WORK 3

WORK 3: Art, How?

PROMPT

  

Sometimes making something leads to nothing

This week's project will allow you to continue working through the frustrations, inspirations and urgencies established through work2. 

At the core of Teddy's lecture will be 'how?' with a focus on process and methodology. In this next piece of work I challenge you to attempt the impossible, and document/diagram this process. Be over-ambitious, and attempt something you feel driven to do, something 'urgent' (in a personal, social or political sense) that is bound to fail by nature of its immensity, impracticability or scale.

This is not about solving a problem, but locating struggles. In Steve Fagin's terminology, you will be 'juggling elephants'.  

What happens if you stretch something to far? Ask too much? Spin too fine? What if something won't transform, can't translate?

One project shown in critique1 involved the production of a sculpture ('dream catcher') of extreme delicacy. Through presentation we were told that the first attempts failed to produce a material outcome because the structure was indeed too delicate and crumbled as a result. 

This draws our attention to the important point that 'immensity' and 'impossibility' exist in all sorts of scales and dimensions:

size (gigantic, miniature...)
behavior (obsessive, exhaustive...)

nature (ephemeral, fierce, evasive, paradoxical...) 

force (superhuman, transcendent, political, natural...)

time (fleeting, backwards, generational, geological...)

space (celestial, vacuous, vast, dense...) 

taboo (cannibalistic, incestuous, indigestible, incommunicable...) 

..etc, these are just suggestions. 

How to visualize process, phenomena? Because the focus here is on method and process rather than product (it's likely there won't be one!) documentation is paramount. pay great head to how you capture and communicate your actions. 

Documentation could include (but is not restricted to): 

- collecting, labeling and archiving debris

- note taking

- working sketches 

- diagramming

- video

- photography

- audio-recording

- fictional narrative

Work 3 and Abstract 3 are due in next weeks critique, Mon 13th and Wed 15th Feb. Please incorporate references and language from lecture (or growing 'dictionary of terms') in your abstract, relating your work to that of other artists/practitioners. 

Inspired by the UAG exhibition ‘Anomalia’ (visit required), How to visualize process, phenomena? Can the ‘information’ embedded on ‘something’ or ‘someone’ be material for art, a new language?