I see these grasps as an extension of agency but they are quite literal at this stage and relatively easy as objects. In terms of other objects that I have made before these feel like examples of a first step. However, I think this a necessary step in order for their completion to take place in sessions with others. The slippage can then be seen or made by others through collaborative processes with matter and thought. Thoughtful matter. So, I firstly used them at BCU where MA (Art and Education Practices) mapped the identities of these objects (see April blog entry) and we discussed the move from the description of the matter to the possibility or potential of the objects. Some referred to them as incomplete and some gave them partners. I also have made accompanying partners for the objects (see later objects). What is important is that it isn’t just the object adding to another object to become something else. It is the human link to the object that enables it to perform. The extension is at least three-fold. Object as a form (and then the encounter with it) + object and its form (and then the encounter with it) = new object and its new form (and the new encounter with it). The grasp only occurring with our engagement. The object (in my case) must be activated through the engagement. It is at this moment that the decisions and thoughts shift proactively through the embodied engagement. In supervision it was asked what if people already know art objects and are already familiar with them ----- this doesn’t change the agency of the encounter – the physical and the haptic are still very much provocations because of the crossover of territories. The objects may well be recognisable in terms of art or as original form but the process that accompanies their function changes readings and status. Kaprow’s ‘attention alters what is attended’ is in full force here when the objects are used. I will unravel this through the other writing – but it is fundamental to the research. The objects always act as provocations through the merging of meaning and matter.
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A wolf in sheeps clothing.
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. I see this object as another example or breakdown of meaning, simple object transformations and small visual shifts that question both states of 2 joining objects. An object conversation. The complex relationships and readings that form through many sorhed objects could also be the simplest of thoughts. Often the most powerful thing is the one that is simultaneously complicated and straightforward with two possible sides to the readings. Something to grasp but with enough slippage to allow further engagement and thinking. So, this object is both itself and other, a bad illusion. To be a brush without being one and to be the frame with nothing to frame. Working with people in sessions with the (sorhed) objects they begin to see multiple readings of an object as they begin to believe the object, believe this curious identity. Through discussion and physical encounter, they gain ownership over those meanings as truths. There is an investment in their language (both participant and object), their truth (both participant and object). This suspension of disbelief is when they are open to further interpretations, possibilities and connections beyond the object, BUT with the object still in their hands. They make their meaning through the object. This simple brush frame is an manifestation of the small turn of thought and small questioning of truth, a small ‘turn’ of head and hand. The head and hand both grasp at the visual thought. In supervision it was commented on that the frame looked like multiple layered view finders - this is really interesting and could potentially extend the elements of creative processes indicated by brush and fame. The matter changed. As I considered the earlier solid form (expanding casting foam) It had held its shape and talked of fluidity and visually referenced custard which had been previously named as a material metaphor for learning (by student group). The uncontained and unmanageble substance in this object then referenced the shape and form of the earlier object. The materails are yo yoing beackwards and forwards. I was interested in the matter shifting and the relationship between the unmanageable and the certain. I am continuing to think about learning as the movement between states. The certainty when we know that becomes the anchor and new thought, theory, technique, potentially the unmanageable and the uncontained. We try to discover the grasp.
I am saying learning but really it is the relationship between learning and understanding. This knowledge of matter, how it is understood and how we can be contained by the material experience is preoccupying when reading new materialist positions. Where is the matter of new materialism, how do we access it? We are it, everything is it but at times it feels absent. Materialism is messy, should be messy by its very presence. Containing and containment in teaching practices. Providing the anchor points and the buoys whilst in the middle of the sea. Between sea and sand ‘littoral’ I am not simply trying to illustrate these positions but equally they have been inherent in all the objects we have made. Stops and starts, grasps or purchases. It seems necessary to physically breakdown this known process. The latest partnered grasps are one manifestation of the meeting points of grip and slip. I see GR - IP – SL – IP as opposite ends of a pedagogical process. I suppose linked to my interest in the prepositional and the ‘before the after –after the before’. I have been reading about the middle and the moment between what I am calling slip and grip. It is interesting as Deleuze talks of the ‘greatest velocity’ being in the middle (1979, 95). In Massumi’ s ‘Thought in the Act’, the grasping is referred to as ‘a holding together that is felt’ (p33) ‘What happens in the middle is that the either – or is held fast together in passing contrast.’ This is the position that the objects I have made (now and historically) inhabit. Where the join enables both a disjuncture and a melody. I see this tiny axis point as the site where we can pivot and re- see, re – think. Occupying the known and the unknown and forming a grasp on new knowledge. The slipping away of control that we can often feel within a learning environment where we cling to particles, moments that we have knowledge and experience of. grasping...I always enjoyed the expression of 'grasping it' 'i think I have grasped it'. That hold on knowledge that we can have and possibly retain. This retaining I see as digesting meaning, and how with objects the meaning can be unpalatable, sour, dry or equally like fast food quick and forgotten. The pace of the object is important in its reading and its digestion to enable learning encounters rather than a fleeting experience. Re configuring stuff so that while we recognise and anchor ourselves we are then likely to be destabilized by the unknown in the known. I have learnt that there always needs to be a hook, where we (participant/learner) can tether ourselves to when the process of new information that may challenge or corrupt our known s is in proximity. The - NESS- of the object or material and the -NESS - of the subject material need to be determined before they are unraveled. What is revealed in the unravelling and what comes into being? The ‘becoming’ is interesting and through reading there is so much movement around actually being in something, that the language becomes visually evocative. ‘being – in the event, the events on your surface, thoughts within the act, states of event. ………They are all interruptions or ruptures, aren’t they? (Atkinson 2011. p14) 'The ordinary can turn on you'. Kathleen Stewart (2007) Ordinary Affects. 'We learn in order to add to, extend, or change the structure of our expectations, that is, our meaning perspectives and schemes: learning to change these structures of meaning is fundamentally tranformative. Mezirow (1991) Meaning perspectives. Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. There is an interesting interplay between the surface of the object and surfaces of the image and my attention to the object and its physicallity does not diminish though a drawing or an extended drawing process. This retaining I see as digesting meaning, and how with objects the meaning can be unpalatable, sour, dry or equally like fast food quick and forgotten. The pace of the object is important in its reading and its digestion to enable learning encounters rather than a fleeting experience.
Reconfiguring stuff so that while we recognise and anchor ourselves we are then likely to be destabilized by the unknown in the known. I have learnt that there always needs to be a hook, where we (participant/learner) can tether ourselves to when the process of new information that may challenge or corrupt our knowns is in proximity. The - NESS- of the object or material and the -NESS - of the subject material need to be determined before they are unraveled[MM1] . Yes, the ‘becoming’ is interesting and through my reading there is so much movement around actually being in something, that the language becomes visually evocative. ‘being – in the event, the events on your surface, thoughts within the act, states of event. ………They are all interruptions or ruptures, aren’t they? (Atkinson 2011. p14) 'The ordinary can turn on you'. Kathleen Stewart (2007) Ordinary Affects. 'We learn in order to add to, extend, or change the structure of our expectations[MM2] , that is, our meaning perspectives and schemes: learning to change these structures of meaning is fundamentally transformative. Mezirow (1991) Meaning perspectives. Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning. There is an interesting interplay between the surface of the object and surfaces of the image and my attention to the object and its physicality does not diminish though a drawing or an extended drawing process[MM3] . I am interested in surfaces through an extended idea of surface, although I feel that then everything becomes phenomenological. There is obviously a difference between the representation within the drawing and the drawing as a form and object. The illusion of a 2d space isn’t the surface I am preoccupied by although I am interested in the status of the 2d object and the object when inhabiting the same space. I have been thinking more about my collaborative drawing research as I continue to use drawings as objects or drawn objects. The drawing in, drawing out, drawing from …. drawing breath all resonate with the process of the objects and using them. As I mention later in the blog. Extend, exhale etc. I am constantly drawn back into hermeneutics and the play with or preferencing of language which in turn pokes at the new materialist position of preferencing matter. I think this is the custard and the plastacine. Curdle. Maybe my failed objects curdle? No middle, no suspension of disbelief as the matter is too distinguishable with no mixing point? I asked the students at BCU to read a Karen Barad paper before I ran the session with them and one woman remarked that while she enjoyed the paper she thought there was an irony that it took a so many words to explore the importance of matter over language. I think the mimicking in my practice relates to the idea of the decoy rather than metaphor - this seems to become more focused through the drawing. I use the term drawing in its broadest capacity but as it is very much part of my thinking and mapping I tend to think of drawing out and drawing from. As the corporeal becomes more central the drawing in becomes breath for me and the expectation or preparation that that evokes. I see decoy as a seduction rather than a truth. The objects are metaphorical and I have always named them as such but I am interested in the idea of decoy in two ways, first and most literally that some of the drawings I do try and replace the object but secondly, I think of decoy in relation to the spectator of the objects. My other text goes on to talk about the sceptic and the objects being seen as alchemic, or that they are drawn from a bag of tricks and that I (or the facilitator) can be seen as shaman or trickster. Then the decoy out shadows the potential metaphor. There is a sense of being duped. This is where the learning is thwarted through logic rather than true encounter. I need to unpack this further but there is something particular about the ‘dumbness’ of the decoy that fascinates me in opposition to the pedagogical art object. When a participant (usually 1 in every group) is reluctant, skeptical, scared of the potential uncertainties the objects throw up there is an intransience that develops and stops thought. I feel the objects beyond a connection point on the body, not just prosethically. equally I feel my teaching as an all embodied /disruptive /enhancing adaptions of other. The prosthetic s that are beyond compensatory become ‘enfleshments’ (Garoian 2013 P124) and more bodily vital than a literal prosthetic. They are embodiment's and materials. Massumi (2002, 217) speaks of the body as the ‘original prostheses’ so in this definition the ‘felt’ becomes more relevant. 'It is not enough to say that one is conscious of something. One is also conscious of something being something' Percy Geertz, 1973, p.215. Making meaning. p 16 Tansformative Dimensions of Adult Learning I think a phenomenological position is driving the questions around the process of habit, encounter and knowledge. In the London studio I was playing with the skin of the fender, the fullness of it left behind in the Norwich studio. I continue with this splitting, insides and out. The multi is preferenced over the singular even if I am on my own and not with a group. I have started to write about adsorb; a thin film on the outside surface or on internal surfaces within the material and how this relates to touch. I have difficulty with the word touch as it sounds of the museum or related to handling? This is why I am preoccupied with prosthetic as it states a more embodied encounter beyond touch and towards attachment . However adsorption seems to talk about an adhesion, adhesive attachment. I think there is a conversation between the sticking to you, a putting to, the attachment and extension of the object. A prosthetic object. I know it feels contradictory to the idea of embodiment that seems entangled and digested and it is contradictory but there is something there that interests me. I feel it is similar to the idea of decoy as a surface and metaphor as layered. The importance of the surface is preoccupying and I am thinking of the adaptive nature of matter and event. You might have to bear with me on this one as I unpick a bit more. Adhering and adhesive connections and identification. There is something about the sticking of adsorption rather than the swallowing of absorption….it is all body. Swallowing something whole may mean that it is indigestible, not understood or considered. I am playing with a tiny contact with something that is nearly the same. A layering of truth s within matter. Recognizing itself, oneself. Iterations of object, image and layer. In terms of learning processes I am thinking about the transformative steps, to open to yield to take on. I keep thinking of the balls being ball bearings rolling and anchoring. So there is always a object mooring. In supervision it was noted that this could be seen as another contradiction and that bail bearings are anchored by other objects rather than being anchors. I think it is the push and pull between states that I am preoccupied by. The objects I make are contradictions and that their resting place in the middle of the contradiction. Except that contradictions force one element to be wrong and the objects I make become right in their wrongness. Maybe it is more of a paradox. Maybe therefore I shift the meanings of objects/words/terms to their opposing ends. i.e. I am thinking of the small weight of the ball bearings, they roll, turn and then become like full stops when still. Their function is to reduce friction. Friction is defined as; the force that makes it difficult for one object to slide along the surface of another or to move through a liquid or gas: I like mooring, I often say anchor, so there is the navigational again. Moving between, anchored by another. A temporary stopping. floats, buffers, nautical, anchors. 'strata' Deluze Guattari.... p25 'from double navel to particel siign' Carnal Knowledge read differences between 'particle signs' and 'particle sign' deluze - konturri singular - plural I am currently object mapping. I am repeating and re- representing the same material, I am unraveling the objects contents, emptying them. This reconfiguration allows for a shift in the perception and identity of the objects so that their flux allows a multi layered interpretation to take place. The materials, matter become less fixed more transient in their readings. It turns the meanings and allows the truth of the object to be questioned. The experiences of a once known object are altered and become less significant, however their origins and the identification of these origins is crucial in gaining new readings. This is the original grasp. If a material, substance that we once recognized can be transformed then in its simplest form our thinking is transformed. The agency of the object is charged. This nudging from original state to new state opens possibilities that are buoyant and moving. It is also about the investment the participant has in each reading so that an object has a sense of repeatedly becoming. The possibilities that an object can be more than it was and that’s its identity is forged by the participant allows a joint agency between object and participant that is then transferred to the context they are within….cultural spaces. The objects allow a participant to conduct a new experience/ event by navigating with that object that they have filled with their interpretation around other objects, other spaces. These current repetitions are examples of these beginning stages of taking the objects away from their origins. Sometimes to think how they will be encounters you have to know them. How the materials start to unify or are incongruous and repelling each other. These images are about how the objecat can fit and what will form through the distilling of their making. As I operate some and they sit on my body or are activated through being lifted or grabbed or extended from me I see what they can do and what potentially provide or incite. The megaphone interests me being loud and silent and performing a demand. Muffled ideas finding a voice. There is a particular aspect of the trigger here is that it has no button, no push, no assertion of a physical impact. The shout is a custard seepage, it feels like a physical concrete swallow, spit or vomit. The double or twin. In the small yellow book 'are we human' notes on the archaeology of design Colomina and Wigley discuss the object/artifact as 'part of the body and the brain. They are thoughts'. Following supervisory comments I thought of the 'difference between the materialisation of thoughts and their emergence or incubation' mm I am seeing the objects as a materialized thought, or enabling emergent thoughts. Incubators seems to place the object with a function to retain many thoughts. I always thought of the objects we make having a patina of experiences and narrative that become inherent within the objects. Strata of meanings and interpretations. Materialization seems to talk of new thought/action manifested whereas emergent is already embryonically present? So, there are questions on what you draw from or what the objects provide. The objects can enable new thoughts related to themselves and their materials and surroundings and are equally be reminiscent of, related to something more personal, already known and thought but not voiced in the particular context? Is there a filing of the gap between body and brain with these purposeful objects? They are non human and human in their closeness and relationship. After discussing with a Lecturer in Creative Writing and Literature about the fable of the tortoise and the hare he spoke of the idea that the tale makes the animals more human, more understandable both different but the same. These reorganizations, to converge or split, links with Massumi's (2002 ) view of "continuity and discontinuity'. the objects can alter attention and not just slow but heighten responses. The encounter with the form, material, object is also pitched according to the types of material used. The language of the objects discussions shift dramatically depending on the materials own identity. If all the objects are weighty and hard the discussion are too and mirror the matter. In previous commissions, we (sorhed) have to sign contracts to replace and repair for up to 2 years any of the objects. This is because there has to be variants and differences in the physicality of the forms. One origami bird has been replaced about 7 times over the years but the gentle nature of the object forms similar gentle discussions and sensitive meeting points within the collection they operate in. I often talk of the speed of the objects reading, its temperature and its volume. These details in the making and choice of materials open levels of differing dialogues and connections. This is obvious yet the treatment of the matter is crucial to its potency. Rebecca Horn. Trunk 1967-69 Lygia Clark. Hand Dialogue 1966 to come back to |
Kimberley FosterKimberley's practice as an artist is pedagogical, it doesn’t just reference learning, it plays with, embodies and encourages learning at its core. The objects consider ideas of collaboration and authorship, discussions about touch and encounter, and bring into active consideration issues of learning within social and participatory practices. Archives
October 2018
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