literal YES

Hearing-aid for a Shed [Bad Science]

I head in to Gray’s for 10 am to meet Steve, to talk about my latest developments. I am confident to start talking about the “breath of fresh air” project I am working on for Jane Frazer’s NEOS show. When Steve arrives, I talk of the outline or theme for Jane’s show “breath of fresh air”. It’s about something different for NEOS, it’s about new artists in the NE, trying different work. As I’ve said before in this blog, when I went for the site visit, I saw a perfect opportunity in the shed, the point that “wild” meets “civilised” where wind meets building. That point is perfect for reflection of contact with nature, communication between outside and inside. I show Steve my drawing of the Funnel, and he immediately starts to talk positively of it, and the ideas that might be threaded through it. He asks of my concepts, and I bumble out the patter I’ve been practicing, communication, channelling, controlling and condensing…He picks up on the hearing / communication part of the idea, I’d also likened the “trumpet” to old hearing aids, gramophone speakers, even the early “sound mirrors” the UK used against the Germans from 1916 – 1944. He busily types this into the internet, with an artist in mind: Tacita Dean, she’d used the sound mirrors in her work, but also researched that these devices were actually no where near “accurate” enough for spying, the “signal” generated from them was garbled, indecipherable and practically useless, and this is where she’d coined the phrase “Bad science” (where unfit scientific endeavour (in its nature useless for its unresolved conclusions) is perfect for artistic inspection and research). It’s the “ghost in the machine” that art tries to use, one lesson I have learned over the year so far, is that I am not here to answer questions through art, but ASK questions. I still have to fight the urge to become rational, to conclude, to satisfy and put a full stop to questions I raise with my art. It should be my mantra : “ask questions, not answer”.

We talk of communication, of listening, again, a form of translation. The whole Idea of a funnel, a directing vehicle, a focusing point, can convey sounds from “outside” to “inside” (and vice versa, if not on uneven footing). I equate the scale of each “opening” relatively to its environment, “outside” = vast, “inside” = small. I’d also like to think that the possibility of speaking, shouting, playing through the cone, is to broadcast the human input back into the wilderness, fighting against the wind channelling through the funnel, a futile gesture, unmatched by the relentless input of the wind. The idea of conflict, but also of bias (futile) communication sits well with some of my previous works (“I don’t have a dream”, “war poem translations” and “you and I (webcam project).).

Steve brings to the discussion, the idea of sheds being a stereotypical place for British inventors, crackpots trying to make the next perpetual motion machine, the next space shuttle that runs on carrot juice (again, bad Science). It’s the romantic notion of “crazy machines”, pointlessly being made to fulfil little of no purpose, it’s again perfect for art to hijack these experiments and turn them into questions, turn them into experiments for art.

The idea of the interior of the shed has possibilities too, I could house several objects / sculptures that could be changed and manipulated by the incoming wind, if I end the funnel with a hose, controllable by the “user”, visible displays of the wind force, even audible traces of the wind can be conveyed, futile control over nature. I talk of turning the analogue, natural input of the wind, into a digital signal, through circuitry, wind speed measurements etc. A flow of data, for no purpose. It’s visualising the constant. We are surrounded by inputs, data and information, are our brains capable of processing everything we experience? I read in the New Scientist that the eyes and brain dupe, generalise and lie to avoid overloading...it’s fascinating to know that we lie to ourselves daily to save ourselves from sensory overload.

Steve also talks of researching speakers, interiors and sound dampening. We talk of the materials that “could “make the trumpet. I am still stuck on metal, it’s durability, an elemental stand to nature. If it were made of “flimsy” ply, I’d imagine this work woul stand for about a year. We talk of Anish Kapoor’s massive funnel in Tate modern, a few years back, the idea that these structures are mechanical (so to speak) representations of the inner ear…perhaps “skinned” rings (rubber, cloth waterproofed?) might be worth investigating, but, my gut instinct is to try and aim for metal.

So, I need to (again) contextualise my reasons, ideas and direction. Steve, amazing as ever, springs names out of the air like rabbits from a magicians hat. I have a list to look at, and try and understand their positions, to make mine more solid:
Janet Cardiff
Dalziel & Scullion
Lucy Lippard (conceptual art writer)
Tacita Dean
UBU.com (fantastic resource “youTube of conceptual art” (Shangri-La!))

So much to do, and so little time. It is quality, not quantity though…but finding out the secret, the “nub” of what’s missing, isn’t as easy as just being told “you need to find context” or “you need to find your language”. I have a language, I can express what it is I want to do, why I want to do it, but it’s not intellectual enough, considered enough for Steve, and Jo & Tom. (I’ll find that out next week!)