Belfast countless times. I wanted to experiment with the captive audience that regular passengers on express bus journeys could be. It was essential for me that they would be an unsuspecting audience, and that they would not easily be able to find an explanation for this elaborate spectacle (why?) The form/content (i.e everyone being dressed identically) of the intervention was based on the idea of reverie. Daydreaming whilst gazing out of a window, projecting yourself onto a passing landscape.
-.	‘FUTILE (FACILITY)’ – A beige bedsit with four zones (bed, kitchen, living, office) was constructed in the Ulster Museum. For 28 days I inhabited it. I wore only beige clothes and ate beige foods. I constantly watched documentaries on televisions built into the furniture units. The public were allowed to enter the space and converse with me. The space began ordered and became progressively more chaotic as I made drawings, diagrams and maps on the walls and fabricated ‘people’ and objects using only beige materials. A daily blog recorded my activity using the headings ‘television viewed’ ‘food consumed’ ‘gifts received’ and ‘knowledge gained’.
-Anna John
+.	‘EXAMINATION’ - Outside the gallery is a waiting area. A receptionist asks the audience to fill out a form, with information such as marital status and national insurance number. They are invited into the gallery, alone or in small groups. Six framed drawings resemble inkblot tests and distorted female genitalia. A CCTV monitor shows the waiting area. A tall bearded Scottish man in drag, wearing a doctors coat, asks True or False questions relating to shame, morality, disgust and secrecy (taken from tests such as the MMPI-2 which is used by courts and employers to ascertain the mental state of an individual).
+How????
+Why?
+The installation attempted to prime audiences with simultaneously sexualized and clinical imagery. The questions themselves never directly referred to sex, but questioned the participant’s moral opinion. By only allowing a TRUE or FALSE answer to questions which are purely subjective, the test (something about people answering the way they think they should, the being viewed/tested in social and institutional settings).
-.
-It is a video loop.  The loop itself is just a couple of seconds, however the short loop has been repeated in this edit such that the video runs for three minutes and twenty-two seconds precisely. The video comprises of single shots, which span .02 of second.  Each shot is a scan of a single piece of paper that has been painted a particular colour, and in the instance in question, the colour is vermillion. Each piece of paper that has been scanned has been painted with gouache, with varying amounts of water added and taken from the palette; this random flow of the colour from piece to piece can be detected in the fast succession of frames in the video. Differing densities of colour and brushstroke give the video a sense of movement, as does the white border down the side of each scan. The movement appears to wash over the screen, as the border seems to vibrate.
-.
+.	‘FUTILE (FACILITY)’ – A beige bedsit with four zones (bed, kitchen, living, office) was constructed in the Ulster Museum. For 28 days I inhabited it. I wore only beige clothes and ate beige foods. I constantly watched documentaries on televisions built into the furniture units. The public were allowed to enter the space and converse with me. The space began ordered and became progressively more chaotic as I made drawings, diagrams and maps on the walls and fabricated ‘people’ and objects using only beige materials. A daily blog recorded my activity using the headings ‘television viewed’ ‘food consumed’ ‘gifts received’ and ‘knowledge gained’.
-It is a kinetic sculpture.  Three main components are involved. The first is the wooden structure which comprises of a found potters hand-building turntable or wheel, that basically involves a rotating square platform mounted on three legs. This object has been attached to a thick circular piece of wood, which has been painted black. At the base of the axis - on which the platform pivots, a small motor has been attached. The axle of the motor, when powered up, forces the platform to spin in an anti-clockwise direction.  Atop the platform sits a roughly built, conically shaped ceramic object.  It turns with the platforms motion.  Suspended from the ceiling, above the rotating object, is a contact microphone with a domestic sewing needle soldered to it. Its positioned so that it scrapes along the surface of the ceramic object. The contact microphone is plugged into a small 15 watt amplifier which is mounted on the top of the gallery wall, out of sight – although the line of the microphone lead alludes to its presence, as does the sound of the scraping and bouncing of the needle along the objects surface. This line is also reflected in the wiring that is attached to the aforementioned motor, which lies along the surface of the gallery to the nearest available power outlet.
-.
+How???? – Artist in residence?
-It is a sculpture that stands at approximately 163 cm high.  The two materials used are scrap metal and raku clay.  Its basic structure could be described as a supportive stand and an object. The supportive stand is made entirely of scrap metal; its base a flat, rectangular metal plate of about 25x45cm, and extending up from its base two legs which rise up into the clay object at their ends. The legs are different shapes but both made from metal rods. The ‘back’ leg is a singular rod that is approximately 6cm in diameter. The front leg is an A-shaped combination of lengths, beginning as two separate entities from the base plate, meeting inside the sculpture at the top. The crossbar connects the two separate rods at a height of 45cm. The mean height of the legs would be around 148 cm high. The ceramic object at the top is an interpretation of a bull, with openings where its legs would be, it has a short tail, and a small perforation beneath the tail, and finally its head resembles a net-like drape or hood, which is adorned by a flat disc at the peak of the net-like rendition of its head. The body is rough and mostly white in its glaze with burn marks and some small cracks, and the head is a oxidised surface that moves through glassy shades of red, blue, silver and a dull gold.
+Why? – Experiment on myself – investigating colour, stimulation, media, discipline, interiors, learning.