Jan Sanders van Hemessen's The extraction of the stone of madness (1550-1555). Amy at Tate with two grasps ebay ear trumpet advert, as seen online next to manequinn hand
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How do I balance my understanding of encounter - agency and affect with the affordance that the material/object manifestation that I use or have - the specifics of their manufacture and their materiality. It matters. I am not offering an orange or a plank of wood, a ball of woo, or a cup in oder to enage aspects of art pedagogy....I am choosing honing in on, making, crafting the tools, the objects that are encountered. We are in the midst of all this stuff all the time, matter touching our skin, sharing spaces, filling our lives......inhabiting galleries, museums and academies, But what does it mean to choose, order, reorder, grasp from the multitude of possible stuff to make the specific and the particular. Is it to easy to say that this process is art. Is it really dependent on what the intention is for the re oredered stuff that I make. I invite others to use the reodered, we use it differently form the art work we see and interpret in the gallery - as it sits with us, moves in our hands and belongs temporarily to us.
I preoccupoed with what all of the terms I use/refer to so often actually do and mean, they can temporaily present themselves as right and wrong. the container and the contained. But I feel slippery like i want to slip them off my shoulders as they force their determination to claim territory or reason. What does the learning experience feel like? Amy
The learning experience is almost like gaining extra parts of a machine. I Imagine a complex engine managed by tiny workers who endlessly maintain and update the works. The machine is composed of cogs, springs, switches, chains and so forth, but so extensive and complex that some sections aren’t connected to the whole. Maybe the workers don’t know how to operate those parts, or maybe they have no conception of how those sections should look or what they might do. Indeed, sometimes the workers may not realise that certain things are part of the machine and have functionality. When the learning experience occurs it is as though the connections happen between these disparate parts. Sections that formerly worked independently, come together and in addition to their former tasks, they now do something else too and further, they inspire those tiny workers to remember or know, how to set another part of the machine that was previously baffling, into motion. When one encounters something new, engaging, but challenging (in a learning context), it is as though a new section of the machine appears. The new equipment is unfamiliar to the workers, they are initially unsure that they will ever be able to operate and integrate it. So a positive learning experience feels like an expansion and layering made up of multiple additions, an accumulation which continually generates new connections within itself. Does what you have described above suggest any particular materials? Iron and polished steel Does what you have described above suggest any particular objects? Lathe turned metal cogs wheels conveyor belts springs weights Mechanical parts that have to move. What does the learning experience feel like in terms of a temperature – tone – feel – weight – noise? It depends, sometimes its like running effortlessly in a good outside place with fresh smells, a pleasant breeze, springy ground and bright sun. There’s a sense of weight, but one that gives momentum. Occasionally it is much more akin to skidding, still not to heavy, but momentum without control or direction. And when learning is particularly difficult, it becomes the sense one has having fallen over. As you sit up and begin to stand, you are aware of pain and the effort required of having to lift to heavy a weight. If I return to my machine analogy there is smoothness and order, parts move relatively and responsively to each other, there’s sound rather than noise, not loud and without a regularity, discordant, but not unpleasant. |
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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