Month: April 2020

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Sketchbooking

Art Research

Back to a foundation sketchbook.

Some new pointers from tutorial discussions to follow up

1.We Form Geology (2012-13)

2.Physical Geology (2008-9)

1. ‘Ripple-Marked Radience (After Hertha Ayrton)’ 2019

2. Keepsafe (I) 2019. Keepsafe (II) of the pair pictured in installation shot 3.

3. Core Values

4. Ghostly

1. Nigredo Laid To Waste (1992)

2. As Above So Below (1992)

3. Flammable Solid- Flammable Liquid.(1994)

4. Mossers, Rebels and Wolves. (2000)

http://www.ilanahalperin.com/

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/ilana-halperin-the-world-as-a-game-of-stones-8609487.html     Miranda Kiek

Friday 10 May 2013 19:00

https://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/ilana-halperin-interview-geological-phenomena-volcanoes-drawing-photography-gallstones    ‘Drawing Is a trace fossil of a moment, an idea, proof of life’ Interview by Janet McKenzie published 05/03/2015.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/feb/10/the-scholar-stones-project-review-yelena-popova-nuclear-waste

http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/consultancy/projects/north-west-cambridge/eddington-yelena-popova-commission/

https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/yelena_popova.htm

https://www.instagram.com/p/B7jiqulFpbV/  (followed)

http://www.pangaeasculptorscentre.com/

The Scholar Stones Project By Yelena Popova 6th February – 27th March 2020 Gallery Booklet . Manchester, The Holden Gallery.

NATURE (VOL 391) 5 FEBRUARY 1998 Onwin’s Holistics Martin Kemp. ●

http://www.onwin.co.uk/site/Home.html

RESPONSE

Inspiring range of practices in terms of materials and processes.  With Donna Haraway’s ‘Staying With The Trouble’ in mind…. Papova tapestries = particularly interesting and appeal to my interest in the  haptic aspect of textile work and possibly the gendered ones too? Stimulates thoughts of possible developmental work in textiles. artists’ practices in this context are enviro-ecologically motivated in quite a political way. I am also interested in a sort of spiritual perspective too – the Laniakea sort of notion from Tom Chi perhaps?”…. Evoking a spiritual materiality – is that an oxymoron? I suppose I mean finding ways to articulate the sense of awe and wonder – the joy – of ‘being stuff’ (nature) rather than purely anthropocentrically cultural. Here back to thinking about Latour and his arguments against simple binaries like this.

Shared with RW, in tutorial, the sense of pure green-eyed-monster envy that Onwin’s practice raises in terms of working at scale in such inspiring locations – ‘As Above, So’ Below’ project going onto my jealousy list along with Penone’s massive bronze and gold trees, Eliasson’s Turbine Hall Sun installation and the whole of Little Sparta. Aspirations to make work at scale even more squashed by this lockdown and lack of space to make anything very much at all!

Of Halperin, noted how much I enjoyed her sound installation at Glasgow (GOMA –  CIA trip last Autumn) and that the geologic/personal unity of  ‘The Eldfell Birthday Event’ work resonates with me quite deeply. Something about how different ‘timescales’ interplay ….

Studying

Following -up some of the mind-mapping in the sketchbook has opened up new reading avenues and we have a list of texts for close reading to prepare for a forthcoming seminar programme. This keeps the mind busy though the body, in truth, is most happy at present being outside doing the allotment. PEAS and BEANS are ‘in’ though under protection and more tender things are migrating to the poly tunnel or the new cold frame we’ve built, leaving window sills for the second round of germinations.

Bennett,J. (2010)”Vibrant Matter: The political Ecology of Things” London, Durham. The Duke University Press.

Murdoch Mills, C. (2009) ‘Materiality as the Basis for the Aesthetic Experience in Contemporary Art.’  ScholarWorks, Universtiy of Montana.

Ingold, T. (2012) ‘Toward an Ecology of Materials’. Annual Review of Anthropology, 2012, Vol.41 (2012) pp427-442

Hodder, I. (2012) Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships Between Humans and Things. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Margulis, L. 1998. Symbiotic Planet. A New Look at Evolution, New York, Basic Books

Cohen, J.J. Ed & Duckert, L. Ed. (2015 ) Elemental Ecocriticism. Minnesota. University of Minnesota Press.

Irigaray, L. , Marder, M.   (2014) Through Vegetal Being Columbia. Columbia University Press.

Jane Bennett lecture  Artistry and Agency in a World of Vibrant Matter(2011)

Jane Bennett lecture Material and Visual Worlds

Gregory B Sadler  Philosophical Reading of Heidegger with ……  – The Question of Technology Pt1 and Pt2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rzYhOOOw40

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Movement

Exploration of the practice themes with ‘movement’ came up from crit and assessment in the last module and thoughts have turned to this relating to the gathered materials collage – life materials that are brute materiality of geology’s external world contrasted with softer materiality of inner worlds of biology’s living things (Ellsworth & Kruse). It harks back to the ideas at the beginning of the Gnosis Project and the contrasts between ‘fluid’ and ‘crystalline’ mark making experiments that were realised in the prints. Somehow these ideas fused into a really enjoyable session of photographic experimentation using my new toy – an endoscope! The idea was simply to mingle the soft, hard, liquid, mineral, materialities of the things in the materials collection. Some rather pleasing, uncanny and eerie results I think….

Then playing with different camera effects..

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Materiality

Collecting Materials together

A collage of ‘stuff’ being gathered together to be explored in forthcoming enquiries. Olivine – derived into ‘ hemeB’ the complex Fe molecule at the heart of haemoglobin (and similar transport fluids in other animal and plant organisms). Iron oxides – oxidation of iron thought to be what made it’s uptake possible by bacteria and thus evolving across bio/geo-logical divide. Also an egg – introducing calcium to the story. Iron oxide powder, chlorophyll in liquid and powdered form and mineralised animal remains – fossils in limestone.

What to do next? Not sure in practical terms but ideas are buzzing around after an interesting tutorial around some of the reading I’d been pointed towards after the proposal presentations. Currently mulling over this…..

“…categorical distinctions between the “brute materiality” of geology’s “external world” (rocks, minerals, mountains) and the soft, “inner” worlds of biology’s living things. According to current scientific narratives about life, earth, and life on earth, it’s possible to claim, without taking too much poetic license, that we humans are walking rocks. We may be living creatures, but our aliveness is composed of geologic materials such as calcium, iron, and phosphorous. And the comparatively tiny living organisms that inhabit the earth’s surface, be they humans, lichen or bacteria, are now seen to be key players in setting up and precipitating monumental geologic processes and planetary-scale chemical transformations in geologic materials. The earth would have a completely different geologic self if there were no life on it.”

Ellsworth & Kruse, 2013. p.17
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New Module: Semester 2.

What strange times! There is a Corona Virus pandemic. This first week of ‘lockdown’ has been spent preparing a new proposal. No clue how this is going to work out while University is shut!!!!! There’s not an inch of space here in which to work as the house is full of all the babies for the allotment – every table top, windowsill etc. and it’ll be some time before it’s clement enough to put them in the poly tunnel. Hey ho. Nevertheless, some ideas have been placed in the obligatory PowerPoint presentation and perhaps rather ironically, we kicked off the new module with online presentations on April Fools Day – you have to laugh.

Allotment Babies

And, as if lockdown isn’t bad enough, this appeared outside the house….

‘Lock in’ in addition to ‘lockdown’

The proposal aims to build upon the assessment feedback and other critical inputs about the book project which include introducing an element of movement to the work and/or exploring materiality as a way of articulating mineral and biological interconnectedness concepts better – rather than merely illustrating them – more babble from the alien lexicon perhaps – but I am determined to get my head around this distinction!