Ferocity and Fantasy

I will start with a short and somewhat unrelated introduction. Last year I explained to my tutor that I wanted to write my dissertation on fantasy art, by which I meant the portal worlds of Charles bear and apocalyptic landscapes of Thomas Hirschorn; worlds that engulf the viewer as a means of escapism. I was informed however that using the word fantasy would only suggest one type of art... art like this...

I still maintain that fantasy art should not be confined to this vile, unicorn frosted display which is why I was so thrilled to read the title of this exhibition, Childish Things: Ferocity and Fantasy in Recent Art, which is, in essence, so opposed to the 'Fantasy Art' stereotype.

The baltic conditions within the Fruitmarket gallery throughout December seem to have deterred its usual visitor levels meaning that if you do brave the sub zero temperature in an extra layer (or ten) you are almost definitely going to have the gallery to yourself, bar one lone gallery assistant trying not to drop off, a rare treat in the pre-festive bustle. As for the content itself, the common misconception is that this is an exhibition aimed at children...not so. In fact many an enthusiastic child has run out of Susan Hiller's brutal Punch and Judy compilation, An Entertainment, sobbing with an angry parent chastising the gallery for miss-advertising. The common thread however linking the seven selected artists is their desire to re-visit their own childhood, generalised notion of childhood and objects of childhood in particular (toys, if you will).

Following on from Johan Grimonprez and, more recently, Martin Creed dealing with broad concepts of order and repetition with a logical, practical approach to art, the selection in Childish Things returns to a more personal approach. While the curator, David Hopkins, is a specialist in the fields of Dada and Surrealism and therefore has a vested interest in the ready-made, it has to be said that the majority of the works in this exhibition explore the notion of the lone, skilled craftsman. Jeff Koons' Bear and a Policeman holds the signature of the wood crafter while the work of the hand is evident in every stitch of Louise Bourgeois' Oedipus Complex. Helen Chadwick's transferred images peal slightly from their wooden objects while even Paul McCarthy's Sound of Music bears the out of focus crackling of originality. Mike Kelly's giant stuffed toy, the most ready-made of all the works, is covered in the stains and rips of everyday childhood wear and tear. It was a feature of his own home for many years before being wrapped in cotton wool and transported by private jet into the white cube.

There is so much to this exhibition that appealed to me. Someone said to me while I was there, 'you cannon help but fall in love with Louise Bourgeois' Oedipus,' – this looks a little stranger in writing but anyone who has seen the piece would, I'm sure, agree. The idea of scattering the objects through the upstairs gallery, mimicking the childhood playpen experience and placing the adult into the state of the child was brilliant but for me sadly, not quite enough. The thing is, we get it, we get that childhood is a scary time of unknowns which ironically shape the rest of your life. Showing a Jeff Koons on a nice white plinth with a little sign next to it explaining what it is just isn't the point. In my opinion it could have done with a little less emphasis on the hot-shot names, a little more 'stuff' and a lot more fantasy.

Bobby Niven at Sierra Metro

After a bout of bad luck in Edinburgh post-graduation (or perhaps the mere realisation that the recession is in fact a reality) I am now decidedly determined to persist with this blog and not jump ship in pursuit of warmer climes (and home comforts). Whether this is a wise move remains to be seen. The strong work ethic I pride myself on has dwindled and so, in an attempt to re-kindle a little enthusiasm for the subject I spent five arduous years studying I have hired out some studio space and now return to writing, with a little more free time and post-festival resolve. No longer a blog counting down the final year of study, I take a new direction - to map the aimless life of an arts graduate and inject the situation with a little humour.

It was with this stoic attitude and in mind that I trudged my way through the snow blizzards in impractical footwear last Sunday to view Bobby Niven’s latest cinematic works at Sierra Metro. Neither the bus breaking down nor the dwindling light and impending snow shower dampened my determination as I finally reach Granton industrial estate and battled my way to the lighthouse - the site of Sierra Metro. Colder inside than out and certainly darker, I was greeted by one, lone member of staff huddled over an electric heater. Had I finally reached the end of the world? There is no denying that selecting Niven’s work for this location was little short of genius. His first film, Hermit’s Castle, a journey to Assynt examining the story of architect David Scott, left the damp, dark, empty interior of that gallery feeling like a five star hotel. Even the wooden benches morphed into deluxe armchairs as the desolate landscape engulfed us. The story goes (and I hope I’ve got this right) that the structure in the film was built by an David Scott in 1955 in an attempt to escape city existence, however, after a single night sleeping in his creation he mysteriously disappeared, never to be seen again.

Niven worked with both a cinematographer and a sound engineer to create this stunningly shot, eerily sonic piece. You latch onto a sound, or an image, some recognisable point of contact, only to have it whipped from under your feet. Is it a model? No it’s a castle. A helicopter? A bubbling stream? There is a constant play on what you know and what you think you know. Was it strictly necessary however to film this architecture with a fire burning inside it? What struck me most about this work was the overwhelming feeling that the viewer, through the eyes of the camera, was the first witness to the scene post abandonment 55 yrs ago. This illusion is shattered by this other, fire burning presence within the structure. It loses a little mystery, the notion of unearthing or rediscovering and lends, instead, a touch of 80s horror film to the set.

The second film was rather different yet equally disconcerting. More documentary in its formation, it tracks a little of the life of Galip Körükçu, an elderly potter living in Avanos, Turkey and the founder of… ‘The Hair Museum’ which houses over 16000 hair clippings obtained from women. Niven once again hones in on the uncanny nature of this gentleman’s practice - potter by day, collector of female hair by night (purpose unknown).

So what to make of Niven’s practice? Why does he focus on the local, historical views of highly specific people and places. Hermit’s Castle could be anywhere, yet it has its own resounding story. So too does Chez Galip. Each year Körükçu selects, at random, four contributors to the hair museum to take part in one of his pottery workshops. Niven sets the scene ready for the story to be told. Do these highly particular, singular histories have a space in contemporary art, so focussed are we know on the ‘we’ over the ‘I’? Perhaps we are finally witnessing a shift - the return to the personal - I shall investigate this theory further…

The Art of Blagging it!

So much in art today is reliant on an artists ability to bullshit, bullshitting itself has become an art form as Jenny Fiduccia revealed in her recent Map article, ‘Bullshit! Calling Out Contemporary Art’. Edinburgh Art Festival roles around again and simultaneously we see Duchamp’s Fountain at the Dean Gallery while Martin Creed stacks up chairs, wood, cactuses, (imported from Birmingham as apparently there is not a cactus to be found in rainy Scotland) at the Fruitmarket Gallery. What links these two? The art of the blag - I am not being derogatory, billions of pounds go into this art form. The skill has now become manoeuvring the Ikea table and the John Lewis Packaging into the gallery. One of my favourite Creed quotes goes something along the lines of, ‘I like work that is stupid, the stupider the better…’ On another note however, his work IS self-consciously inclusive; while on some levels it is rigorously structured, on others it can be seen as a never ending pattern which the audience, as participant, moves into at any point to activate (for instance the sonic stair piece). Therefore if the audience is part of the work, and the best work is stupid, is the best audience is a stupid one… This is bullshit!

Say Parsley

I finished the last entry rather abruptly and shall now resume where I left off discussing the Arnolfini in Bristol and the rather intriguing second exhibition - Caroline Bergvall and Ciaran Maher’s ‘Say Parsley’. The seeming innocence and playfulness of this title belies a most disturbing concept behind the installations displayed. The exhibition guide reads, ‘The background to the title is a biblical ’shibboleth’; a brutal event where language itself is a gatekeeper, and can become pretext to massacre. The pronunciation of a given word or letter exposes the identity of the speaker. How you speak will be used against you.’ These sound pieces were not only conceptually fascinating but had a real visual strength in the subtlety of design. Playing with language seems to me rather trendy at the moment, certainly at art school the joy of the laser transfer for the ‘text piece’ was never far removed and, to my rather bias eye, always felt a little like cheating. Typography itself is a fascinating subject that should not be dabbled in lightly, it is not just the words but the font too that can be both manipulated and manipulating and must be treated with caution. ‘Say Parsley’ is a tutorial in decision-making. The white light of one particular text installation projected onto the wall rendered the whiteness of the wall itself a totally different, muddier deception of white. The exhibition tied in remarkably well with a book I bought at the shop, Chromophobia by David Bachelor, discussing our obsession today with whiteness. Both book and exhibition reminded me of how hard it is to make decisions today. A single decision can seemingly be argued to reference everything or nothing ( as I have done in this very entry linking unconnected book and exhibition by sheer chance). Bergvall and Maher know this of course, informed decisions are made accordingly; a meticulous assault on the senses.

Me Myself and I

Post degree show I had no inclination to do anything, least of all anything art related. Two weeks on however I found myself in Bristol waiting for a friend to finish work with no money (the show cleaned me out) and no coat (I wrongly assume that the sun always shines south of the boarder). I found myself caught amongst a stampeding group of school children in the Arnolfini which in fact turned out to be a rather lovely gallery with an even lovelier book shop and reading room archiving all passed exhibitions alongside relevant critical and contextual material. The building itself is an old tea warehouse on Bristol Harbour renovated most recently in 2005. There seemed to be two exhibitions currently running (although their separation, or lack of, seemed a little vague - the only indicator as such being the two information guides). The first one I came to was Otto Zitko and Louise Bourgeois ’Me Myself and I’. Zitko’s work runs along the ground floor in the form of monumental brush strokes onto aluminium plates spilling of the plates as they reach the door and overflowing onto the walls, climbing up the stairs. The strong blue of the paint intensifies in colour as it moves from the aluminium to the porous wall and envelopes its audience as they move up the building. While this was, in my opinion, not quite the right location to show Zitko’s work, acting more as a prelude, or some kind of preparatory experience for Bourgeois’ drawings, his work has a strength which is somewhat location-reliant and the wonderful archive gave this fascinating artist more justice than the Arnolfini. Zitko’s wall painting led upstairs to the smallest gallery space in which Bourgeois’ drawings were situated. I was intrigued to discover that the room layout and arrangement of the work was a distant collaboration between the gallerist and the artist, prior to her death. Bourgeois always uses the same frames for her work - float mounting then a card mount surrounding this. The drawings are two sided - sketched through the long nights of an insomniac, all entitled ‘je t’aime’ alluding to waiting for something or someone. However far from being melancholic, these drawings are frantic, energetic, crowded together on one wall of this tiny room, overpowering in both their arrangement and confidence. Each frame can be turned to reveal the other side of the paper yet it was Bourgeois’ decision as to which side should be displayed. On the other hand it was the gallerists’ decision to show these later works opposite one lonely drawing from the 40s. This tentative, frail drawing forms a contrast, a dialogue with the brash later works, emphasising both her growing confidence in the marks she made but also the intrinsic instinct throughout her career.

Last week in Frieze I came across an article entitled 'That Eye, The Sky' in which the author mapped out the recent influx in rather trendy photos utilising the birds eye view. Among those photos cited were the infamous shot of Formula 1 driver Michael Schumacher from above and the advert for the Berlin Film Festival where a group of rather organised fans were photographed picnicking in the cue (possibly referencing the initial shot of the 1977 Charles and Ray Eames film Power of Ten). The author suggests that these non-traditional angles through which we see the world are a result of technological advancements. Jennifer Allen (article author) writes, ' it's intriguing to contemplate the difference between Renaissance linear perspective and the zooming celestial eye of our advanced space and information age, market by satellites, digitalization and the Internet.' So are we beginning to see the world differently or are these shots merely turning the intrusive eye of Google Earth into another accepted convention, fashionable view of the world even? I do not mean to be cynical but I believe that these photographs are not evidence of us seeing the world differently but instead seeing the world the same. The fact that the birds eye has become a 'fashionable' viewing station suggests to me that it is now an acceptable convention to see the world through the eye that sees you, the eye of surveillance.

http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/that_eye_the_sky/

Schizophrenia is on the rise! According to new research by the Stanley Medical Institute mental illness has morphed into the 'invisible plague'. I have noted before that the words 'science' and 'schizophrenia' come from the same etymological routes – a mind fractured and split into pieces. Are we really turning slowly into a generation of mad scientists, a generation of Victor Frankensteins? Is scientific development proportional to rates of insanity? This is a rhetorical question as specific psychiatric illnesses are notoriously difficult to quantify. One such study however by ECA (Epidemiologic Catchment Area) suggests that schizophrenia has indeed become an epidemic effecting four million Americans (this is four times as many as HIV). This figure has increased ten fold over the last century and is still increasing. Calculations of this exact increase is complexified further by an estimation that 15% of those effected commit suicide. What indeed has information overload done to us?

http://www.schizophrenia.com/newsletter/allnews/2002/disordersincrease.htm

Does Reverse Psychology Really Sell?

There is an advertising trend at the moment capitalising on 'the real'. Are we really a generation now so savvy to the edited image that the unedited solicits a greater reaction (if the unedited is even possible)? There is a Dove advert where a woman is de-photo-shopped. Then there is Bing.com – the search engine with the slogan, 'what has information overload done to us?' Not to mention the proliferation of celebrity 'natural' photo-shoots; Sadie Frost for Grazia, Britney for Candies. So why does the seemingly natural sell more? When an audience is made to feel enlightened, empowered by inner knowledge, are they more likely to buy into this construction? This is still a mediated reality – still emitted from a TV or computer, via technology. It is perhaps more of an illusion. More masked for its transparency, it is selling itself as a reality that no longer exists. There is no such thing as an unedited photo. From the moment an eye is raised to a lens choices are made – the angle, the aim, the light. Why then, does this version sell better than others? In an age of technology, is it merely the promise of a unified reality that sells?

Hello external examiner

I am not sure how much I managed to express in the meeting so I thought I would jot down a few rudimentary points about this particular piece, my research and the course in general for you to read if there is time.

TITLE – The majority of my work this year has fallen under the all-encompassing title ‘Framing Control’. Some pieces exist separately however I find it very difficult to locate boundaries between individual works and past, present and future works. The same subjects crop up time and again, the same imagery too, and an object in one location may become a performance prop in another. The all-encompassing title is referenced in the demonstration I have just given; our understanding of the confinements and defining features of separate entities have become blurred by the age of technology.

RESEARCH – I no longer feel that it is relevant to attempt to pin point an origin to every idea, to organise thoughts and map them chronologically. Instead, my research is situated within the medium that I discuss – the computer, and comes in the form of this blog. This works like an on-line diary with a non-hierarchal structure keeping track of the world as it happens. Writing itself forms a strong element of my work offering a variety of expressive mediums.

DEMONSTRATION – A demonstration is not a transfer of knowledge or information. Some of my discussion topics are entirely fictional. The performance intrigued me as I believe that art has an ability to make people see the world differently but I no longer believe that it is enough just to make work, there also must be an element of proactiveness in pushing the ideas onto people (this proactivity is offered in the performance). I thought a lot about what to call this form of dissemination. ‘Performance’ implies an inherent theatrically, ‘lecture’ denotes a transfer of knowledge. I decided on ‘Demonstration’ because it holds an ambiguity between a political connotation and a cookery display.

THE SET – Cardboard city. This is built on a series of signifiers. The set itself is something that the audience has to enter emphasising the set as a signifier of a fictional space. The flashing images, wires, cameras and TVs all become signifiers of our time and props in the discussion. The set itself is supposed to give an overall sense of unease, confinement and discomfort which is then mirrored in my discussion. It is also terribly important that the set could exist as a fully interactive piece when I am not inside it. It has enough to offer the viewer in the fact that it has the potential for something to happen.

OTHER WORK – The meticulous drawings illustrated in my research book Escaping the Wall form the other side to my work. I do not see them as totally separate to the set, the demonstration etc – in fact they often become props in themselves. They do, however, require a different part of my brain to produce. They are more intuitive, less researched. Time consuming to make, they have a calming effect which allows my mind time to wander so that when I return to the other side of my practice I attack it in differently.

THE COURSE – The overall course for me has really relied upon locating a balance to suite my personality to prevent feeling confined – hence the methods I use to split my time – separating reading and writing, drawing and building, then bringing them all together. These multi-layered levels of self-expression again are why I give everything the same title. It is also why I pushed so hard to be allowed the six month exchange period to Czech Republic – a motivating balance. In such a totally imbalanced era, constantly moving, constantly bombarded by information, knowing how to locate and balance yourself is the most important skill.

I first heard about Johan Grimonprez in a contemporary art course I took a few years ago, in the context of his 1997 piece Dial History - an ominous pre-emption to 9/11. The notion of appropriated imagery was new to me at this time, having yet to really get my head around any postmodernist literature on the matter. Two years on, I am a great fan of Grimonprez’s extensive archive and am just about to start work at the gallery for one of his rather rare solo shows. The intriguing set up for this show is that while much of his work is about re-visiting and re-inventing old material, through a solo show he has the possibility to re-visit and re-invent his own previous re-inventions. Dial History is played off against another more recent work, Double Take re-enforcing the common themes of reality, masquerade and serendipity, or ‘happy accidents’ consistently nodded to in these films. Grimonprez’s true uniqueness lies in his ability to take a well known film or media snippet and re-position it back into the unknown, more often than not, by referencing the media’s ability to shape reality. He discussed at length today, what he called, ‘the zap generation’ - since the eighties we have had the remote control and our ability and, indeed, our taste for zipping and zapping from one thing to the next is expanding at an alarming rate. The zap generation has increased the gap between reality and a media masquerade of reality. Or as he said, ‘reality is suffering from misrepresentation.’ This is subtly reflected in the design of the show. As you move from Dial History to Double Take a quote on the wall walks you through the multi-layered significance of birds, flight, the threat from the sky (he returns to Hitchcock imagery and metaphors time and again) as a metaphor for mediation itself - TV, the threat from the sky. Yet many events can be signified and linked through one clever signifier.

Hello Assessment Panel!

Welcome to the machine! I have just left the room and you are free to browse around. Just remember that you are on camera 80% of your life, anything that you say may be given as evidence in a court of law. Anyone can install a CCTV camera (including me) as long as they conform to the licensing standards. Information may be stored as long as it is deemed necessary. You may question what you are agreeing to every time you sign a document but how often do you really check the freedom that you relinquish every time you leave the house? Tread with care, speak with caution, you never know who might be listening!

Behind the Screens

I got up this morning to write about Johan Grimonprez and his up-and-coming show at the Fruitmarket Gallery (opening in a few weeks). I have however failed to do the required research due to the degree show life-takeover and, as a result, am going to have to write about this instead. I was mulling over this huge set that I've created for my demonstration, Sam Burns scrap yard relocated to ECA as I am now thinking of it, and this idea of audience involvement or 'participation'. It has always been my plan to build some kind of screen to project images onto as a sort of back-drop for everything else, however it was not until I was reading about Gob Squad's Kitchen that I considered the possibility of using the area behind the screen as a second space with a totally different function. The space behind counter-balances and counteracts, to some extent, what goes on in front. It is essentially a place for my research – the space in front acts to confuse, the one behind to explain, the space in front is cluttered from every angle, the space behind is simplistic and ordered, functional rather than decorative. How does this change the work in front of the screen? It emphasises it as a set, a performance, just one interpretation of reality rather than an attempt to preach an unknown, unitary truth. When people can get inside the set, can move in and on the stage itself it emphasises the 'falseness' of the set up itself. I want people to know that what I say and do during this performance is not FACT, some is, but there is also much unjustified opinion thrown in there. The problem with the lecture style demonstration was always going to be that people merely absorb and accept the information given without really contemplating it, I hope that getting into the space behind, digging around and seeing the cotton wool inside the brain, will make my audience realise that there no one truth in anything, least of all this performance.

The $12 Million Stuffed Shark

I have been reading about another art machine - the market! The $12 Million Stuffed Shark: The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art and Auction Houses is a fascinated read, written by Don Thompson and published by Aurum Press Ltd in 2008, it maps the ludicrous system of the art market in relation to all other economic forces.

Who really rules the (art) world when money is no object and time is the scarcest resource left?

The art market is its own disconnected ecosystem; removed from (and even in some cases opposed to) many of the defining structures of the broader marketplace. The book analyses this art market from within the auction house. Therefore video, performance, film and photography have been disregarded - categorisation itself becomes a slippery subject. Where are the boundaries?

‘In 2003 a twenty-five-year-old student named Clinton Boisvert at The School of Visual Arts in New York was asked to produce a sculpture project showing how the emotion elicited by art could impact on life. Boisvert created three dozen black boxes each stencilled with the word ‘Fear’. He had just finished hiding the last of these in New York City subway stations when he was arrested. A dozen stations were shut down for several hours while police squads retrieved the sculptures. Boisvert was convicted of reckless endangerment, but received an ‘A’ for the project.’

The book then goes on to argue that when there is nothing left to trust within art, when taste and instinct are no longer applicable terms, the only thing that those investing in the works have is BRANDING - there is no time to invest in knowledge. ‘Branding is the end result of the experiences a company creates with its customers and the media over a long period of time.’ Christie’s and Sotherby’s are the biggest value adding components. Branding has substituted aesthetic judgement. However there are other branding systems too - not just the auction house itself but the time of the auction (evening auctions are superior), then there is the gallery, the dealer, the establishment of the artist, each which come with their unique stamp of approval (or not depending). But this is not all… the city of sale is also a factor - New York and London for example are brands in themselves. It is a terrifying system out there, and one with increasingly little to do with any work content it seems to me. I shall read on and update more later.

The case of the disappearing 'liveness'

Is 'liveness' losing its meaning?

In 2008 the ICA announced the closure of their 'Live and Media Arts Department' with the director's statement that, 'the art form lacks depth and cultural urgency.' Never, in my opinion, has it been more urgent to locate the points of differentiation between 'liveness' and mediated, pseudo-reality. Did you hear about the man who spent so long playing computer games that when he steps outside, empowered by the projection of himself onto his super-hero character, he instantaneously got hit by a car and died? More broadly, think of the numerous studies on children proving that the long term effects of violent video games produce a two way effect of imitation violence and desentivity to violence within their audience. "When you're exposed to violence day in and day out, it loses its emotional impact on you. Once you're emotionally numb to violence, it's much easier to engage in violence."

Dr. L. Rowell Huesmann, director of the Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research

'In 1932 Bertolt Brecht imagined a future in which radio would cease to be merely a one-way 'apparatus for distribution' and become 'the finest possible communication apparatus in public life, a vast network of pipes.' In writing this he anticipated what we know now as internet culture and the possibilities of interactive media in 'theatre'. Almost concurrently, in 1936, Walter Benjamin, wrote 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.' According to [Philip] Auslander in his contribution to Interfaces, 'Benjamin's concept of reactivation provides a starting point for thinking about the relationship between mediated performances and their audiences'. Mediated is a useful term here as Auslander has proposed that we live in a world where the concept of 'liveness' is losing its meaning.'

Interfaces in Performance edited by Maria Chatzichristodoulou, Janis Jefferies and Rachel Zerihan, Ashgate Publishing Ltd 2009

Digital multi-media performances have the ability to 'reactivate' (in the words of Benjamin) 'liveness' or at the very least create awareness of its slow decline. Activity, however, requires support (but obviously not from the ICA).

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/family/11/03/healthmag.violent.video.kids/

Red Road

Two days ago I finally got round to watching Red Road, a film written and directed by Andrea Arnold released in 2006. Red Road is a gritty, Glasgow based drama about a woman working as a CCTV operator, seeking to avenge the death of her family when she discovers that the culprit (a crack addict who lost control of the wheel of his car while driving) has been released from jail. The film shots move from the CCTV screen image (a screen within a screen) to 'real' footage in rapid succession as, unbeknown to the culprit, his every movement is tracked. Perpetrator and victim switch roles, the power control between the characters shifts, mediated by technology. The CCTV camera becomes the victim's (turned victimiser's) weapon of choice. But where do we, the twice removed viewers, come into the equation? The CCTV system this film represents is not, as some thought, some kind of Orwellian sci-fi fantasy, but the reality. In an interview with The Guardian Arnold say, 'you've got to try and present the truth, haven't you? Whatever that is.' Ironically the same interview also states, 'she's almost phobic about [the public's] gaze falling on her.' The ugly truth of the matter is this, for all the pleasure of watching, there is always a counterbalancing quantity of discomfort in being watched!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2006/oct/18/londonfilmfestival2006.londonfilmfestival1

I found an image of a projection space in the April edition of Frieze set up by Katarina Zdjelar to show her piece 'Shoum' in Rotterdam 2009. It is an amazing idea – to set up a semi-free standing dark grey wall against a window. The light emitted by the window behind the partial cube seems to accentuate the sharpness and brightness of the image contained within. The partial cube, partial screen gives the space a sort of modernist stage set aesthetic, neither walled in nor totally free but acts as a 3D mount for the work. There is no adequate description for the limbo-like status of this projected space and I cannot find any internet reference image. Tomorrow I shall follow this entry with a sketch to give a more useful impression. For now this is merely a statement of my appreciation.

Strategies of Exposure

Are all performances really about the audience? Patrick Primavesi discusses in the book Interfaces of Performance (Ashgate Publishing Ltd 2009) the underlying goal of any performance being to, 'de-construct the 'us' and attempt to inscribe oneself in a mythical community.' I have written extensively about the recent development of the re-enactment as an attempt to retrieve the unrecorded past. However, I recently discovered the artist group 'Gob Squad' a German based collective, who play with the notion of re-enactment when they staged a revised version of Andy Warhol's Kitchen in 2007. Primavesi says, 'the audience is moved both emotionally and physically by the possibility of taking a step behind the screen into the film.' It becomes a work about existing on the threshold, in-between sender and receiver, stage and audience, physical and mediated presence. When an emotion becomes a simulation of itself it takes on a different reality, as Andy Warhol once said, 'they're faking it until it becomes real.' In Gob Squad's Kitchen the screen acts as a membrane (not between fact and fiction, for these are no longer diametrically opposed) but as a barrier which is slowly broken down during the course of the performance as actors and audience switch roles. Their work Saving the World comprises of seven screens arranged in a semi-circle to create a panoramic view of a public square. I find the fact that they choose the number seven very interesting for the fact that it was the number that Ray Eames selected for his seminal work Glimpses of the USA in the Moscow World Fair Auditorium in 1959, 'a credible number but not so many that they couldn’t be scanned in an allotted time.' Gob squad locate and expose the interdependence between 'live absence' and 'mediated presence' where voyeur, witness and participant take on a fluidity of meaning. Like Tadek Kantor's stage set, the screen that Gob Squad use is not a blank surface to be layered onto. It is, in itself, a sign to be worked with not over.

Who would have thought that preparation of a space could cause so many issues? There should be a degree show manual for all the hoops you have to jump through. A white cube (within a white cube) can only have a paper roof if there is no electrical equipment inside the cube, it can only have a fabric roof if the fabric is fire proofed, you have to make (and pay for) your own roof in any circumstances - who would want a cube after all that? Then there are all the forms, health and safety, press forms, statements, forms so you can climb up ladders, down ladders, put paper over windows, paint studios (as long as they are painted back to the white cube afterwards). It is a full time exhausting job and that is before you’ve walked paint splattered feet across the shiny new black floor to even start putting work up (with a form of course). I have now been sanding walls in the same room for three days and while it is very satisfying to see a white room get whiter and a little sharper around the edges, this is not what I think is or should be important. I’m sure many would disagree, but the most exciting spaces for me, are not the unnaturally polished studio, but a space with a set of ready-made conditions worked with rather than against. A studio is still a studio - surely white washing the walls will only highlight the paint splatters on the floors.

What do we value in art and in life?
I have discussed previously the growing trend for bricolage/accidental collage. This has been there since Paolozzi first started making pop art images with the Independent Group in the 40s, but seems to, in my opinion, have proliferated in the last few years. Tariq Alvi’s work is testimony to this proliferation as he uses the composite medium to explore sexual and cultural value systems. In a recent Frieze article entitled ‘Cut it Out’ Alvi is described as a ‘post-identity artist’ - ‘problematizing the traps of illustration, pigeon-holing and ghetto-ization.’ I like his titles! ‘The Nature of Price’, ‘The Joy of Price’ referencing iconic books from the 60s (The Joy of Sex) This reference to the revolutionary, liberating message suggests a flip side to the generation of hope as it turned into a generation of cynicism. In this article Dominic Eichler ends with by linking this act of cutting and tearing to the methods of getting over something (or someone). It being a form of closure from a situation. ‘Injuring the things that have insulted us.’ Perhaps now that we are all down with technology, make our own films/websites/worlds from our bedroom, the art of gashing and cutting is more representative of the results of the technological overload on a post-industrial society.

http://www.frieze.com/issue/review/tariq_alvi/

I was lent a book on A R Penck - unfortunately this is yet another point at which my linguistic skills have failed me, it appears to be written in German. I am going to make up what I think a rough summary of the text may be from the amazing images provided. Penck was a man disillusioned with mass consumer culture. His faux-machines ‘standard-modelle’ all come under the unifying title, ‘objekt’ as if they are all one and the same, different in form but the same in function (or lack of). Made from the debris of a throw-away consumer society, their uselessness indicates a broader sense of futility in the face of mass production. Pseudo wheels, buttons and dials hold the potential for a movement made more apparent in its lack by their presence. The rudimentary marks and cut lines have the precision of a hand desperately mimicking carelessness. A deadly seriousness is hidden beneath a surface of nonchalance, a playfulness masking a depression at their own condition.

Book (if you can read German) A. R. Penck Skulpturen und Zeichnungen Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hannover

Book: Art of Two Germanys Cold War Cultures edited by Stephanie Barron and Sabine Eckmann, Abrams 2009

I turned to the chapter ‘Symbolic Revolts in the Workers’ and Peasants’ State’ pretty randomly but under my usual criteria of visual sifting. This is a summary of my findings:

It is a well known paradox that the destruction of tradition in the field of art was achieved by traditional means - or as I have discussed before, subversion from within. In East Germany post ‘61 ‘experimental art’ was represses. Artists were forced back into following a 19th century model or face exclusion from the restrictions of the art world. Art has always been synonymous with power to various degrees. The more confines put on a group however, the more they rebel, test the boundaries of that environment until ultimately the system goes full circle and becomes acceptable once again. So, modernism re-surfaced in East Germany, under the radar of political confinement but no less prolific; it broke free. Modernism became the official signifier of a counter culture (if this makes any sense). The artist I am most interested in is A R Penck. He was well read in cybernetics, information science and psychology. He talks about rejecting ‘painting historically’ (Post 61) and refined his ‘standart’ model. In 1971 Penck wrote, ‘If we agree to place a new standard of values alongside the traditional one, money, then this locating of standard will put us in a position to assert our own space.’ Research on this artist to continue…

http://www.frieze.com/shows/review/art_of_two_germanys_cold_war_cultures/

Television - not all it was cracked up to be!

Television was not immediately and universally celebrated as the medium to and of the masses. Indeed many artists treated it with intense scepticism and as a result it quickly became appropriated as a medium to critique technology itself. Nam June Paik is an artist that I have been interested in for some time, however, there were many of his generation in Germany who treated the TV with cynicism and distrusted the medium’s power for manipulation. It seems that from the start the TV, presented as the American dream, left an underlying foundation of fear due to the inherent power over it held over its viewers. The German critic Theodor W Ardorno and artists Gunther Uecker and Wolf Vostell joined Paik in his quest to expose the medium by blurring the lines between “COLUSION AND CRITIQUE”. This meant working within the medium (but with distain). For example, Gunther Uecker’s attack on brand new televisions with hammers and nails was, in turn, filmed and disseminated via TV. To accept a certain medium for its ability to distribute information quickly and broadly, even if that information is criticism of the medium itself, is a cunning notion indeed.

Book: Art of Two Germanys Cold War Cultures edited by Stephanie Barron and Sabine Eckmann, Abrams 2009

http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/art_space/

Slipping Glimpses

The tourist trade and the gallery machine have now combined forces. Take the Tate Modern in school holiday season for instance, where swarms descend in search of a cheap day out (compared to Alton Towers), stampeding there way through the super-structure. The gallery has now been adapted to suit this form of speed absorption of artworks, it actively encourages it. After all, the gallery is a business who’s funding is based on getting as many people through its doors as possible (and out again to make room for another influx). The education room, so often incorporated, has a double purpose - an extra space to store visitors; to hold them captive while room in made for them elsewhere. As a gallery assistant I have often been told to, ‘encourage visitors into the education room if elsewhere is looking too full’ (lest they leave without being accounted for). Robert Storr recently wrote an article for Frieze entitled ‘Art Space’ in which he refers to the contemporary museum as, ‘a machine for ‘slipping glimpses’.

‘The mechanisms in play are horribly like those of a sci-fi monster that ingests people in great gulps, pumps them peristaltically through its digestive tract in a semi-delirious state, then flushes them out the other end with their pockets lighter and with almost no memory of their ‘museum experience’ other than a mild anaesthetic hangover.’
Robert Storr

Time and space have been pushed out of the contemporary gallery/museum/shop/restaurant superstructure to make room for more people.

http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/art_space/

Eight Years of Swimming Lessons

In 1987 Pierre Cabanne published his book Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp, a wonderful insight into the life and mind of the artist two years prior to his death. I particularly enjoyed the first chapter under the aptly named title, ‘Eight Years of Swimming Lessons’. Duchamp discusses the meaning of the word intelligence, as he puts it, ‘the most elastic word in the dictionary.’ He says that for Andre Breton, ‘intelligence was in some way the penetration of what the average normal man finds incomprehensible or difficult to understand.’ Intelligence is a non-quantifiable, perhaps non-teachable unknown. The problem I found with Duchamp’s reference to Breton is that he is equating intelligence to insight, which can turn too easily to cynicism in my opinion. Intelligence, as Duchamp rightly states, is not the same as being book-smart, especially the type of intelligence he is discussing. But equally if intelligence is a more liberal stirring the status quo (of which Duchamp seems to lean further towards) this too can translate into meaningless antagonism, which is highly unintelligent in my opinion (not stupid… unintelligent!) Likewise, stupidity in one era may be intelligence in another (and vica versa). Duchamp argues that intelligence is a form of questioning yourself, asking yourself, ‘why?’ From questioning emanates uncertainly and doubt of everything else. However, he also states that this is a positive, if everything went to plan you’d lose interest. Going through the motions is the same as acceptance. This is laziness, you stop asking ‘Why?’, ‘How?’ ,‘What if?’ An extraordinary curiously is the most effective driving force behind intelligence. Duchamp believed in a distrust of systemisation, ‘I’ve never been able to contain myself enough to accept established formulas, to copy, or to be influenced.’ I have never thought before about allowing oneself to be influenced as a form of self –control, more the opposite. I will get back to you on this thought when I’ve given it more consideration….

Not a Model for Big Brother's Spy Cycle

Theatrical techniques are commonly employed to create fear and apprehension. Blatant fakes can become symbols of this constructed fear as in the work of the artist Dieter Froese with his Not a Model for Big Brother’s Spy Cycle of 1982/3. Froese mixes live footage and pre-recordings to create installation spaces which pray on their viewers’ increasing sense of panic through confusing reality and pre-recorded image of that supposed reality. His works make their audience ask questions. What is being recorded? Why do I feel physically and mentally intruded upon? Where are the boundaries between security and control? Not a Model for Big Brother’s Spy Cycle is an ingenious mixture of contrasting and contradictory elements that make up an overall unifying experience. Cardboard and mesh cameras represent the tools of public intimidation, however perhaps, more intimidating still, is the realisation that while you have been distracted being hit over the head by these big, brash statements you missed the real threat of the live camera behind you. Cardboard camera acts both as symbol and decoy.

Nano-Technology

I am slowly making headway with Welcome to the Machine (Derrick Jensen and George Draffan), not a light read by any means but fascinating none the less. One particular chapter addresses the predicted effects (all be this hypothetically by the author himself) of nano-technology. “Your body repairs itself through your life by taking material from the environment and discharging it through waste. Eventually, few of the atoms in your body will be the same as those from your youth. But for some reason your identity is continuous.” The idea behind this is that what is effectively your soul (for want of a better word) can therefore be immortalised through some form of backing up system… perhaps! The everlasting man-machine hybrid of the sci-fi villain. However, the author then goes on to point out that this theory totally denies our life experiences having any context; that they are not reliant on other circumstantial events which occur happening in tandem. If the tree falls in the forest and no one hears it etc. The hypothesis, he argues, is a result of our societies’ hatred of the (uncontrollable) body – essentially based on fear of death.

“Just as it would be a mistake to consider the Panopticon to be only a building of stone and glass and light and dark, it is a mistake to consider machines to be only artefacts made of iron and steel, and computers to be only metal boxes housing silicon chips. They are much more. The Panopticon is a social arrangement, a way of life, a way of being in the world and relating to the world and each other. The machine, too, is a social arrangement, a way of being in the world, relating to the world and to each other. And the computer also is a social arrangement, a way of being in the world, relating to the world and to each other. We are inside of the Panopticon, we are inside of the Machine, and we are inside of the Computer.”

A declaration of the Independance of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow

https://projects.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html

I re-read Sarah Thornton’s article ‘The Crit’ the other day, from the book Seven Days in the Artworld, Granta 2008. It seemed particularly apt following the recent television program documenting Goldsmiths students in the run up to their degree show and also with references to our own twenty four hour college opening hours which commenced this week. ‘The Crit’ is the written view point of Thornton after being invited into the closed sanctum of the Cal Arts MFA Fine Art Crit under the tutor Michael Asher, notorious for running indefinitely into the night. No one has to talk, however, as the author poignantly points out, “People remember what they say much more than what they hear.” (Stirring students into heated debate has never been a tricky task). ‘The Crit’ describes the ritualistic setting up procedure – the characters, the costumes, their props. It feels like a story building up as friction and exhaustion mount, yet nothing exemplary happens, just a normal crit over an abnormal amount of time. There is nothing to save the ridiculous art student stereotype, in fact it is encouraged e.g. “Finally a woman’s voice cuts through the air, ‘I’m so conscious of the fact that Jews are totally uncool. Where do we see ‘Jewish Art’?’”

Why is the crit such a closed, secret system? It is not unlike a police interrogation and yet competition for entry into this class is at an unprecedented high. People seem desperately keen for the privilege of their work being ripped apart however only, it would seem, by a limited number of selected individuals, in front of and mediated by a supposed authority, within a closed room. At a recent crit I attended one individual got rather cross that students from other years were wandering in freely at various times without asking to take part. Is taking criticism really a necessary life skill and can it indeed be taught in such a distilled, microcosmic manner? William Jones (a film maker who studied under Asher said, “negotiating interviews, conversations with critics, press releases, catalogues, and wall texts are part of the responsibility of the artist.”

‘The Crit’ encourages the idea of the art school being set apart from reality, existing as a creative bubble that does not necessarily translate beyond. Asher’s own crit sessions, facilitated in a single, closed space, are only the same discussions that emanate from every art school. Perhaps it is telling however, that they have been prized so highly merely for their length and their celebrity mediator (Asher himself).

Self indulgent or fruitful discussion? Is twenty-four hours in an effectively closed cell the best way to utilise and expand the creative mind? I can’t help feeling that more would be achieved if they all got some fresh air!

Proposal to expose under-used space in Edinburgh

At the beginning of this year I was walking along the Grassmarket and counted seven empty shop fronts on the street. I took a photograph of each one and promised myself I would ring each letting agent and find out the vital stats for each space. At the same time I was working on Clemintine Deliss’ Future Collections and put together a small survey for The Modern Art Gallery in Edinburgh which, via a few emails below, I eventually got answers to. I had the view to pair images of the abandoned buildings with photographs of the storage facilities of what constitutes somewhere in the region of 80% of Edinburgh’s Museum of Modern Art Collections (along with my survey information and vital stats) into some sort of book or document. For now this document remains in the proposal stages; half collated information, half idea. Here is some of the information Gleaned…

> From: jamie robinson [mailto:jamie_dodga@hotmail.com]
> Sent: 29 September 2009 16:24
> To: GMA Information
> Subject: Edinburgh Collections

Dear Sir/Madame,
I am in my 5th year of study at Edinburgh University/ECA on the Fine Art course and am looking to work on a social project investigating the collections in Edinburgh that are in storage. I am very interested in looking into some statistical information to do with the various percentages of art on public display vs. stored works, available space beyond these institutions and current works on loan elsewhere. I would be very interested to have a chat with someone from the National Galleries about their views on the current financial climate, its effects on what is displayed from within the collections and some opinions on a term that has been posed to me as 'recessional curation'. I would also very much like to visit some of the storage warehouses for the Modern Art gallery collection.
I hope you can be of help or put me in contact with someone who might be interested in talking about the collections in storage. this is not a college project, it is something I am interested in for my own research purposes although would be happy to get character reference letters from the college or uni if so required.
Many thanks, I look forward to hearing your response,
Jamie Robinson

GMA Survey: Collections and Storage

The following questions are one method of data collection for a study into the use of creative space within the city. They are merely going to be compiled into a non-bias, hypothetical set of possibilities, probably in book format alongside photos.

The answers below are from the Gallery of Modern Art. The PG and NG, our sister organisations would have similar but not identical responses.

1. Where are the main gallery storage sites?

Granton. Divided roughtly a third between GMA, NG and PG works, and also store of some display units. And Dalmeny, we have a store for plinths, showcases, cases etc. We have in the past used commercial storage for some plinth type items, but are consolidating all this stuff at Dalmeny now, where we have a new unit. We have quite a bit of storage at the GMA as well, in the basement.

2. Are these spaces gallery owned?

Granton is rented from the National Museums of Scotland. We had it built on their land.

3. What are the storage and space saving methods employed to protect the work?

Best if you go along and see (BLANKED OUT). but basically sculpture is shelved and pictures are on racks. At the GMA, works on paper (prints, drawings) are stored in solander boxes.

4. How many people are employed in the gallery? Storage facilities?

At the Gallery, dozens. The question would have to be refined for a sensible answer – we have registrar, conservation staff etc at the GMA – they also serve the PG and NG, and the Dean houses our shared finance and HR people, and so on. It’s not straightforward. At Granton, one in the store, but it’s on a big NMS plot and there are NMS staff at the security gate etc.

5. How many works are in storage vs. number on display within the gallery?

Ask (BLANK). But broadly, we have 5000 works in the collection, of which say 1000 are paintings, 500 are sculptures and the rest are works on paper (this excludes Paolozzi and Finlay collections, which are big). We can show roughly 300 at GMA Dean and the rest are in store.

6. How many works are currently on loan elsewhere?

Ask (BLANK), I’d guess about 100 from the GMA collection.

7. Does the gallery have to pay to loan works to other exhibitions?

-What are the loan proceedings, travel arrangements etc

-When is the responsibility of the work passed over to the other party?

Not sure what you mean. We don’t pay to lend our works elsewhere. Other galleries borrowing from us pay the costs and there’s a small admin fee. (BLANK) can answer the other bits.

8. Is this the same for the borrowing of work from other collections for a particular GMA exhibition?

Museums charge different rates. In the past, say 20 years ago, there was rarely a charge and even crating and admin wasn’t charged. In the past ten years, at least, charges have been introduced by most museums. Lending a work involves a lot of work involving conservators checking things, technicians packing them, hiring in crates, dealing with all the admin (customs, insurance etc) and someone has to pay for it, and these days it’s the borrower. We can’t absorb it. Again, (BLANK) has precise figures on this kind of thing if you need them.

9. How has the financial crisis affected the gallery in terms of exhibitions, display of work, borrowing and lending work, the permanent collections, (selling work)?

Well we don’t sell work – we can’t under MLA rules, except in exceptional circumstances. Less shows and borrowing from UK not abroad, are the main things; trying to use the collection is another avenue, but it’s striking how people will come for a paying show which has a defined end date, not for something which will always be here. There are ways around that which you can probably imagine – ie use the collection for thematic hangs and market it like an exhibition.

10. What is the next exhibition?

-How much of it is from the permanent collections

We’ve just opened a show called Running Time, about recent and contemporary art films, details on our website, and its got 100 works, almost all of them borrowed from the artists.

Final question (for my own interest)

Have visitor number reduced without the free shuttle service? If so then by how much?

Hard to say because we have never had a sondage (sorry, I forget the English word) on this, ie we don’t know who, coming in, took that bus. But it was coming in at about £70K per annum and was going to rise to about 100K and we couldn’t afford it. Numbers at GMA/Dean have reduced slightly, but it may be to do with some big shows we had in the last year of the bus (Picasso and Long).

Book: Art School Propositions for the 21^st Century edited by Steven Henry Madoff, MIT Press 2009

I have recently documented the small part I played in Clementine Deliss’ ‘Future Academies’ and so was thrilled to find this ongoing project mentioned in the chapter ‘States of Exception’ written by the editor, given as an example of, “a program that throws itself into the issue of the art school’s social ethos and beyond.”

Henry Madoff describes the urban myth of the art school through wonderful analogies and metaphors; the experimental laboratory, the closed creative sanctum yet with far fewer differences than expected to the military camp. The sealed bubble of freedom in the name of creativity is no longer possible (and perhaps never was) - the market is an inescapable conditioning factor from the way students are judged to the selection of those that teach them. Art school is ultimately an administrator of knowledge, “it is established not only to teach but to administer what is to be taught.” The curriculum itself is an exercise in control which too boils down to market control. The artist has always been a service provider, there is no greater example than the Bauhaus model. However, how does society today use the artist? Can will still claim that while the market place runs the art world, that the market place and the art school are still at odds? Ten years ago we had the YBA boom, not only would I have said that the market place and the art school were no longer at odds, but further still, they were in many instances working together, in cahoots, boosting one another higher up the ladder of fame and fortune.

Henry Madoff hints at a rather idealised view of the artistic service the artist of today can offer. The idea that the artist can reach into the public sphere from its unique viewing platform from which they view the world. They can point strategically into that world through the new social networks coming into play via technological advancements. The art school can become the school without walls, reconnecting with the world beyond, no longer a closed laboratory. I am somewhat sceptical about Henry Madoff’s hopeful vision of art students no longer conditioned by grading systems, semester timetables and documents. As market power over society increases, pressure to conform, to compromise must increase with it. Madoff says, “The benign factory of the art school is now in the midst of reformulating pressured hydraulically by the forces of a larger life-world.” With expansion, compromise must also follow.

I thought I should add some extracts from the script that we wrote for our ‘Future Collections’ presentation with Clementine Delis. The whole thing is 14 pages and might bore to death as it is a literal transcript from our discussions (meant to be read to people, not read on paper). Some of the topics that came under fire however summed up our various predicaments (and also make for a humorous read)...

LAURIE – We’ve talked about digital collections but what about physical objects

IAN – That’s a conversation that would come from this, so like, someone would voice to the group like, what if this was going to be collected, like this could be in a digital collection, then someone else could say that would be, if as digital, just a 2D image on a screen, it will be like everything else and everything’ll be the same and it removes the sort of personal…

SARAH – I think that such an old argument even look at the 50’s and 60’s there were so many debates that like things were being reduced to the 2 dimensional image, we can make it much more exciting than that.

IAN – I wasn’t saying that’s all we are gonna talk about

SARAH – Yeah I know, but the thing is the start, you need to know more something that can go off in changing directions, and could be contemporary and up to date, like the things we’re looking at, the future collections, I think its important that we don’t take like ideas from the past that have been thrown around for fifty odd years, and start with something fresh really fresh and really now.

LIZZIE – What if, er, you know how she, er, she started off talking about, speaking, booty , and collecting anthropological questions, and I was thinking about an anthropologist who wrote about America, and spelt it backwards, could it have the same idea, but if like the situation was a group of people sitting around in like non, but non-specific sort of non-western place who just discovered this piece, or they have stolen it from some foreign place, and its landed in their environment, and they’re gonna try and work it into their collection, or….try to figure out what It is obviously its not, er, because, this could be the worlds most fantastical non-western community, they obviously don’t know you drink out of it, this object becomes non-utilitarian and their in this situation where they are trying to put it in their exhibition and present it to the community and…

MOMIJI – Yeah, I think that’s really funny, I think that’s really good. So you start with that, they just sort of stumbled across this object, an how would it fit into their society like

IAN – Do we know enough…

LIZZIE – I don’t know it’s a bit like it might take a bit of imagination

SARAH - So would you…you’re saying that everything comes down to economics?

IAN - Well it’s still, it’s still, it’s sort of doing something, it’s still a progressive…

SARAH – So you’re calling every single person in the world a business, a brand, I don’t know, I mean yeah, we could say that but I don’t…And maybe that’s the consumerist age we’re in, I don’t know, is everyone, is everyone a business?

PAUSE

MOMIJI - I don’t think I’d like to be thought of…

SARAH - I wouldn’t like to be a busisness, yeah

FIONA - (Mockingly) You’re a business!

EVERYONE LAUGHS

SARAH - Maybe we are all businesses…

MOMIJI - I do find it’s like…

IAN - In a way, we’re trying to…

KATE - I mean if you’re self employed then effectively you’re running your own business…which an artist is.

SARAH - Yeah

KATE - They’re running their own personal, personal business, even if it’s not as you might think, you know…

MOMIJI - It’s just such a vulgar term, that you’d kind of associate with an artist with

SARAH - ‘Cause it’s like money, yeah

MOMIJI - But that just makes me just not want to be in a like…

SARAH - An art institution?

MOMIJI - yeah

SARAH - Yeah same. It makes me think that I don’t want to…

MOMIJI - (interrupts) So why is there no alternative to that?

SARAH - I think there is an alternative to that though

FIONA - To have a part time job and do art on the side for fun?

MOMIJI - Well not for fun

PAUSE

OLIVIA – So can collections operate in a complex space defined by: A – the drive of the market. B – the drive of the social memory. C - mainstream and alternative pedagogies. Will future collections manage to eschew the model of the canon, and work towards idiosyncrasy alongside inclusivity and democratic representation.

LIZZIE – Could you read it again?

OLIVIA – That’s only one question!

EVERYONE LAUGHS FOLLOWED BY INCOHERANT BANTER

LIZZIE – Could you read it again?

OLIVIA - Ok, can collections operate in a complex space defined by: A – the drive of the market. B – the drive of the social memory or C - mainstream and alternative pedagogies…

FIONA – Whats a pedagogy?

OLIVIA – A pedagogy is like an institution, its like the art or science of teaching…

FIONA – Why doesn’t she just say that

OLIVIA – So, Will future collections manage to eschew the model of the canon, and work towards idiosyncrasy alongside inclusivity and democratic representation?

IAN – How does the question begin again?

ALL LAUGH

(Since writing this script we have all found out what pedagogy means... IT IS NOT AN INSTITUTION!)