I can see the page and fill it with words, I can speak of encounters and the interventions that objects made when catapulted through their actions into spaces already filled with other stuff. However the page can limit me or at least tidy up the collapse of environments . So I return to drawing, to images that themselves play with the space of the page and alter a reading a perception. I need to see it and feel it again beyond a conceptualising that can distance me from the action. Bu cutting through the paper, pinching it and pushing though the portholes with other images I remember and reloacte the actions, in the page itself. The needle might punture the paper with thread and weave back and forth, maing a line having a plan. But this is physical and embedded. THINGS need to exist and dance on the page, the room the gallery and I worry that my words on the page will remian untouched, still and staining the paper but not as a force ful materail event. However thinking of embodied writing where we are in a process through the text/ the words then I see all the actions as observent . They are all observations ..
A week after the day at Tate, Jo contacted me again, she said that this last visit had been so different 'when we first went to tate it was though we just put things next to things and saw what happened but I have a very different feeling now. My object has changed things - it was a incendiary device when we were there. I was compelled by it. Now I feel that there are so many things I am thinking about , things I need to do and make that allow me to touch the work and connect with the space.'
This was clear to see by her complete cofidence to be with the work, activate everything through her object and they led each other through the experience. She was interaccting with staff and visitors and they viewed her object and talked to her about it - I was not in this equation. When asked if the object was hers - she said it was and that it helped her see the work. This wasn't part of my research project, she was not a participant, the object was no longer connected to me and maybe Jo wasnt either. She had set sail with her paddle and rather than being adrift, drowning occassionally, or out of her depth she was navigating and setting the route. The need to connect to the work exhibited has become heightened now for all involved - it as though as Jo had commented 'they need to complete the circuit'. I am reminded of the saying of 'being in touching distance' of something and as we roam these spaces the gap between us and the exhibits closens or is closed by the participants actions. I discuss that there are needs for this connection on different levels and that we have to be aware of the ease of an aesthetic choice, a form recognition or exact material repeat. This is not to say that these connections don't take place but they are done with care and thought. The image above which seems to have become a ocean liner was an image that the group grabbed and took for themsleves, lying across the floor making us or them beleve the join. Visitors peered over their shoulders and they lined up the photograph, a small lie maybe but the connection would be made even if through a visual trickery. In fact the more that the group work in the space the more the tricks and playfulness make sense. they claim a territory of new connections building almost a new space , an alternative to the untouchable one presented. 'It isn't about any of this work anymore' one of them commented, 'it just isn't as important'. This postion doesn't close off the experience of the gallery spaces but it does close a gap between us and them, this and that. The idea of attention has become so important to me, a close attentiveness, of thought- of action -of material. This is all active and physical - i feel it. I feel the tension of the group moving and doing in the spaces at Tate, i am now more uncomfortable than them. We are all attending to the context and how we fill and see it. They are not redundant or passive in this space - far from it - they are materially grounded and at times rate the objects and ingredients that I bring for them in order to see which is most resonant -most ready.
When Lloyd arrived and we sat in the space he said ' I realise that I am holding my object and I am rubbing the surface of the wood as though charging it - so it is ready'. so this goes back to much earlier thinking that these objects have a function and that function enables the connection to take place. Knorr Certina discusses how the epistemic object works because it is never complete and therefore these/my/their objects are not complete until the actions, other artworks, people complete them. They contect to complete and that is the pull. I am really intersted in how the hand that is through the sleeve and through the paper lays there passive as it is pointed at and touched as though it is an object beyond the body and not belonging to Sophie. However their is a tenderness in the slight touch that she makes on her own hand. Whilst they are discussing the image and whether it makes a difference i was so conscious of the hands being in and out of the picture, of the event. This is a gentle example of how they are connecting with otherness - other objects -other thoughts -other materials other people, everything becomes - emerges as part of everything else, the boundary of the watercolour paper presnets Sophie's own hand back to her so that it is the same but altered and charged differently. When she touches her own hand as though an object it makes a circle of an experience through her body and through the small hurdle or intervention of my object and sleeve.
They put the sleeves on and joined themselves together, remarking how intimate it felt as they held hands or their fingers touched withi the sleeve. They just kept them on their arms and started to talk about their actions, being in the space and as they spoke I became aware of people watching them and how large an area we were taking up in the space. Jo, lloyd and Sophie were comfortable and fluid. the sleeves made their conversation different, their arms tugged even if only one of them was talking. They had formed a space in the space and their objects and belongings sat inside. They talked about the stitiches and the importance that the objects had been made, it was interesting to hear them say that they were irritated by the climbing wall grasps 'you just ordered these and bought them online' Lloyd had remarked, it wasn't enough. This was something that reminded me of James when he said that the white grasps with thimbles in were not one of my real objects. There was a sense that I needed to make a material effort, they needed to feel my making and that in that making the intention and attention would be seen and valued and understood. However the climbing wall grasps were being compared to the red clay handful (very similar to the object james had said was too simple in terms of what he knew my objects could be) now they grasps were more relevant than the manufactured objects. Howvere when they were sen through the rubber ring they changed, and the group commented that now they were OK , more important, better, fitting, more valuable. They disscussed how they were sewn through the rubber and that they connected beyond the surface but through to the other side - puctured - again. With this realisation lloyd lifted the rubber ring and blew to inflate it and as it teporarily filled with air it also slowly emptied.
Within the gallery the individuals puncture the space not with violence but with intent. They move differently, look differently and act out -play up amongst the other things.
They become the stitches and connect with work and the building with others - with an awareness that they might be connecting differently than assumed. They extend a few centimeters more than they should, their voice maybe a decibel louder, their actions a little more exaggerated. They heat up the space and fill it even if outnumbered by others -they matter in the space - they are more than present, they inhabit and claim. The stitches map across a space show the movement of the other side. They are the underside - quiet mapping that leaves a resonating mark in the space - I see it and feel it as I observe - and they hover and land. The territory is fleetingly theirs although no one else is aware of that, they claim the space and move on, a little like a dog who might wee on a tree - a bin - a patch of land and name that territory as theirs - or at least that they have been there already. The stitch is equally a puncture and a bind. It mends and produces something new as it creates tiny potholes in the page. A connection of sorts. Interestingly this links directly to the double sleeve - which allowed Jo the ability to push her hand through the image through the gallery, through the space of the drawing. As Jo discussed the sleeve/drawing on her arm she became more physical-she stood up, moved her arm and kicked towards the boundary around the sculpture in front of her. She was reaching through the object but the objects was a conduit - a method of thinking and enabled her actions to be valid, meaningful - licensed. The object gave her permission to become an exaggerated version of herself, like a puppet and puppeteer in one encounter. It seems relevant that Deleuze and Guattari play with the analogy of puppeteer and puppet within their writing (1987) Howver here it felt as though Jo was herself both the object played her and she played it and so the exchange became seamless and rather than puppets THEY (jo and the object) became an instrumnet all of their own. Possibly musical. |
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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