The meaning behind the experiment.

I think our work tends to have quite a broad appeal, the ways that we find to present our ideas tend to be quite unusual and visually engaging but importantly they also spike interest with people like Jo Melvin, Charlotte Cotton and Gothard and that's probably because they have a different background to our other visitors / audience, they are more familiar with 'art' issues / practice and perhaps have more appreciation or awareness of the underlying concepts and / or processes (like documentation).

I think, like a lot of art, our work is finding a way to look at and confront human ideas. With Existere I feel that our decision not to photograph really contributed to the experience of the piece. One of the first things that visitors were instructed before entering the space was that they were not allowed to use photography or video. It is an interesting challenge to face and I think represents a human struggle between our instinct to hold on to moments versus certain change. There are lots of interesting questions that come out of this for instance: why we experience this compulsion to record and capture what can not be captured? Perhaps it adds to the meaning of what we are doing. I wonder what this meaning represents and what motivates it?

This is something I would be interested in looking at more closely: The questionable border where control ends and uncertainty begins and how that border is treated - sensitively or as a battleground. I found Barry Flannagan's work quite interesting in that respect, how he used certain malleable materials like hessian and sand that might be affected by external forces. He must have been very aware of his own control over the work and at which point he felt happy letting go.

Collaboration is a subject that we have looked at quite intensely and I wonder if it is something that we specifically want to focus on again. I think collaboration is a useful tool which is something that we employed on Existere, are we talking about it as a possible subject or a tool?

I'm not sure what aspect of 'chance' you are interested in. It is such a broad subject in a similar way that 'Failure and Success' were, it's so broad it's virtually meaningless. But I do think it has some kind of connection to what we have done in our work already, in dealing with uncertainty. Maybe this is where our thoughts have a connection? Perhaps it is in this grey, undefined area you call chance, where I wonder where control and uncertainty draw their border lines, how they tussle for parity and what that means.

I think it's a good idea to treat Brighton, if we do it, as an experimental opportunity but I guess we just need to agree on the idea behind the experiment.

Thought this article about Duchamp was interesting. It's about chance, which I always found a fascinating topic, especially because of Dada. In a way Dada was so much about performance and collaboration, quite a good place for us to look...

http://attentionwithoutame.blogspot.com/2008/07/canned-chance-escape-from-taste.htm

In terms what Jon said about trying to find an idea to work on I realised I am interested in three topics.

collaboration/ connection

chance

the home

Brighton

I needed to remind myself what Guy wrote:

"I suggested an event (perhaps 2 events?) based around the idea of performance and photography and said I would begin to discuss this with you all."

The way you interacted with the theme in Exercises in Failure and with the place in Existere (Testbed1) was really effective, and I wonder if this can be brought to bear, if you make new work, in Brighton."

It's interesting that we have been talking about Hockney and also Richter and the relationships between photography and performance for some time now.

The trouble with Brighton is coming up with an idea quickly, we usually want to take our time. I think we feel under pressure to produce something spectacular but perhaps we need to get this out of our heads and use the opportunity as a further testing ground, or something which is we would simply enjoy doing.

The way people take photographs and also the waythey view them in galleries are in some ways both performative acts. It's interesting that we started producing work for the camera. And when we did this the way we have taken photographs has usually been completly ridiculous (think of the ice pic, the little plastic elephant, the white elephant etc). We forbid people taking photographs of our last perfromance. One thing we haven't done is observe how people look at photographs, or works of art.

There has been quite a lot of photographs of people looking at work, for example Thomas Struth work of people looking at painting in Museums. It could be interesting setting up a performance on people viewing work - based on observations and statistics. We could expand on this, for example manipulate the statistics and hence the way move around the work in the pefromance...

I enjoyed reading the interview with Hockney, thanks for passing it on.

The debates about photography and its relationship to truth, reality and representation are not new, a lot has been written. However, there is indeed a lot of theory but as far as I know there is not much practical work about it. Both Hockney and Richter's work seems to be an open debate about the relationship of these different mediums and in effect about human perception. They both have a very individual way of looking.

I thought it was interesting what he said about layering, that painting comes in forms of layers just like our own reality in which we are always learning and seeing things in different ways. To me a painting or a photograph often pin points something by means of extraction and simplification, collages can make aspects more complex than they are. But as Hockney says, in a sense collages are paintings.

Perhaps it is a clue for us: collages can become a collaboration of different mediums. Perhaps it is a medium we could explore in similar ways to painting. And we could ask people to send us pieces from around the world which we could add to our collages. Collaboration on collaboration with mediums which collaborate.

I think using the different mediums is also why we could be interesting for someone like the media centre and perhaps that is what we have to play on if we work on a proposal to Charlotte.

Hockney

The Many Layers of David Hockney

This is quite an interesting interview with Hockney. Relevance to our discussion. Another comparison between photography and painting, although I think it could also apply to photography and other art mediums too, like sculpture.

One good Idea that Guy had was doing something for the new media center/ Charlotte Cotton. Why did we not think of that.I think it would be worth talking to her and seeing if she would accept a proposal, if it is something that she would consider and what sort of proposal she would accept.

Then we could possibly combine the create idea with the one for the media center?
It would be worth catching up with her anyway and ask her about doing an interview.

I thought city scapes by Thomas Sacramento was interesting, listen to the interview, I think it has a relevance.

Perhaps we should make an effort to see more exhibitions together and talk about them. To exchange Ted talks and other inspiring material. All based around the kind of thing we are interested in or that we find interesting. Let's pate all the links on to this blog. Even if it is not directly relevant but inspiring. Maybe we will find a talking point.

I agree that the Richter exhibition was not well hung and felt sort of clumsy but listening to the audio guide book is worth while. There is this relationship between photography and painting which is relevant to some of our thoughts about performance and documentation.