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...