Day 6 Appendix
Midpointness
Many thanks to Leanne Schubert for this.
LINKS
Sunday, 20 September 2015
Midpointness Day 6
Day 6
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| The exercise yard in the Lock-Up, serving as a reading room and a symposium space from for the period of Midpointness. |
Midpointness
2 x 0 ÷ 1 = 0
Many thanks to the contributers of the reading groups over the past couple of days. Far too much to get down onto paper/screen here. My respect and gratitude to Jude, Penny, (who's equation above refers to my habit of creating nothing from something), Rosemary, Leanne (A.K.A. 'Spanner' ), Fern, Christina, Alex, Sean, Penny, Emily, Sarah, Liz, and Jess. Interesting gender imbalance.
We are indebted to the authors of the texts.
We have all been round the houses and back but the whole thing might be summed up in the spirit of a comment from Leanne, following on from discussions about Blanchot, Social Work, the work of the Work of art and the 'lack' which haunts the image. Leanne's parting words at the end of the third session were,
"The Work of Art is the renunciation of Desire"
These were the texts we were working through.
Text. Jan
Verwoert. “Exhaustion and Exuberance: Ways to defy the pressure to perform” in Tell me what you want, what you really,
really want. (Rotterdam: Pier Zwart Institute, William de Kooning Academy
Rotterdam University and Sternberg Press, 2010), 13 - 41
Text. Andrew
Warstat. “Unteachable and Unlearnable: the ignorance of artists” in: On not knowing; how artists think ed.
Elizabeth Fisher and Rebecca Fortnum. (London. Black Dog in association with
Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge and supported by the University of the
Arts London, 2013), 42-52
Text. W.J.
Mitchell “What do pictures want” in What
do pictures want: the lives and loves of images (Chicago. The University of
Chicago Press, 2005) p 28-56
Text. Elizabeth
Grosz “Chaos. Cosmos, Territory, Architecture ” in Chaos, Territory, Art (
New York, Columbia University Press, 2008 ) 1-24
These texts are providing something of a back bone to the project, thinking through (and beyond) performance culture, not knowing, the Blanchotian student, the weak image (causing a particular stir in the group), framing chaos, zones of transaction between image and text, three forms of enlightenment, (the historical enlightenment, the enlightened sophisticated reader, and the spiritual), ventriloquism, (twice cropped up), taboo, the subaltern, how inverting pictures is bad for the soul, radical unsatisfaction, the impotent, the anamorphic blur and art as an instrument of the mind (thanks to Christina for that one).
back on Monday
Friday, 18 September 2015
Midpointness Day 5
Day 5
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| Image courtesy of Andrew Bracey ( and Vermeer ) |
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| A strange coincidence |
Midpointness
I received a telepathic message from Andrew today wondering if I was ready to open the package he had given to me back in the UK, which was not to be opened until I was ready and settled in the development of the project. This I did (see above). What a strange thing. The telepathy exceeded itself in order to be itself. This seems somehow appropriate. Instead of me opening the package and following the instruction, I was instructed telepathically to open the package in order to share telepathic thoughts. Which I do (don't I Andrew?) and am doing as I write ( don't you agree A? )
Midpointness Day 4
Day 4
Midpointness
A glint or a twinkle?
Whilst having a very pleasant dinner this evening with S, J, F and H (thanks to all for wonderful hospitality) the conversation turned
once again (between S and I) to the the ‘cul de sac’ of irony. An issue, or plight, or predicament (thanks to Michael Phillipson for those terms) that some of us have been ‘struggling’ with (see, even here, I can't struggle with something unless I'm 'struggling' with it! ) in our various practices. There was a very pithy comment from S (I’ll project that one into
the future and predict that S will return to this as a huge problem with his own observation as we have
a coffee with E before a reading group tomorrow at the Lock-up at 10 a.m.) which was that he perceived, or felt a ‘vulgarity’ in a passion which didn’t
have a glint in it's eye.
This struck me as profound for (at least) two reasons. Firstly, it made a terrible and disturbing kind of sense, it felt like a fact. Secondly (and this occurred to me a bit
later) was that I found the application of the word ‘glint’ too steely and cold for my 'delicate' sensibilities (there it is again). I would have preferred a ‘twinkle’. Now, this thought reminded me of my late Dad, who most definitely pretty much always had a twinkle in his eye, especially when we were earnestly discussing pressing matters of art, sex, politics and/or Scrabble. The twinkle was the 'permission' which allowed us to move past 'ourselves' and enter the conversations and territories that as so-called 'normal' working class Mancunians (and lets not forget also men) might not have felt so comfortable negotiating. It allowed us to ask,"what does this feel like if I say this, or that, or think this or that, who do I feel like when I say or think this or hear this?".
As the default position of certain men of certain ages from certain areas of Manchester is to avoid at all costs any accusations of pretentiousness, this intimacy and openness felt (and still feels) like something of a relief.
*
Sometime ago in the studio, I had been thinking about this matter of the sincere statement
(through 'the lens of art' as S puts it) and I tried to think of what I considered to be one of the (probably pretty few) unequivocal sentiments in my life of which I could speak.
The simple declaration I wrote with a marker pen on an A1 sheet of paper was this.
At the time, I felt that although this statement was profoundly 'true' for me, it's very 'trueness' was put at risk by it's declaration from within the the realm of aesthesis. At the risk of totally overstepping myself, I figured that what might be at stake (for me) in this declaration within the sphere of art might be the very limits of language, that it marked a place of oscillation between ontological realms in which truth and art were opposed.
And yet, following on, thinking of the 'twinkle' in the eye, I'm now not so sure. Perhaps, I can declare my love for my children here and now through the lens of art, precisely because of a twinkle in the eye, and maybe, just maybe, that gives a possibility for a small path to be found at the bottom of the cul de sac, which leads down to the open meadow. If this were the case, considering this declaration of love felt between my Dad and myself, and my love for my Daughters, wouldn't it be really something if there had indeed been a cul de sac where I had lived as a child which had a path leading down to the playing fields known in local parlance as 'the Meds'?
Wednesday, 16 September 2015
Tuesday, 15 September 2015
Midpointness Day 2
Midpointness
Artists in Residence. The Lock Up.
Day 2
A Conversation with S, (re) reading Jan Verwoert's exhaustion and exuberance, the matter of convalescence and sending telepathic messages to my friend 'A '
I recall, last night in conversation with S, (he just emerging out of flu, me still wobbly with a bit of jet lag) I came out with an equation which, once and for all, I hoped, would get the monkey(s) off my back in regard to the relationship between art and research (who would have imagined so many monkeys in the UK?). There are monkeys here too, as S (albeit in a cheerful and resigned manner), is trying to accommodate and/or walk all over.
Well, I was very tired.
If Research (X) is a contribution to a form of knowledge (Y) , and some kinds of Art (A) have an effect on how the world is understood and forms of knowing (epistemology) (Y) then A is part X, and X part A.
X+ A= Y2
Thus, instead of worrying endlessly about whether art is or isn't a form of research we can finally accept that there is this thing, lets call it 'artistic research' ( er...like pretty much everyone in Northern Europe already does) which is knowledge squared. How cool is that?
So cool I'd better get my coat......
But back to more pressing matters.
What is the midpoint? Or better to ask perhaps,when is the midpoint?
Why better? Well lets say that to define the midpoint in advance (or after the fact) of it's appearance affects it's (dis)appearance, to the extent that the midpoint is no longer a midpoint but a 'midpoint', something ossified by scare quotes, exiled into the past or the yet to be. Like the cult of 'failure', the midpoint becomes the aim, and as a result, no longer itself.
In which case, it's important to remember that the project as it stands feels like it's more about trying to create the conditions for some kind of doing and witnessing of something which sits outside of the beginning and the end as opposed to in-between them.
I’m cautious here of falling into the trap of a fetishisation of the liminal. The midpoint (for me here) is not a liminal space as much as a moment, perhaps.
I'm thinking of Gary Peters' articulation in his essay ‘ahead of the yes and no: Heidegger on not knowing and art’, the ‘ahead of the yes and no’ is more of a third ‘sphere’, which he describes as one of ‘indifference’. (
Here Peters tells us,
“when Heidegger speaks of inbetweeness he is speaking not of the space between affirmation and negation but of a space-time that is situated outside rather than inside such boundaries”
Questions of beginnings and endings and what sits within or without them are neatly worked with in Jan Verwoert's exhaustion and exuberance (p 33). What is particularly interesting about this beautiful essay (in respect of this project) is the recognition and the sense of love of the complexity which sits between the polar opposites of 'the yes' and 'the no', the 'I can' and the 'I can't' (and much more),a sentiment which also sits at the heart of this project. The essay (for me) encapsulates the very aesthetic realm it seeks to explore, producing something to be 'felt by the mind', to use Peter Osbourne's description of the aesthetic (in "anywhere if not at all").
Verwoert writes,
" In painting, (as in writing) the beginning and the end of the work are defined through an immanent demand, as the decision about how to start and conclude are choices that shape the very identity of the piece. It is only by concluding in a particular way that the piece establishes its own standards and demonstrates why it has to be the way it is".
Verwoert goes onto to write about the the state of suspension between exhaustion and activity (p 70) (another form of midpoint perhaps).
"between the 'I Can't' and the 'I Can', the state of convalescence is the epitome of an empty moment of full awareness"
It was when I was reading this, thinking about exhaustion and convalescence, that I recalled an earlier paragraph which I am now sending telepathically to A back in the UK. (are you receiving A?)
"This inextricable ambivalence between what you want and expect of yourself and what others want and expect from you is one of the hardest puzzles for anyone who works creatively and on demand to solve" (p62)
As Andrew B and I discussed when we started talking about artistic behaviours and strategies ( echoing, delaying, reversing, speeding up or down, inverting ) which might be interesting to look at in terms of some kind of artist/curator type thing (this project), the suggestion of telepathy was seen as nonsensical and quickly rejected (at least by Andrew. I confess, I never quite gave up on it). Maybe some things simply are created by the friction of the the 'no' and the 'yes' which sit at the heart of the nonsensical.
(know what I mean A?)
Sunday, 13 September 2015
Midpointness
Midpointness
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| Sydney. Coming into focus. Slowly. |
Day one.
I have been invited by the University of Newcastle, Australia, as a Visiting Professor to undertake a residency ( http://www.thelockup.org.au/whats-on ) at The Lock-Up Culture Centre. Working closely ( as closely as one can in the digital realm ) with Andrew Bracey in the UK, I will be developing the first incarnation of the midpointness project for a short exhibition at the Lock Up followed by presenting the key note at the two day conference;
NEXT TO NOTHING: ART AS
PERFORMANCE
A meeting of art and philosophy in
the age of post-dematerialisation
September 26 & 27, 2015
We already have great support from some wonderful artists, including Olivia Notaru, Hester Reeve, David Reed, Simòn Grenell, Lee Hassall, Lily Mellor and Kate Southworth not to mention the amazing Sean Lowry from the University of Newcastle. Thanks to them for their enthusiasm on such a low budget. I consider this the prototype and look for financial support when I get back to the UK. If any galleries or project spaces out there are interested in the project please get in touch!
Some Context
Steve “I was just thinking about what you said
about decisions, that elements of the painting seemed to be always poised
either just before or just beyond a decision. I think that's really important,
but it's also about the decisions of the 'viewer'. I’m sort of hoping that the paintings are a bit
like scores, which are 'performed' in the head each time they are seen or
read.”
Andrew “It's something I’m interested in exploring, so art works becomes mid
points in a generative process of creation…”
Steve “I think it's always a mid point. It's the
mid-pointness, which makes it interesting. Like a good work is always becoming”
Andrew “Exactly...but a show that tries to explore this as a part of a
process(ing)/generating could be good”
Steve “ and again that’s really been on my mind.
Its not just about the artefact but about the tactics and strategies which are
at work within it. I’ve been thinking
around what might an institution which thought of itself as a work of
art look and behave like? What if some thing which is usually other to the
work of art considered itself from front to back, top to bottom, side to side,
not solely in terms of production, capital and quantitative outcomes, but as an
aesthetic entity in itself? An entity which judged itself as a process of
becoming in much the same way as a process of art making, subject to the same
critical analysis and re-thinking that might be applied to a process of making
and engaging in art? At what point in that imaginative process does the
institution become a work in itself? ”
Andrew “an institution always at a mid-point?”
Steve “ the work as a performance”
Andrew “and the institution as a performance…”
Midpointness
is a proposal for an evolving project that explores how works of art and work
can be seen to be in a state of ‘being in the midst’, a place W. T. J.
Mitchell has termed an “inescapable zone
of transaction”. We propose to
put focus onto the ‘work’ of knowledge as a process of becoming, as opposed to
a process of advancement. The initial premise grew from conversation on 3rd
February 2015 between Andrew and I in front of
one of my text-paintings which
reads;
The work is a
score performed in the mind.
The world is a work performed in
the words
The mind is a work performed in
the world
Let us
consider the work of art is here is to be understood as art’s labour and the
process of becoming and to some extent performing, as much as an artefact as of
and in itself. This proposal seeks to foreground the dynamics of inner/outer
dialogue and other potentials that an artist might hope for when he/she
explores the generative potential of the work
of art.
Our aim is the curatorial
equivalent of lifting the footnote to the status of the main body of text (and
possibly vice versa). The methodology for the exhibition/project envisions a ‘toing and
froing’ position between authorship and reception. The proposal suggests
that the ‘centre’ (the work and/or the text) and its surrounding universe are
completely indivisible. As such
the principle of footnotes will
filter through to the whole project, with visual and textual ‘footnotes’
infiltrating the exhibition’s ethos and design; the footnotes being analogous
to the surrounding constellations within which the ‘centre’ sits, swapping
footnotes for centre and vice versa.
We propose a generative project which over time
gets dismantled and reconstructed/imagined by the gradual accretion and
classifying of the surrounding connections, associations, influences of the
curators, artists, students and other audiences. These can be in the form of
artworks, texts, artefacts, performances or other interventions. We are
identifying the surrounding ‘stuff’ of the ‘work’ as an equivalent to the
footnotes of a text.
We will curate different events which will punctuate and inform the future
shape and display of the project. The dialogue generated
from these discussions, readings, film screenings etc. will effect, inform and
direct the focus of the classifying of the 'footnotes’ and the generation of
new ones. Using
a cosmic model the ‘footnotes’ for the works in the exhibition will be classified and presented by
different
shifting, signalling systems of measurement and value such as near and far,
small and large, bold and faint, how big, how
dense, how inscribed, how intense, rather than by any chronological teleology.
A non-fixed classification process is defined through dialogue, events,
conversations, catalysts. Participants occupy the process and thus the
outcome is a necessary outcome of being generative as opposed to being worked
out prior.
The time-plan is a considerable part of
the project and will constitute a work of practice in itself. The time plan is
imagined as a SCORE which will be created during the residency period.
I'll try to keep a blog going during the process as things come and go.
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