Tate

here i sit at the cloakroom in Tate Liverpool, taking in coats, giving out coats, listening to random mumblings and moanings wen somebody realises they cant take photo's or hurl their giant rucksack round with them, complete with matching umberella and carrier bag full of food!

yes...

sometimes i have to jog my memory that i am actually an artist and not just a second rate security guard who stares aimlessly at art all day slowly giving up the will to live!

im thinking of the money, and im taking the whole week off next week to do the things an artist is supposed to do again... its not that bad here... is it?

im back!

well i haven't blogged for nearly 3 weeks, (a long time seeing as i was blogging almost daily in the summer) but i needed a break from the narcissism, and i needed a break from Liverpool so i escaped down to London for a week, to try and breath after whats been a mad summer...

im now back, had a great time in London, saw some great art, some great shows, and of course some shite too... one particular highlight for me was suprisingly 'How To Improve The World-60 Years of British Art'. Perhaps it was a set of Roger Hiorns' copper sulphate encrusted engines that won me over? they always do, perhaps it was the piece by Susan Hiller that i cant remember wat it was called, but i remember being transfixed by a young Drew Barrymore in some random horror film doing terrible things with her mind, intermixed with clips of the kid in 'The Shinning' were he's screaming REDRUM, and half recognised 'Polterguiest' clips i remember seeing wen i was a kid... see iv just got lost in it again as i was blabbering on about it here! (i am often seduced by flashing lights and strange sounds!) The night of private views off Brick Lane were also great, especially the free venison sausages and MOUNTAINS of free becks, i think i am all to often seduced into liking a show by the standard of freebies, and here, at Hauser & Wirth, the standard was high, but the work, Christoph Buchel's fake seedy hotel complete with 2nd hand fridge-freezer shop and messy scrap yard was, well... i cant quite decide what i actually thought, i am still inclined to think differently by the after thought of the great night out i had!

anyway enough blabbering about London, i may post some photo's at some point? i may not? im back working now in the anti-climax that is Tate Liverpool in this time of Biennial blues, wondering what it all means...

oh god, the blogger is back!

the end...

so the residency is over, and it all went really well. i was a bit panicky on Thursday, mostly about the artist talk (ok i was shitting myself) but that in the end was a really useful thing to have to do. it forced me to have to explain the work i had been making over the last two weeks, and then be questioned on it, like a group tutorial, but with 50 or so people!

i had finished working on the pieces on Wednesday night, leaving church about 10.30pm, and had decided that that was the point to stop taking apart and 'rebuilding' the furniture, it was my last full day so it was the last day to continue this futile act of attempting to reassemble these things completly, realising i would never actually be able to do so.

it was interesting talking, i was realising i was saying things that had actually never fully occured to me before, but by talking to a group about the whole process it seemed to makes things clearer in my head. things like the fact that the furniture, by being put through this process, this act of 'rebuilding' now became symbolic in some way, having taken on some sort of extra meaning or significance beyond their purely material properties, rather like the crucifixes and other things found in the church, they are just wood, but are also much more. another interesting thing to come from the talk, i realised that the church itself had been rebuilt constantly throughout its history just to function, if the place fell down, the obvious thing to do was to build it back up, so the people could worship once more, but by 'rebuilding' the furniture again and again i had in fact rendered it functionless, the opposite i suppose to the church itself.

here are sum pics of the last day, me setting up some new media in the church! i trapped the camcorder in a drawer, turned upside down and bolted, kind of descretly in one of the pews. you could see it through a gap were i had taken the joints of the drawer apart. i also had a speaker trapped inside, amplifying the sound of me crashing and banging which echoed around the building, during the talk...

so the residency is over and yes it all went really well, but now i have time to spare i need to reflect and evaluate everything? its been a really hectic, mad, busy summer, probably the busiest of my life and i havent had time to breathe it feels like, but all was great, lets see what happens next...

monday, tuesday

today i left the church with the two pieces of furniture i have been working on completly dismantled and laid out on the floor, somebody said they 'looked like dinosaur bones', i liked that analogy. i decided that i hadn't really resolved the work fully somehow, and the best way to do this was perhaps to take the thing a step further, iv now deconstructed every part of the furniture, every wooden part that i could seperate, i have, these are laid out in some sort of order so i know how to reconnect them together, like a map perhaps?

on sunday afternoon wen i came in, the work had been moved about and broken. this highlighted for me the fact this is a fuctioning public building, with many activities going on to work around, i know now we will have to label and barrier off my works as they will b so fragile, if they are moved or dragged around, they will collapse, this should be fine tho

today iv also been thinking again about the film iv been making, i really like it, but at the same time i know i dont want it there for the duration of the show, the pieces should be encountered with almost no prior visual knowledge, the viewers can learn what has happened by looking closer, i dont want everything obvious from the start. i do however think it would b nice to show the video on the opening night and during the talk, im just trying to figure out how and where this will b, both logistics of the buildng (power points,security etc) have to be considered alongside the aesthetics of the work itself. i may try and lock the camcorder into a drawer or something?, were u can watch it through a section cut out? i may try and play it somehow on the exsisting tv that relays cctv footage? either way i want it to be descrete, not obvious, and i really liked the sound of me banging, echoing around the church? lets see how things go tomorro...

friday, saturday, sunday...

so for the past 2/3 days iv been taking apart and putting back together the large cupboard, each time i re-assemble it, the whole thing becomes more unstable and less rigid. i was talking to the Rector the other day about the history of the building, he told me that after the main body of the church was destroyed by bomb in 1940, the new building, although keeping to the original outline size, was completly different and no attempt was made to make it similar, even the alter was at the opposite end to where it is now. this is interesting...

i am interested in the fact that this building has this history of being 'rebuilt several times' and i am now 're-building' if u like, the bits of furniture i have brought into this building, i am going in late today as there is a Baptism, i plan to dismantle the cupboard and reassemble it once again, lets see what happens...

thursday...

so today i ripped appart the largest of the bits of furniture, quite carefully, so as not to break it too much, moreso just 'opening it up'.

bit of a random day, my camcorder died during filming so i am waiting til tomorro until i put it back together, then i can document it all on film. iv been pondering all day weather i should show a film or not? i mean it wouldn't be a 'work' in its own rite, it would simply be a plain documentation of what i did. It was mentioned to me as a way for the audience to see what i had been up to, but perhaps this should b kept hidden? perhaps the bits and pieces of weakened furniture should have no sort of clues to their short but violent history? i dont know, il know more tomorro, for now im off to bed...

wednesday...

so i put the cupboard back together, u cant really see from this picture but its kind of wonky, it kind of doesnt fit together perfectly anymore, the joins are partly bare, there is evindence of the activity, but its not overtly apparent, quite like the building in which it sits. i spoke to Dave from dyingfrog today, we talked about the exhibition and documentation etc. i am going to film myself ripping appart and fitting together again some of these peices of furniture, or perhaps only one piece, im not sure yet? filming starts tomorro...

tuesday...

today i arrived at church early, and did alot of reading, and thinking and once again writing, its odd, i feel a bit like im back at uni, with this particular deadline to make new work. its not a bad thing at all, its just i suppose this mat b the first time since that i have actually had such a concentrated period to focus on my practice and in particular brand new work (as oppose to developing the ongoing Garden Furniture Project) its taking that step into the unknown with the new work that is the thing, i just have to go for it, and not worry about things fucking up.

i went to the Tate also to see their International 06 exhibition, it was a bit stark, a bit, erm, 'cooly conceptual' or i suppose thats how it may b percieved, i dunno? anyway one piece by Philippe Parreno, was an odd kind of built in bookcase, filled with free dvd's, that u realised u could push and this would spin into a secret room; the room was empty. in Parreno's blurb he said "we come seeking information, yet are told to go away and watch a video"... this intrigued me alot.

this idea that we come to view work, and expect it to be resolved, to be concluded, to allow the viewer to connect if you like with it, but what if it isnt so obvious? i came back and began prising apart a cupboard i had brought into the church, i layed it out, i moved its bits and pieces around, i played with it, i thought about what this means to see the 'insides' of this thing, i think i may put it back together tomorro? i dunno? imagine if i could put it back together so u might never know i had ripped it appart? lets see what happens tomorro...