Quiet rectangles

Proposals in retrospect (part 3)

Concepts for space

The idea of creating a structure that was responsive to the space itself was very appealing.

Sketch created using an iPad

Central pillar - envisioning a way of navigating the material in the space

How could the viewer move around this object? 

The way in which I've used foil has always been in an attempt to grasp at something beyond what I can actually see - the material always holds information that is inaccessible; a trace of something that lies unknown. 

Trying to grapple with sheer materiality and concepts of the imaginary is... tricky.

I wanted to be sure my material already had a story before I moved it into a gallery setting - as if it already had been used in an action before, or had held something previously. The idea of presenting a literal shape made me cringe; I didn't want to look 'obvious'. 

I thought about what this object might be then.

If I was going to cover a gallery pillar, maybe I should use the material to cover a pillar that stands somewhere else - somewhere in the city centre perhaps.

I was unsure if this would be a sensitive enough approach, while keeping in mind the way I tend to work; I wanted to keep my integrity in some way.

If it was an object - something I could hold - that I was going to use as a start, I considered using something with built-in content.

A book, maybe.

Or a photograph.

I tried very quickly, one day, to see if a photo would leave an impression in some foil I had at hand. 

Placing it underneath the material, I rubbed my fingers along the photo edge, until there was a perfect rectangular indent in the centre of the foil.

Exactly what I wanted.

In those brief seconds, I'd captured an object using a material and, at the same time, I'd discarded all the information that made that thing what it was. 

There was a trace of the photo, yet it was unknowable. 

The tangible shape was present, but the memory could not be conveyed; it was lost. 

I'd begun using a series of images of myself a while ago, all taken under the age of 7, or before I moved to England with my family. I'd previously honed in on a particular memory, but realised I still had a set of reprinted photographs that I hadn't thought through in the setting of my work.

Five reprinted photographs - originally 1994-1999

I decided to play with these photos within this process not because they have personal significance - which they do - but because these are memories that are only alive through images.

According to various psychologists, human ability to recall events before roughly the age of 5 weakens as we get older, as a result of varying proposed factors. The photos I selected are conclusive evidence of events, but I can no longer distinguish whether what I'm looking at is something that exists wholly in my memory, or if I require a picture to remember. Even then, I can doubt that I am remembering at all, but rather observing a picture I know to be familiar. 

It is this gap that I am interested in.

Photocopied foil with photo imprint and caption

Proposals in retrospect (part 2)

A projection of ideas

Proposed thoughts

I created a concept of what the pillar may have looked like if it had been loosely wrapped in tin foil. The constructed image proved interesting visually, but was not really an accurate representation of the way the material would have reacted.

Whether this idea would come to fruition or not became less of a concern, as I now regard this imaginary scene as a piece of research work all by itself.

Proposals in retrospect

26 - 30 November 2012

Week 2 of 4

Level 5 Solo Exhibition 

The space: S1 Artspace

My original thoughts about where I would place my work were that I would utilize the column in the centre of the main space. The nature of my current work led me to think I could cover the structure with a material, making the piece site specific and a response to the gallery itself.

Karin Sander

Karin Sander

h = 400cm

Karin Sander:  "What must a work of mine fulfil? I must be able to work using resources that actually exist, that are already present within the system, and that can turn the system against itself. I must be able to read things from a location, the situation, of a museum or gallery. And the work must both reveal something and also remain mysterious. It must transcend itself and gesture towards something that was not previously visible. In other words, it must render something visible that is already present but that has hitherto escaped perception, that exists in a latent state. If the work provokes amazement and perhaps amusement as well, then it is successful."

(exert from http://www.karinsander.de/index.php?id=e5)

Exhibition highlight, Berlin, November 2012

Site specific Berlin

Berlin was wonderful; exhausting, but wonderful.

I've been a little slack in compiling a reflection on what we encountered, but I desperately needed to establish what it was that interested me on the journey. Just a few things that left me feeling excited:

David Rickard's floor-board installation

We visited an exhibition space under the name LoBe. I noted that a number of the artists we spoke to seemed interested in exploring their environments through a sort of mapping or even an uncovering of what lay in the space already. David Rickard's work was your first encounter on entering the joint exhibition - narrow, metal rods placed in the gaps of the floor-boards that each went as deep beneath the floor as they were high.

I couldn't help but feel a visual connection between the miniature metal rods and this stretch of the city where a trace of the wall's presence is marked by iron poles.

The Holocaust Memorial

towering moving overwhelming heavy 

Domestic metamorphosis

Transform me.

Traces in sleep

No, I still can't sleep.

Last weekend, I stayed with my other half. We drifted off, holding one another. I was probably snoring.
I wake often in the night when we're together, usually just for a moment and then I fall back to sleep.

One night, I was woken by the 'where am I?' feeling, which I haven't been familiar with for a long time. Even though the minor confusion was fleeting, it unnerved me in a way I'd not felt before.
For that brief second, I believed that I was in my own bed and, although I felt someone else's arms around me, I was actually disinclined to accept this as reality. Instantly, I felt an indescribable loss, as my mind concluded that, however vivid it seemed, I was in fact dreaming. There were no arms holding me; it was just a trace I felt as the imaginary evaporated.

I must have roused Ash because she sighed hazily and asked if I was alright. I explained my disorientated waking.
The reasoning of my tired mind, misleading my senses, pierced my unwitting emotions. To my surprise, a tear rolled down my cheek in the darkness. Then another; then another.

"For a moment, I thought you weren't really here...", I whispered.

Restless

For whatever reason, I can't sleep.

It's so funny how everything and nothing seems to pass through my mind while somewhere between that chasm of waking and sleeping. I am most certainly awake now. But my body is still arguing. 

On Monday, I shall be in Berlin. I can't wait but I'd barely even considered that I should think about packing until yesterday. Right now, I can't think of information to share about our itinerary, but I shall write all about the five days and take an unwarranted amount of photographs. 

In light of the fact that I'm sure Berlin will be an onslaught of information and experiencing new work, I've been reflecting on what I've seen recently that I actually retained as something special. 

The image above was taken in the Saatchi Gallery at the Korean Eye exhibition - a selection of work I really enjoyed seeing. My beautiful friend Ellen stares at a literal storm in a tea-cup.

I've never quite understood the phrase but, amongst all the things we saw, this stood so humbly, yet I found it captivating. 

A scene so tranquil (tea makes everything better, doesn't it?) holds a miniature catastrophe? 

But anyway; it's too late for abstract thinking. 

And I don't even have a philosophy class next week.

Experiments in monotony