I want to address the idea I have of using sculptures in my videos I want to involve using objects unaltered as well as sculptures I make in work to make sculpture installations for my work. I wanna play around with the incorporation of the discipline to show a significance of the object for example the box in Mulholland Drive, the rock in Uncut Gems and the Key in meshes of the afternoon, to me are these sculptural objects that create the aura of the films little objects that become centre pieces even though the creators of these films might not see these as sculptural exactly I want to take the importance of objects like these and manipulate the audience in to being drawn to them why are they important and what can they be away from the film.
I think my current way of working came to fruition, when I was coming home late one night walking through my estate I started to notice these bollards everywhere. They were broken and continue to flash for 24hrs a day.
I started to reflect on them and how in a place that seems to in constant decline, the only continuous thing are these flashing bollards, which I started to relate to the idea of subverting the non-place.
The main bollards that took interest to me were these two in-between a roundabout that illuminate the road leading up to them.
I started making notes on how I’d like the video to look relating to my feelings to Harlow being a non-place and these flashing bollards lights connecting it.
I went out and took some test footage trying to get the road as empty as possible.
This is the test footage I wanted to work out the distance from the bollard to frame the atmosphere I wanted to capture.
Once I decided on that I started to think about presentation I decided the best way to take this work further was to get a bollard and project back on to it.
So the set up became
one projector showing the final piece
a second projector flashing the piece which had been turned in a strobe back on to a bollard separated by a piece of fabric.
I chose the fabric as I wanted the work to be show on something textural and have the juxtaposition of something physical and rough shown on something soft.
lastly I created the sound recording the street and the road and creating a drone sound to play with the feeling of anxiety and make the bollard of the film after a while start to not seem like a bollard anymore.
The bollard to me was important to create sculptural film, my definition of this is taking things not considered as sculptures and turning them into sculptures without changing the form of the object which is something that is becoming more imprinted in my practice as I explore other disciplines.
The final piece with the projection illuminating behind it
the bollard that was presented as a sculpture
How it links to the Idea of the none-place?
If the non-place is described as a place thats not there, a place with no identity or history what happens to a place that loose its identity and forgets it history this is what I explain through my work is what is happening to small towns from my experience moving home a place that doesn’t want to move comfortably in its own decline.
Which is why I filmed this this strip of road a beam of light flashing until it ceases to be anything at all a continuous flashing light albeit being broken they seem to be the only thing thats existing and not in a decline.
Recently I started looking at myself within my work looking at how my practice works within the space of myself and stripping everything back to get an authentic way of making work this is a way I have been working in the last year. Creating work that play on the way I have been feeling displayed with anxiety in the theme of place and space to try and related myself within the piece to the audience instead of making work that is directly made for a specific audience.
Every day feels like a Sunday
Above was work from the start of my new way of working about anxieties of being stuck in a place you no longer want to be, creating this warped view of a city that no longer felt the same and I wanted to show the audience this and how it was making me feel to be lost living in a deja vu like state and this was the best way to express that within video looking at people committed to their routines.
Three Swords, a flag
Here in this work i continued the process moving back to Essex and wanting to make something new I was looking towards sculpture looking at my identity not just as Essex artist but somebody who has grown up their it felt as if the part I knew had lost its identity so I sculpted and reconstructed the flag and separated the objects from the back ground and presented them in a museum like environment to show the lost ideas being locked up in a cabinet
I’ve been thinking about the people within a place relating to my last post if we are living in non-places neglected by the people in charge what becomes of the places inhabitants.
Living in a Essex new town built on scholiast values what does it look like under austerity and what are the people are like baring in mind nobody is actually from here unless they worked and lived on the farm land before construction of the town.
I feel like there was and still is to an extent a strong nihilistic attitude in places like this but I think we are coming to a place of post nihilism its like people care don’t care so much they are starting to care again.
But are they caring about the right thing?
The mood seems to be Brexit the thing that people can’t stop talking about for the last 4 or so years but to me it hasn’t ever really felt like a real thing a way to disguise other problems like the rise of foodbanks, racism and a war on the working class.
This where I feel with art works there became an over satiation on Brexit art works it felt like an easy subject to make work of and even myself accidentally made work that could have been listed as “Brexit work” it felt like artists would disregard what they were doing before and their practice to make Brexit work which wouldn’t make a much of a statement it was normally them saying “I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
But that period that seems to becoming to an end now did one thing for me it made me look at my practice and myself and think more about what it means to be an artist and made me look at myself through my practice and ask the question am I being true to myself? and is my work a good authentic representation of myself?
which id one of the best things that could of ever happened because I had to flesh out who I am as an artist and I think that helped my work and made me look at things in a much better way.
Looking at Marc Auge’s idea of the Non-place, and addapting it into my practice I want to explore how capitalism has created harsh living conditions and a state of uncomfortability in day to day life.
Zero hour contracts, underpaid overworked workers, rising housing prices and the deconstruction of peoples worth to help the oppression of minorities and the working classes through their need to provide being manipulated.
I want to take place in account the furtherest I can stretch it.
Harlow New Town turned 70 years old last year a Utopia built for working class families leaving London, inspired by art with its sculpture tour and a place created as an affordable place to live and work.
In the 70 years the identity has long gone expensive new builds and a lack of interest has turned Harlow in a commuter town which creates this Non-Place atmosphere a place that feels like it has no identity, no future and nothing to say.
