The final chapter of Brian O’Doherty’s book Inside the White Cube The Ideology of the Gallery Space 1976 is called ‘Context as Content’ and discusses the disregard for the ceiling. It attributes its re-discovery to Duchamp’s 1200 Bags of Coal in 1938 when he transferred previous history’s idea of looking down to looking up, “which gently reverses the viewer into a walking stalactite.” As O’Doherty said, if invention is making us conscious of what we agree not to see 1200 Bags of Coal, while unobtrusively physically but obtrusive psychologically, invented that ceiling. He argues that with the electric light, the ceiling became an intensely cultivated garden of fixtures, and modernism simply ignored it.

“By exposing the effect of context on art, of the container on the contained, Duchamp reorganised an area of art that had not yet been invented.” Through works such as Bags of Coal and Mile of String Duchamp literalised the portrayed space of the painting, harassing the spectator resulted in this alone becoming the memorable feature and cultivating his audience through hostility. O’Doherty then goes on to discuss the unwritten function of the gallery space – the place for selling things. “The arcane social customs surrounding this – the stuff of social comedy – divert attention from the business of assigning material value to that which has none.”

It has not always been this way…

· If we return to the 19^th century

“The perfect hanging job was an ingenious mosaic of frames without a patch of wasted wall showing.”

· Each frame established its own limits; each frame was a self-contained entity.

· Brunelleschi, late 13^th century, is attributed to the discovery of perspective which happily coincided with easel painting.

· Each frame became a window penetrating the wall, there was no concept of continual wall space, and paintings could be hung together like sardines

What changed?

TECHNOLOGY – the camera was developed into a compact, portable device in the early 20^th century

With this the edges became fragile, the photograph was now the ultimate perspectival window!

However, “Art’s changes often seem one step ahead of obsolescence.” (O’Doherty)

Painting evolved into something else when perspective was removed from the frame.

“Space became increasingly shallow.”

· Following this route of lateral expansion the frame was dropped as the limiting factor.

This resulted in a peculiar occurrence

- The edge became the structural unit, in dialogue with the wall itself.

- Enter, stage right, the curator, the gallerist, asking the questions,

“What goes together? What doesn’t?”

“How much space should a work have to breath?”

· The wall became a territorial battle ground, a hostile frame in itself…

· At this point O’Doherty ends…The story of the frame, however, does not.

Another frame enters the gallery space – THE SCREEN

· Technology, once again, changes the space forever as the white cube morphed into the black box.

· Howard Wise masterminded the first video exhibition in 1960 ‘TV as a Creative Medium’

· Opinion was divided – was this really a utopian antidote to bourgeois painting, an art for all, accessible to all? The ultimate integration of art and life?

· Or was it the distillation of life into art – something collectable, package-able, frame-able and controllable?

· Philip Leider (editor of Artforum 1962-71) asked the question, “are computers, consumer electronics and communication theory transforming art production or simply obscuring it?”

· Either way, technological gain does not come without a loss. While this… was lost to a post-industrial society (Walter Benjamin’s aura 1935 ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’), the documentary image remained.

· The reproduction has now wheedled its way so deeply into art history that it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate physical reality from its document.

· In 1966 Susan Sontag wrote her article, ‘Against Interpretation’ – on reading her article I felt that her principles on interpretation could just as easily be applied to ‘framing’.

- Framing too (like her interpretation) is a way of translating, creating a sign, making art comfortable. Placing an ever expanding image into a manageable, bite-size chunk.

The best example I could find to illustrate these points was Francis Ays’s ‘When Faith Moves Mountains’, the footage of which he sold to the Guggenheim as the Artwork in 2002 transforming an absurd physical act into a three channel video installation with sound.

His pertinent retort - the absurdity of the pointless gesture, was somewhat de-valued when given physical form – the video installation.

ALARM – move outside (continue impromptu discussion of cast collection via taking photos.

· Transition into document, memento, tourist shot, collectable image… PHONE (return to studio)

· Where O’Doherty found himself in an era able to analyse the minimalist frame – “The white cube gallery cell”, perhaps we are now in a position to analyse a broader framing system afforded by technology.

· The frame still exists but perhaps is more transparent; however every act of transparency necessarily produces its opposite. Its purpose has changed.

· BUT who is it for? How does it function? Does it protect or confine?

Framing is all we can do. Framing is all we do anyway. We cannot not frame things. Our minds cannot perceive of reality without framing. Is framing a way of limiting the reality to a more digestible dosage?

Yoko Ono 1995

This is the script for a performance – part of an ongoing project examining the politics of space from Brian O’Doherty’s essay ‘Notes on a Gallery Space’ Inside the White Cube 1975 to Peter Weibel’s Ctrl [space]: Rhetorics of Surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother 2007.

A frame is a sign, translating an ever expanding visual field into manageable, bite-size chunks. Technological advancements have expanded our frame of vision while paradoxically making us less aware of the frame’s existence at all.

The transitory nature of the frame places its subject in a transitory value system. Before a mark has been applied to the page work is invested with a specific temporal belief system. Contemporary framing systems are perhaps more dangerous for this transparency. We live our lives as apathetic acceptors of controlling structures.

· (Greetings) Can everyone please leave their bags outside, turn their phones off and sign the attendance register before entering the space. Warning – electrical hazards (I have to warn you all as we’ve had a few technical difficulties but they seem to have all been ironed out)

· Brian O’Doherty’s essay ‘Notes on a Gallery Space’ Inside the White Cube 1975

· The first time the gallery is discussed in terms of the white cube gallery cell, “the ultimate Modernist frame”

· “Some of the sanctity of the church, the formality of the courtroom, the mystique of the experimental laboratory joins with chic design to produce a unique theatre of aesthetics.”

· “The outside world must not come in – walls are painted white. The ceiling becomes a source of light. The wooded floor is polished so that you click along clinically.”

· The work frames the space OR “context becomes content”, “the disease of the Modernist cube”.

Perhaps it is this very space, a hangover from Modernism that has created my work aesthetic.

This weekend’s gallery visit was to the Collective –Cockburn St, Edinburgh. The exhibition is called Documentalist (a play on the title of the annual exhibition Documenta perhaps?). For this reason I was intrigued. The Documenta format is a multifaceted system for which the exhibition becomes just one part of. With the website of the Tate now recognised as its fifth site, this multifaceted art machine extending beyond the gallery walls into satellite exhibitions and cyber space, Documenta’s format seems refreshingly relevant and with this in mind I headed to the Collective. Deimantas Narkevicius’ short film Revisiting Solaris is described as, “a critical look at film, its ability to communicate, and its importance in a primarily visual culture. Deconstruction, ruptures and random juxtapositions push the spectator to fill in the gaps of the story...He creates a back and forth between the past and the present, connecting history to personal experience. He pits documentary truth against potential fiction.” Watching this work I found the disconnection between the photographic stills of endless seascape cut in with his pseudo documentary shots jarring, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. It is human instinct to want to connect one image with the next and the state of confusion and anxiety created when this is impossible was perhaps the most successful result of this piece. Susan Treister’s Wall Drawing; A Timeline of Science Fiction Inventions: Weapons, Warfare and Security by contrast was all about the chilling points at which fact meets fiction – “It allows us to see the meetings of worlds as these weapons sometimes travel from the fantastic into the real, like the ‘Atomic Bomb’ described in ‘The Crack Doom’ by Robert Cromie in 1895.” Horizontal histories are hard to read and harder to accept.

Is turning a (hypothetically white cube) gallery space into a cinema a bit of a cop out? Well yes and no. This piece is in connection to my recent contribution to our annual Mathew Gallery exhibition, Chambers St, Edinburgh. My first point is this, this is not an exhibition you apply for, are selected to enter or even voluntary, it is a requirement by Edinburgh University for its fine art students wrapped up as a privilege. The space falls neatly between the white cube and the black box – a grotty shade of grey, a site where no piece of art, or film sits comfortably, set within a highly secure, card operated university building system which few people can enter. This year the idea was clear, we take a few hours or a day each, set up a running program of events and get in and out of there as quickly as possible. My concept was relatively simple too – move the entire contents of my flat in for a day, a kitchen area, comfy lounging space etc and a giant movie screen to show classic films. While thought was minimal, logistics were not, in fact if simplicity was the only goal there were many things I could have done which would have been more effective. Why make this my ‘piece of art’? Circumstantially I feel that now perhaps this was not the time to be churning out another piece of paper or two for under the bed, or worse, a sculpture that would not fit under said bed. Instead it seemed more realistic to work with what I’ve got. More than this however it seemed the most appropriate time to give people back a day, to legitimately laze around watching films, eating cake and not feel guilty. In our fast paced society the art of getting people to stop relax and come up for air should not be underestimated. Once you put the bed in the gallery you might as well get in it and enjoy the show!

A recent related article below is a round table discussion between Pedro Costa, Catherine David, Chris Dercon called From Black Box to White Cube.

http://www.janvaneyck.nl/0_4_6_text_files/David_Dercon_Costa.html

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article7050481.ece

Two recent articles took my attention to do with surveillance culture. The first, published in the Times on 03/03/10 ‘The Strange Case of Security Cameras’, stated that the average Brit might conceivably be caught on one of the 4.2 million CCTV cameras on average 300 times per day – the result of a study by the Government’s Privacy Watchdog. The second Times article was one published on 07/03/10 called ‘The Shooting Party’. This stated that, “the days when you could photograph freely in public spaces is disappearing fast.” The camera is becoming an offensive weapon, airports and train stations are no longer the only out of bound spaces. “Did you hear about the mother banned from taking a snapshot of her baby in the pool? Or the student prevented from photographing Tower Bridge at sunset? Be warned. The authorities now have the power to confiscate you – or even arrest you – for daring to take a picture in public.” One wonders how much we are in danger of losing as the price we pay for supposed safety. 80% of crime is left unsolved!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/article5834725.ece

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article7050481.ece