This week has mainly had me at odds with trying to bring together different elements of my practice. I’m starting to see myself worrying that any one individual component may not be enough. With my work existing in three disciplines, Sculpture, Video and Installation/Concept, it could be very easy to blur method and process. Therefore, it is crucial to test ideas and find the strongest elements within these ideas that are only ‘on paper’.

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Fig. 1a A sketch of how I see the Major Project

Fig. 1b An early Major Project conceptualization

Fig. 1c Sketch of a crit idea

Fig. 1d A technical drawing for the woodwork workshop

Its crucial to consider how the objects of my installation ‘tackle’ the space that they are set in. some of the questions that arise are - is the space too big or too small? Are the acoustics of the room right? Will the work require installing extra walls or supports. There have been different approaches to the concepts I have proposed. All have required working out how the room will accompany the installation. As well as the drawings, it has been important to spend time playing with the space. Walking, musing, strolling and thinking have been a real first hand way of researching what the work needs to embrace the space.

Please click on the images and then hover the cursor over the image for further evaluation, commentary and reflection.

Fig. 2a Considerations for layout of Degree Show.

Fig. 2b Hanging points.

Fig. 2c Wire frames.

Fig. 2d Tethers and points

“When I take the game, I take it out of context and apply it to moral or political situations. Or I load it emotionally in a way that it is not supposed to be loaded.”

— Bruce Nauman [2]

Below is a latest mock-up of my current Major Project. fig. 3. I see my work as a philosophical approach to questioning what it is to be. I consider my installations as a questioning of existence. For me, the intrigue of how things exist, come to be or reveal themselves, is what my work investigates. How? well, take weight for example. Weight, heavy objects or substantial artefacts take residency in a very definite way. Richard Serra does this very successfully with his steel plates that bend and curve and take on a precarious element because of their size and, more importantly, their placement. Therefore, the precarity stands in for, represents or reifies the object into a new way of perceiving the object beyond its form as matter. Suddenly, the precarity takes on new states. Then we can take advantage of this transformance in meaning. The weight now gives us an real sense of danger that exists elsewhere. So, in this case, the context of hazard can be extracted from the construction of something that ‘presents’ or ‘suggests’ the notion of threat. Therefore, this human response is as a result of what the materiality contains within its own properties.

[1] Coosje van Bruggen, ‘Bruce Nauman Drawings: 1965 - 1986’, New Museum, (1987), <https://archive.newmuseum.org/exhibitions/153> [accessed 12/03/2022] Quote taken from this interview.

[2] Joan Simon, ‘Breaking the Silence: An Interview with Bruce Nauman’, Art in America (1988) <https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/features/breaking-silence-interview-bruce-nauman-63570/> [accessed 10/03/2022]

Spatial Relations: Testing ideas.