Transition: Curators' Edition

13 - 17 February 2008: Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance UK

Folded, Glued and Printed

A five day show with 12 artists, where the space of the gallery is to be used to curate the work into a publication.

Everyday a edition will be produced in the gallery , exploring immediate production methods.

Included artists:


Rachel Anderson
Sovay Berriman
Mark Vernon
Michael Donnelly
Andrea Facco
Simon Jacques
Thomas Qualmann
Gino Saccone
Alison Sharkey
Becky Shaw
Joanna Spitzner
Megan Wakefield
Daryl Waller

curating sucks ass

Outsider.








but it was worth it...just

Franko, are you back yet?

What i did at Wysing

Faster

An intense few (fun) days spent in London and now I am at residency in Wysing, Cambridge for a week. 10 artists, Franko B and the countryside.
The point?
To challenge my practice and how I approach my work. Post MA my approach to making work was fairly stripped down, singular, fine for academia but not for everyday. I have been trying to make my processes much more homogenous, not feeling too manufactured. I want to play, have fun, fuck up...

Franko B and beyond

I attended a visual arts forum this week here in Cornwall that brought home the fact that I am living at the end of the Country. Not that this is a bad thing, but it does highlight a train of thought that if we are down here, something more interesting must be happening up there or in another country. Again this is not a bad thing as the viewing of things afar contextualise an artist's practice. I am not sure that a locality exist in a static fashion anymore. It can be shored up and external stimulus ignored, but there are few places in the western world that you can truly disconnect. Ignoring what is taking place in the bigger world is not losing yourself in a local scene, but deciding where your focus is. The other is still there, waitng to be noticed.

Franko is going to be in my studio next week. I am looking around and thinking what the f... is he going to think?

Salt for the season of good will

MA done. At the end it was a relief. Like putting down your favorite pet who has become to old to fend for themselves. The archive I created in the office that I built confused the majority of people. I understood that the politics of a space that took on the structure of a office where a certain code or conduct was maintained would cause some interesting reactions, but I thought the viewers/visitors would have been more adventurous. They had to walk past 'art like art' to get to it. I thought that would have been a clue. 80% treated it as an actual office, where closed, private activites took place that were not part of the larger show.

Focus now is on installing 'archive 2' in the Salt Gallery (www.thesaltgallery.co.uk). Opening 26th November. It will have the bones of the work I completed for the MA show, mainly the archive, but the space will be manipulated to create a different view of it. I will have details of it posted on my site www.stevenpaige.com.

After the show is set up I start a mentor program with Franko B, Artsadmin and 9 other artist.

Summer 05

Busy making decisions about the final step towards getting the MA done and dusted.

So far I have built an office, with doors, desks, carpet, shelving and magnolia paint on the walls. Now I have to fill it. Most of the time I feel confident about what I want to achieve. Build an archive out of fieldwork using photographs and documents.

I want to shoot a short looping video. I will wait until I am sure of my subject.

time

Wow. That went quick.

On the down hill slope of MA at Falmouth. In the main studio trying out all the technical ideas I have/had. I am screening live video feeds from outside the space in the studio on the wall via a projector. I have also been hanging microphones out of the window to capture the ambient soundtrack. I have a mixer so I can output live, or, play the loops from the powerbook that I have recorded. It feels a little like surveillance , which I don't want. It is more about cataloguing and archiving. I have put up a old glass and wood partition in the studio, near the door. Still testing.

late, very late

A few shows later. Art Objects and Multiples at the Newlyn Art Gallery. Cool show. Everything had a price tag on it. People played with the stuff. Ignition2004 at the Acorn. A one day live digital performance day. Fast. Created a piece of work that grew out of my nerdy concern with weather data. Site Specifics aside, made for interesting research. I was asked to go to Liverpool to write a piece on the Biennial. Presscorps (Static Gallery) put me up and showed me the town. Still absorbing the trip. Piece is on the site (www.presscorps.org.uk). Not sure how it sits with the other denser writings.

The people where cool. Very serious about what they are doing. Could not but help to re-examine my own motivations.

I have spent time trying to define my process.

The Insideout show at the Falmouth Arts Centre resulted in a satisfactory conclusion of ideas. I labelled buildings in Quay street, Falmouth with the title of the building as it was in and around 1880. On the label I put the individual who ran the hotel and any other information I found, like age etc. Every building on the street 100 years ago was a hotel. Not so now, slightly seedy and run down. Maybe not that different from before.

I have been putting together a proposal for a travel bursary to Hawaii. This, apart from being difficult consolidated some ideas I had about wanting to work abroad in another community. This brought up some issues that have been pertinent to my practice. How much of my practice do I let become autobiographical? It feels to easy a step, and one that cause uncomfortable inward reflection. It is a fairly new area for me to explore. It takes to task my motivation for pursuing various avenues i.e. my photographic representation of Southern California. Am I still seeing things through the eyes of a child? Am I indulging in reminiscence because it is a comfortable place to be?

I am starting to understand the process of creating/developing a project in terms of my art practice. It might be the case that a conscious pattern is laid down for an individual when approaching how work is to be produced. This pattern if maintained would enable the artist to carrying on producing work via their process without much questioning of the process itself. I have removed myself for a number of years from a continual production & research process, and for the last year I have wrestled with my process and like a half forgotten joke, it has been hard to recall. I think I am now able to move forward as I have an understanding of how my practice now takes place. I will engage in research; collect imagery & footage; discuss ideas; seek out similar work and then when I feel full enough the time for making starts. It can seem cathartic in that there is an emptying as your ideas and thoughts are made real. A form of confession takes place where the insecurities and half doubts are placed to one side for a time while you construct.
My immediate agenda, helped by the critical framework of the course, is to place my practice/research/concerns in relation to other modes past and present. I have found myself drawn to other artists who engage in a playful state of questioning the status quo in large or small terms. Gordon Matta-Clark's 'interventions' with buildings and his use of food (literal description and noun) to bring a critical gaze into the local neighbourhood, is a compulsion I have discovered in my own practice.

As I am feeling full I will stop to:

Develop and finalise idea for 'inside/out? show in Falmouth at the beginning of March

Complete the application for ?east? show in Norwich

Apply for bursary from the rwa

Consolidate the idea of producing a 1 page constructed newspaper 'the bowery'

I have for the last few weeks been working for Creative Partnerships on a project called 'Virtual Hurlers' based in Bodmin/Liskard. I have been shadowing the lead artist James Barber, learning my way round a primary school classroom as an artist. It is a huge learning curve. It is one thing to be in a group of like minds and another to be asked pertinent questions about what you do by a 10yr old.

Also I have finally managed to complete my task that was set before Christmas, by my collaborative group to sit on a bench for 2 hours in a specific location (Causewayhead, Penzance). The outcome of this will be on a webpage that the group can link to. It suits the nature of the footage, image and text. It is now my task to request something from the other members of the group.

The mists are rolling in and the days are dark.

I have got through the practical hoops of digitising dv video for the web after attending web-streaming workshop. I will use the footage from the ‘to do list’ installation (see previous) in the first instance.

The nature of the web (structure, networks, anonymity etc.) has started a idea of creating a story were the viewer/participant chooses the structure and conclusion. I will create dv footage and set them up the to be web streamed. A detective story. This is only the beginning…

The alleyway project has become more formed in my head. I want to play with peripheral vision. The original idea was to place full size images of people disappearing around a corner in the many alleyways in Falmouth. They are not meant to grab your immediate attention. I am now going to develop it to exist in Penzance. Seems more practical due to location for me.

Sound project is up to researching eprom chips to encode sound to put in a object.

Slip has started. 4-way art collaboration. We had a very productive set of meetings. Excited about how it will develop. It is the unknown that thrills me thinks.

artist to research:

Gordon Matta-Clark
Robert Smithson

They came up in a seminar. I like what they did and why they did it.

Process. Something is changing. I typically conceive of a project goal. The next step would be to flesh it out and give it some critical mass. I would them polish up the aesthetic governing the making and then bingo. With hopefully a few tweaks, I have a finished installation/exhibition/book.

Moving on from the previous entry, I have seemed to have also moved on, for now, from capture & store mentality. I don’t know the value of this yet.

Currently I am allowing states of play develop. Of the 5 projects slip; Falmouth alleys; information wheels, Christmas collaboration and streaming videos on web, Falmouth alleys is the only concept fairly well formed.

I am starting to come to the conclusion that the work does not need to be continuously validated to give it gravitas. The process of study and influence/experience is a layering that takes place consciously, letting the subconscious work away to spit out ideas that float to the top. It has taken me a long time to get past this. My belief in what I did was subjugated by guilt in evolving myself in what I believed was a self-indulgent practice. I probably still hold to the fact that being an artist is to be constantly looking in a mirror at oneself, but at least I am starting to look past my own image, I think. This has changed the way I am letting projects develop and evolve. No hiding things in draws. My own developing evolvement in ‘public’ projects might be how the idea of personal gratification can be transformed to a better thing. Non-commercial.

Falmouth alleyways: capture images of alleys.
Research archive and town plans/maps
Approach councils for opening dialogue regarding project
Research actual space of sighting of image/video.

Information wheels: Start cutting circles
Collate material to create corresponding connections

Slip: meetings arranged for week of 10th Nov.
Possible site meeting

Web video: read and experiment.
attend workshop

what a difference an audience makes.

still mulling over the seminar i presented a week ago. things i had set out to say and discuss did not get an airing. my fault. stage fright ? this is a reflection of my wider current concerns with audience and content taking second place. i think i was also sheilding pertenent 'indulgent' questions that might have been to revealing. i have still yet to fully digest the issues wrapped up in both pieces myself

the first lot of work i presented was a group of installation pieces for transition 3 at newlyn art gallery at the beginning of the year. the second piece was a video projection i installed in a public high street for a local festival, lafrowda day in st just. the first works i made came out of a few years of planning from my notebook books. the work was created from images taken of the mojave desert in southern california, over the last few years. i created 3 light boxes, a display cabinet with old images that you could play with, three plinths with fold out images and text, a old school desk with a pile of images taken from a moving car and a display case with three objects from the location. when i presented this to the group. i glossed, at high speed , over the content and context of the work, and talked about the tension created by being in a public gallery. this is something i realise i do in my own practice. i devalue the images to the point that the are arbritory to how they will eventually be used. i will capture the images, and then leave them in a draw festering until i am ready to look at them again. this devaluing is a process i use reduce the need to examine the intuitive or emotional resonance that the image(s) orginally held. denying them a voice. this also makes me think that i am denying the responsibility of taking the image. i 'create' new found images. i need to think more on this.....

the second video piece was created simply and quickly from the title of the festival 'lifes a beach'. i tried to create a mostly art reduced piece that would appeal to the majority of the audience at the festival. the audience consisted of the local community and my neighbours (and appreciative art friends) . I shot and edited a 3 mins piece titled 'to do list'. this i back projected (using a digital projector) from my dinning room window onto the high street. i projected the piece for 12 hrs. 12pm until 12am. the footage was simply described as my feet at the beach. the great irony is that the projection only really came alive at night, when the sun had gone down and the festivals goers where a little inhebriated. good crowd. rows of people developed throughout the evening, standing opposited my house to watch the show. i would get caught by them as i came and went from ther house. the reaction was good. i think they were open to the idea that the projection was created for them. so were not suspicious or closed minded. the drink helped. the image of the sea spread a shifting blue haze out in to the street which you could see from the square.

i have been thinking hard about the artwork i have produced in the last year. i have realised that it is something i don't do. i am having to revisit the work as i will be presenting it shortly in group presentation. this highlights the paradox of producing work that can only gain personal critical insight after the event of creating it. by looking back and applying differing modes of appraisal i should be able to generate a clear description of the processes engaged in creating the artwork. this i am struggling to do.

i don't know what this says the possibilty of the work being conceptual, but even within that, unthoughtout surprises occur in the work. i want to break it down:

path
memory
road
highway
unstable
nostalgic
archive
west
empty.

this is what i recall as being important. the above work is specific to an exhibition.

still thinking about the nature of the website. i really want to use the page as a vehicle for the art not the artist. maybe flash is the way to go

still absorbing the implications of the work created for the street (lafrowda day video installation).

i have started a college course which will proactively get me making and thinking outside of my normal pattern of work i.e. creating work for a project. it has got back on this to update more. also it is challeging me to try and stretch the nature of this itself.

slip, a new collaborative ( the c word) project which myself and 3 other artist has been started. i stirred the pot and approached a collegue. she was up for it. the idea grew originally for me a year ago when i spotted this group of forlourn empty shops. 2 othe rartist were discussed. they were approched. one was an immeadiate yes. the other wanted an introduction first, then she was on board. 2 boys, 2 girls.

starting to think about the static nature of stevenpaige.com and need to think about creating some form to be interactaction. also i need to digitise the 'to do list'. i think the it will work well with the web page. as long a i have the space for it. i also need to develop the 'peep' show work. using dv it should be straight forward.

ps also finally got dreamweaver whipped (enough to get a basic page up) so feeling relieved. finally get the web projects out of head: notebooks and out...

this is post a week of learning adobe premiere to the point were i was able to piece together a 3 min vid 'to do list'. back projected it out onto the street for the local festival. it got a good reaction. hdd space got crunched...

I had to describe and write down my "current concerns" of my art practice. Nightmare. Caused myself more thinking than I had done in a long time. One issue with artist is "why" this or why that. I can't speak for other artist but I always try to break down what I do into nearly understandable language. The best thing for now is to avoid the discourse....