3 observations in landscape (ii)

bums... i made the mistake of writing post iii before post ii and inbetween the two i fell into the night stars, morning mist and a chestnut bud and thus disappeared momentarily.

but stars, mist and buds were all on queue for short and sweet observation on landscape (ii).

it concerns james turrell's minimalism of light and perception (as discussed in more length in an earlier post). two quotes stick in my mind from my web trawl even if the source didn't (sorry!).

quote 1 paraphrases as james turrell is one of the great romantics in his search for light in the (american) landscape.

quote 2 paraphrases as james turrell with his skyscapes and installations does want to take us back to the stone age.

out of this my observation (ii) arises:

a minimalism of form is required. only with this, the limitations of landscape can be transcended. such minimalism - if it works with light (and shade) and our perception of this - will be contemporary, as in the here and now (as indeed Turrell's work is). nature and our experience of this is one of presence not tradition.

is this romantic? is working with light and perception romantic? i wonder....

3 observations on landscape (i)

with all the work on portfolios it seems ages that i spent some time in landscape. assembling the material for the portfolios, demonstrating and providing a statement around these was very useful in surveying my 'fieldwork' as i indeed called the statement [reminder to self: rewrite and post this].

it however also made obvious that i am moving along something less painterly and more conceptual and 'other materially' than paint. some of my reservation about the genre of landscapism remain, remain and remain and need addressing in other means.

the three exhibitions i saw over the past week will serve as initial markers.

1. the return of landscape. akademie der kuenste, hanseatenweg, berlin

it draws knowingly on the romantics' constructions of landscape and the rich and varied and problematic nature (!) of germany's cultural history and its basis for geopolitics (be it it with prussia's colonisation of the east; or ns blood and soil politics and economics).

however, the main part of the exhibition is a juxtaposition of two cities (venice and las vegas) and their dependence on nature - water. so: landscape becomes the domain of landscape planners to struggle with issues over sustainability amongst capitalist thirst for land and expansion. the imagery that dominates are those of aerial photography of landscape patterns - nature/cultivation/destruction, the main slide show made up of images by alex s maclean. a third part of the exhibition shows various landscape projects, their master plans and details to manage sustainability.

in this, the exhibition is limited: it's limited to the act of planning for sustainability and the belief that a plan will solve a problem. though my own professional background has always been situated in close proximity to the 'belief in a plan', i find this increasingly tiresome and mis-placed. mis-placed also if we consider the power of aerial photography without social practice, without people. to assume that patterns from high above reveal the groundwork. - the photography of bernd and hilla becher marks the precendent of a rich tradition of photography of human activity and the outcome of these with the agents being absent. rich by absence and stillness. photography always freezes activity in stillness. and nonetheless, it's probably one of its biggest problems.

the piece that really caught me, was - possibly unsurprisingly - a video by the canadian documentary film maker peter mettler. his documentary on the destruction by open pit oil production, petropolis (canada, 2009, 43min), visit the site for the film here.

again: it's aerial imagery. yet, this destruction through the tar sands is narrated by mettler. he tells the viewer how his requests to visit the fields was refused again and again so that flying over the fields was the only way of getting access and of being able to document; he talks about the first experiments of flying and much more. thus he makes an imagery thoroughly part of this world and the relations that make petropolis possible.

mettler's film is one of three shown on the side of a large field of illuminated boxes which show quotes concerned with landscape from throughout (German-speaking) history.

landscape text panels, illuminated, wiederkehr der landschaft, adk, berlin

two I noted down.

ich hatte einst ein schönes vaterland
so sang der flüchtling heine,
das seine stand am rheine,
das meine auf dem märkischen sand.
wir alle hatten einst ein (siehe oben).
das fraß die pest, das ist im sturz zerstoben.
o rößlein auf der heide
dich brach die kraftdurchfreude. (mascha kaleko, 1907-1975)

i once had a beautiful fatherland
so sung the refugee heine
his stood next to the rhine
mine on the markian sands.
we all once had one (see above).
it got devoured by pestulence, it broke apart in its fall.
oh little rose on the heath
you were broken by strengththroughjoy.

allmählich entdeckte sie neue linien im gesicht der landschaft. ackerflächen, deren grenzen in einem anderen winkel zum horizont verliefen als die uralten grabenrunzeln der erde früherer zeit. so schnell prägten die neuen züge sich nicht in die gesichter der erde. (christa wolf, *1929)

slowly she discovered new lines in the face of the landscape. fields whose boundaries were running in different angles to the horizon than the ancient furrow marks of the earth of previous times. it wouldn't be that quick for the new contours to settle in the faces of the earth.

thus, my first observation:
 
while nature is never outside from what people experience and engage with (i.e., nature cannot be external to people... unspoilt or otherwise), considering nature outside of landscape is a necessary opening to get beyond the landscape genre and its conventions.

this is likely to require radically different means to the framed picture plane and conventions of landscape compositions in painting.

it's probably not by chance that these reconsiderations of nature hit me as i'm about to engulf myself in a week of facilitation training inspired by deep ecology and sustainability. it's a reconsideration that i avoided for a decade or more. so, i think it's high time. hello dartmoor, hello permaculture.

in light

there is (no) matter.

this one - like bethan huws - was in my diary since december. and with attempt number three, i not only saw the matter that light makes, but so did my parents.

before we arrived, we laughed at the arrogant marketing that the City of Wolfsburg - Hitler's car city where the Beetle was first mass-produced - was of course with the Turrell's Wolfsburg Project the site of Turrell's largest installation in an exhibition space:

the main installation, Bridget's Bardo is a ganzfeld piece of two spaces that merge from one into the other: the viewing and the sensing space, separated by a sensor, you must not step into the viewing space. light changes and all the while you sense the view and wonder what that space is in front of you, a wall, a cube or simply nothing in colours that change as the light changes.

and you wonder and wonder. the separating between viewing and sensing space are sharp corners in space. but behind or in front of the planes become depths and you see nothing but colour. all around you and in so doing colour becomes you.

at the back of the installations are two rectangles, one at the top where the bridge lead down, one at the bottom where steps lead down to the floor below. of distinct and separate colour they appear as planes again, not as openings.

small groups of people spend ten minutes as light and are encouraged to go again, as many do. second time round i begin to see some shadows, not on the walls nor ceiling, but on the floor, looking back into the piece.

how crucial shadows are in helping you orientate yourself and to grasp dimensions, forward and backward and upright.

how do you mark light in the absence of shadows and spatial demarcations with any thing other than that pure light?

what form has fog and nothing than the absence of form?

the exhibition continues with some smaller installations, one (milk run iii, a spectral wedgework, 2002) operating in darkness with dark orange light and your perception as it plays a myriad of tricks on you; and plenty of illustrations of the roden crater project and some large scale aquatints Turrell made with experiments of light deprivation and selective openings of panels in the mendota hotel in california. here, the light modelled geometric objects which he captures on the aquatints. i found a link with images of this aquatint series, First Light (1989-90) at this site here.

and i thought i'd add this video here too: about another skyspace and roden crater. enjoy!

she giggles

no, actually, she is gasping. in disbelief.

'no life choices?!' - how do they dare! no, i reply: no live choices. there is no choice that can be made at the moment. what was a choice (live or life) is now merely looking back at me with an 'unsuccessful'.

i grin and giggle at her 'no life choices'. bureaucratic software that blinks back to you with 'no life choices'.

there is so much more to be explored about technology, transmission of success and failure in the contemporary person- and career-making bubble.

one door opened, it now closed. let's look at the other life choices and spend more time on plans b-d. bye bye glasgow school of art.

vorfreude

... happy anticipation.

it's been in my diary for months now, and after seeing singing to the sea by bethan huws, i'm very much looking forward to an afternoon among text, crosswords, installations and a bit of video.

bethan huws il est comme un saint dans sa niche: il ne bouge pas, kestner gesellschaft, hannover 

hehehe, and with such an announcement i am creating a bit of zugzwang* for myself to write about it afterwards.

*being forced to make a move, usually metaphorically

it's done.

no, not the long overdue drawing assignment 1 but the final one of the three portfolios that so definitely have gotten in the way of markmaking exercises. it arrived safely with my for only a £9 surcharge on the plane and it's unwrapped and photographed (albeit the latter poorly). the forms are filled in and the particular form of german cv writing adhered to (i hope!).

it's been a strange kind of process: sifting through, ordering and framing on a1 board 2+ years of artwork and thus objectifying it, framing it by a narrative of development while letting some (or many?) of the openings shine through.

it made it a lot clearer for me what kind of development process a degree course in fine art is. and what it is not. i have been pondering the statement of 'having a too developed portfolio' and the context of a mature, though self-trained' style. it's stuff i've come across over the three years of reading and following other blogs while feeling my way along with my own and my own art practice.

i'm glad that mine is framed at the moment by an a1 portfolio. feels fitting to where i am. i hope they'll see that in the same way.

here's the slides:

and now to more light and shade and the many gradations inbetween.

Eldon Group Show 2010

amidst all else, here's final a draft flier for the Eldon Group show 2010. While the group composition is in a bit of flux and may change, the opening preview is set.
Saturday 1 May, 11am - 1pm,
St Andrew's Gallery, University of Glasgow.

All else on this flier

not quite random

...for the weekend. and after.

portfolio week

... is now. with a grin on my face i'm mounting this and that. pulling another folder out out of the depth of 'underneath my bed' or 'behind my wardrobe'. oh, yes... i should have another drawing of this. somewhere. (there have been plenty of 'portfolio days' over the past few months but now we're approaching physical handover day on friday).

portfolio making is curating. in an a1 bookformat. as such it is intriguing: to observe the juxtaposition of disparate pieces in approach but in similar palette; to place next to each other sketchbook pages and a relief print from some time later as the latest development of a sketch. and to see and acknowledge the sheer amount of labour that has gone into this - visible and invisible - over the years. as well as the threads, lines of inquiry and departures across a variety of media and approaches.

a pair of fresh eyes, hands and thoughts and the resultant placing of sheets next to each other makes all the difference. thank you, l! though i know that you don't really see the point of painting ;)

this one is one of the sheets. the collagraph at the bottom was the result of my printmaking before christmas. i still need to retry the transfer process, have indeed already sanded the plate down a bit further, and want to try on coloured paper. but placed beside the flattest of flat relief print it starts talking in unanticipated ways. keep it up, i think. i'll be listening. or should that be watching?

Procedural drawing

in resonance with some of my drawing and markmaking sketches, i was intrigued by vivien's post on a javascript-based online drawing too, mr doob's harmony.
most of my uses of photoshop are to do with precisely that: shopping photos and not all that much more. with perseverance i can produce a map, a layer mask or similar but that's all a far cry from using it as a drawing and painting tool.
i have brushes on my iphone but find that if i fancy a sketch i rather take out the sketchbook than the phone.
but with the harmony surface, and it's limited yet rather complex brush tools, drawing at the computer becomes something different: it's rendering, the shades and lines build up in interesting, and in some of the tools complex manner.



have a look for yourself, here

Planning discoveries

I am currently working on the final assignment for the printmaking course. The project involves a monoprint plus relief print.

Part of the instructions reads as follows:

Begin by preparing several sketches and ideas in your sketchbook where you combine colour schemes, line drawings and designs. These will help you establish and decide on a final idea. Good preparation is always essential when preparing a new project. Do not be afraid to try different colour schemes using watercolours, inks or coloured pens and pencils. [OCA, Printmaking 1, p. 172]

Most of my print designs have originated so far from sketches done here and elsewhere, ideas captured as I come across and later referred back to. So, yes, there is a definite use for the sketchbook. But as far as the printmaking process is concerned, I have a hunch that the use of drawing media becomes somewhat limited. I think what I'm trying to grapple with is the sentence that

Good preparation is always essential when preparing a new project.

I fully agree. Agree on the basis that this is true when preparation is understood to be wider than the use of drawings in sketchbooks. Thus, preparation for the printmaking involves: printmaking. The making of a variety of marks, colour schemes, overprinting, wiping out on paper, different formats and different pressures when pulling the print.

To me it seems that the use of colour schemes is also limited when explored in sketchbooks. The property of the printing inks cannot be replicated through w/c, coloured pencils or acrylic ink; so, any sketchbook work is very preliminary.

For this project, I decided to prepare practically - by printmaking - rather than other media sketching/drawing. And in doing so, working my way through the various stages and its design/material/composition decisions that it required and how these related to the idea of an image I had in mind.

Starting point: The image in mind is one of a a series of very ripe cornfields in a late summer sun, somewhere along the Ruta 5, south of Santiago, Chile. A series of rather minimalist lines of the field patterns and some photos I took have been calling me persistently to do something with and the monotype seems a perfect opportunity.



Stage one: Preparing a ground for a monotype. I'm after a high chroma orange background to set the tone of the overall print. I'd like it to be densely build-up itself, before I begin with the monoprint itself. My first idea is to use a board of polystyrene and ink it up: first in hansa yellow, then in hansa yellow with a tiny bit of naphtol red. These two layers are done quickly. They dry with a heavy bumpy texture and form the base for more overprinting.

Stage two: Orange lines. I am experimenting with a darker orange/ red to overprint; trying out if I can cover the previous printing fully, partially, lightly. At some point I begin to scratch marks into in to: lifting ink with the palette knife.

 

Monotype, two layers polystyrene, one perspex plate, 20x20cm

And, I am ending up with beautifully thin lines. The plate, despite vigirous rubbing doesn't transfer strongly at all (probably because of the strong texture off the polystyrene layer), thus, the distinction between covered/uncovered orange areas is hardly discernible. What is however visible are these long, rather elegant lines where the ink assembled on the plate.

I think I have my lines for the monotype. I am unsure about the polystyrene effect though. It seems rather strong. It's very intriguing in itself, but possibly not for the design.

Planning: a process of experimentation and discovery. This can be done in a planned, systematic way. But I know that for my own working process, it needs to be step-by-step. Now, I may go back to the sketchbook to continue with the next stage.

There are some more prints that followed on from this discovery over at my other blog.

bliss in three bags yellow to crunchy

 

raisins, dates and crunchy caramelised nuts on my kitchen counter via jerusalem's old town

thank you!