Exhibition

The exhibition took a large amount of planning on my part Though I don't think you can actually tell :( 


The plans did change quite a bit from the earlier post I made about my initial thoughts, My piece now named "Bank Statement" consists of:




-A map, which documents where my "deposit boxes" are.
-Hand outs containing an essay on currency and a number which refers to the map.
- Several "deposit boxes" containing swapped items which were placed throughout Manchester.
_ Several "deposit boxes" containing personal letters and documents which were also placed around the city center. 
- Logbooks which were at the exhibition and documented all the swaps taken place during the project.  
- An artist book made up of train tickets and receipts, which is aptly called train tickets and receipts :) 




I would have inserted photographs here but you can see everything in the exhibtion and you will have to take my word for the "deposit boxes" unless your willing to seek them out yourselves :) 


The boxes will be re-collected next week if any of them are still there, I placed one on Oxford Road near the BBC building on my way into the center, walking back down again about a half hour later and it had already gone  :(. If I every decided to make a piece of work based on a social experiment which relies on the goodwill of the general public then I will have to think of a way to secure my items to the floor -_-






My installation invited the audience to participate, though now that I look back at it there isn't any way for the audience to really know what to do, not any formal instructions, but then again I didn't feel the need to wright out instructions, If a person reads the artist statement then they should know pretty much instantly what the work is about, although I like the idea of being subtle I don't believe anyone would participate unless I actually commanded them to.


I do think that as a whole the exhibition went well we did have a few upsets and arguements about the painting situation which was eventually solved with some rebeling...
One of the third years told me that the first year exhibition tells a person who they can work with, weather it's literally just getting along, or artwork wise, Your pieces work well alongside X's pieces, he said it helps for your second year when you have to hold an external exhibition, I think I managed to take that advice well I've finally forged a relationshi[ with some of the painting students and realised my work is better with other people. So yea, all in all it was an educational experience. 














  

Thomas Kilpper

Thomas Kilpper is one the atrists I have been given to research :) 

Thomas Kilpper has, throughout his career, engaged history and the public sphere with artistic interventions that reveal hidden or obscured political and social significances. He works with local neighborhoods and people’s stories, using his research to create a picture of a history more complicated than official lines. He conceives his works as installation or performance to develop the large-scale visibility that provokes public dialogue. With many of his print projects, his carving in situ is a model of literal resistance; Kilpper works with teams of assistants, using heavy tools to coax images from wood and then making very large prints that achieve this public scale. His work expands political dialogue, not only to include previously excluded voices at a local level but also to integrate these stories into an international history of resistance and work for justice.

Kilpper first came to international prominence through his project The Ring a woodcut carved from the parquet flooring of Orbit House in South London which took Printmaking onto a new level of monumentality. He has subsequently developed a direct use of Printmaking to continue his engagement with political and social issues as dramatically evidenced in State of Control 2009 when he used the linoleum floor of the offices of the former GDR Ministry for State Security in formerly East Berlin to produce a vast lino print covering 1000sq meters, taking as its subject the history of surveillance.

Items swapped

These are all items swapped during my project some of them are third or even fourth swaps from original items from the shop. I'm not exactly sure if all the photographs are on here but there is deffinately a copy of them in my logbook at the exhibition 

Gillian Wearing. 

Wearing is known mostly for her "Signs that say what you want them to say, not signs that say what someone else wants you to say." (1992-92) Wearing has acknowledged the influence of 1970s English fly-on-the-wall documentaries such as Michael Apted's 7-Up, and many of her works have a similar concern with discovering details about individuals. 

She has said -

   "I'm always trying to find ways of discovering new things about people, and in the process discover more about myself."

Her films and photographs explore our public personas and private lives, this turner prize winner's portraits and mini-dramas reveal a paradox, given the chance to dress up, put on a mask or act out a role, the liberation of anonymity allows us to be more truly ourselves.

Her work explores the differences between public and private life, the individual and society, voyeurism and exhibitionism, and fiction and fact.  She has described her method as-

"Editing Life"

Shortly after graduating from Goldsmiths College, Wearing began Signs That Say What You Want Them to Say and Not Signs That Say What Someone Else Wants You to Say (1992–93). To produce this series of some six hundred color photographs, she approached people on the streets of London, requested that they write a sentence or phrase on a piece of paper, and then photographed them displaying their thoughts.  

My work was ifluenced by Wearing right off of the block, that she wants to know about people, or she is just nosy to some degree. My work wanted peoples opinions, though after a meagre turn out with my thoughts box I have decided that I want to be a bit more full on with the public but leave the idea of annonimity. Though it would have been dreadfully simple to "copy" Wearing well known work I have wanted to be subtle in taking from it. I love her work, always been a fan it talks about the little man, or rather the little man talks. She has done much work about "heroes" for example a hoodie who is actually a young police cadet or a women who helped at 9/11. 

It was just a quick one :) 

I've been thinking about my exhibition.. We have an exhibition to put on at the end of the project, though it is in the studio I need to figure out a way pf showing my work clearly so people can understand what I have achieved. 
    Because I have been mapping the places of my swaps I obviously have a giant map, I was thinking of something like a police board...? I attempted to find an image but you will have to use your imagination; imagine csi for example when there in the board room putting all the clues and suspects togethor, right? well they stick all there information onto a giant board and draw lines of attachment between people and places etc. Hopefully you understand I wouldn't blame you if you didnt though :) I will upload a sketch or somehting hopefully that WILL work.




It was just a quick one btw :)

TUTORIAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes they can be helpful :D

I had a tutorial with Mr Kit Craig, we spoke about my experiments talked about Gillian Wearing, and also spoke about the other ideas I had. One of them being If I were to, like Gonzalez-Torres, have maybe a bowl/ container of individual sweets I would set them up so people would just take them slowly disintegrating the piece....but then what ? Is what he asked me.








I don't know.....




After that we chatted about how I could take that idea further and together we discussed the idea of a POP-UP shop, where instead of me just straight up giving things away I would trade or swap for items from the public. Originally the idea was that I would set up a sweet shop in my studio space, but in my opinion no one is ever in the studio so I took it upstairs into the Holden Café. 

I set up my shop from 11am till 1pm bought several big bags of sweets and played shop :). 



The response was slow, it felt as if I was intimidating people to much so they wouldn't come close enough to know what was going on. Eventually people started to play along, instead of sitting and waiting I began taking my goods to other people and explain my situation as often as possible. Once people realised I wasn't there to poison them or anything they were much happier to participate. I had an amazing response and managed to trade around 50 items :)
 There are photographs of each and every item and a logbook of the trades but for some reason I cannot upload images from my computer :(.


These items are very very very important, they are the backbone of my work at this moment in time. For every item recieve I will create a piece of work around it. 


My idea is that I will take these items and trade them around the city of Manchester as much as I can, some items will be untradeable for example the reciepts and train tickets I don't believe I will get anywhere with them so I will create something out of them :).

Ideas 1-3.

I was hit by inspiration during our first meeting and instantly went off and did something. I'm interested in what people have to say, what they hold dear etc. I made a crude "suggestion" box which I adorned with "How are you feeling today?" and left it in a public area with pencil and paper for people to reply.
    After a week I received an adequate amount of responses, some were quite upsetting stating that they "hated themselves," or "they weren't happy because..." alongside these there were also a lot where people had just taken the piss. Although I feel optimistic about my bodge job piece I really can't think how I can take it any further, what can I actually do with what people have said? Other than the obvious Gilian Wearing style photos.

2. Alongside a fellow student I went around the woods where I live and painted trees :) We decided to do this after my friend wallpapered the subway near her house, in doing this we "disrupted" our setting by painting white bands around trees within close proximity of each other.

Obviously this is not what my friend and I achieved, although it was the intention when we set out to do. Our intervention of the environment was a littler subtler, we painted white stripes which were 5" wide around the trunks of trees. Due to the nature of this we were forced to do it in the dark, which in turn meant that all the photos turned out shit.


3.My third experiment relates back to my first, I am interested in what people have to say. I decided to cover tables in a café with paper and invited the customers to draw/doodle/wright etc. Unfortunately the paper I put down was taken and binned by the café and I didn't try again because I now have to start my main project.