funny old day (highs and lows)

Thursday at Gray's have always been a brain fryer...but in a good way. Stimulation from morning till late (well...3pm). Today was a strange one, highly charged and interesting, as usual, but with a very strange start. We had a seminar about the design teams latest project. With no introduction to the "problem / topic / discourse (tick)" We headed into a talk about problem solving at Aberdeen Airport, areas of change that need addressed, dead spaces that need (or could do with) sorting out, the general uncomfortable / stressful environment that an airport can be (even on such a small scale, like Aberdeen). We seemed to lurch from lecture to QnA, Teacher led to open debate, without much direction. Mary pointed out that some suggested "solutions" were woefully unimplementable or down right daft, to which our tutor pointed out "this is not the point, ' it's easy to knock suggestions down, it's hard putting them up'" to which was the crux of today’s "lesson", Brainstorming is about putting every conceivable solution down, and it's the editing, critical analysis and scrutinising AFTER the brainstorming that sorts that out. We could have had a 2-hour lecture in 5 mins. A shame, as we missed out on the talk from Aggelos Liapis about his software development for corralling and managing design processes (mind mapping, brief generation etc). His system (what we got to see of it), looked fascinating, an app that can centralise all the "helpful processes" a designer would incorporate when researching for work, and also some neat little tricks, like colour recognition software that can extrapolate from a given bank of images, which images suit a brand colour etc. A few standard features like white boarding (netMeeting etc) pushed as a "wow" factor (which most students in the room had never experienced before, so were indeed wowed to see one PC controlling 3) but on the whole a slick looking app, I did need more time to check it out, but sadly, Guest at Grays with Eddie Farrell had a greater pull...someone talking about "art" and not painted "danger zones" on airport floors.

Eddie looked fantastically relaxed and unprepared as he played us in with a jaunty tune (one of which he, when on holiday as a kid in Butlins, knew it was "dinner time" when it was played.) Humour? in a lecture theatre? Are we in the right room? Of course we were, here was an artist, so relaxed with his direction, body of work, experience and general attitude to life, he COULD use humour, and great screeds of seriousness, when needed. We were treated to an almost stand up routine, about his development in the art world, and how his practice changes, how it HAS to change, in order for him to know his work is valid, his work is ALIVE. (Tracey had even said at the start of his talk "good to see someone with a bit of life in them"). From dancing differently (disco to punk) he knew from here, that this was crucial to creativity.

The willingness to put your neck on the line, to radically alter your approach to a given situation, in order to keep your art on its toes. All too often have we seen artists, who get stuck in a rut, or hone in on a "signature" and refuse to change. He cited many artists (form swanky screen printing nuns to space strapped performance artists) statements of the need to involve oneself in anything. Stimulation for change, stimulation for creation. Advice well heeded, be a part of life (basically) and you can reflect upon it (the base nature of art, surely?). Eddie's work ranged form Anti-war posters to obscure filmed projections, short-term public works (painted walls of condemned buildings) to screen prints. The array was staggering, but all held together with the thread of credibility, his credibility. He's put enough understanding into all his work for it to "feel" like it belongs together, although it might not seem so at first glance. Even though his nature appears very scatty, he's a smart cookie. He's quoted to us Laurence Wiener, Jean Russo, Franz Kafka, all bolstering his position of "change is essential, change is life". A simple but poignantly truthful obviousness. (tell that to the conservatives who are stuck in a rut).

Eddie pointed us in directions, which appeared to be gifts; I've listed a few URL's (on follow up) to solidify them here:

John Cage: some rules to help students and teachers
Laurence Weiner: wikipidia

We then headed to the C03 "white Cube mfa test space" for our group crit with Lois, and "bitter sweet", her installation made to heighten the absurdity and falseness of "the white space". She's constructed to narrowing walls from the entrance into around 8 feet, tapering to a 1ft gap, blocked by sugar cubes (around 6 1/2 feet tall). Impressive, for such a minimal installation. The constricting sense of space gives Susie claustrophobia, and refuses to inspect, in detail the work. We have a strange discussion about the work "if it were in another place, would not be the same", I am feeing that this sort of discussion is much like the "what is north" talk we had last semester...brick for brick and dimension for dimension, if this work was moved to somewhere else (an office, was the example discussed) it was adamantly declared "it would not mean the same". Surely this is introspective backslapping about art in white space? The "point" of the piece was "the use of this specific white space". I didn't think so, brick for brick, in a cupboard entrance in a shell building, it would still instil a sense of claustrophobia, a psychological impasse, to make one wonder “what's at the bottom?” “What’s past those tiny cubes?” I think artists sometimes get far to caught-up in their own rhetoric to notice a bigger picture. "Context" has played a massive role in the placement of art, but, it's not the making of a work, it does change a perspective, granted, but the work "is still the same". Perhaps it's semantics, scrutinising words too closely, to argue what is "the same" and what is "different". Perhaps the point of this discussion is the relevance of value on space, not material, feeling, not physicality. I'd still think that an office worker, of confronted with this work in a work environment would feel pretty much the same as someone walking into a gallery environment...we'll never know, as entertaining that idea, testing this work was absolutely dismissed, and I think that's the biggest let down today.


Listening to : Clint Mansell - The Fountain - Performed by Kronos Quartet & Mogwai : scorn - logghi barogghi