To begin this week I had my personal tutorial meeting, in this meeting i discussed the artist research from last week and what inspiration i was feeling. I wanted to explore the beauty in destroying something, in making a sense of unheimlich as i discussed previously. We thought how would i destroy something? what would it be?
We also discussed how we would make it seem important to viewer, to make them feel emotionally involved with my piece. We know that people care more about destruction if it feel like ” a shame”, as we see in some peoples reaction to Michael Landy’s breakdown with people asking to take his stuff. So how to make people care about my work? Firstly I would have to make something that’s well crafted, something that my audience would appreciate in itself as well as my skill and time.
The arts centre
Later on in the week we visited the art centre and had a tour of the spaces available for the takeover exhibition. I particularly wanted to investigate where a sculpture could be presented, I’m drawn to the beautiful open widow upstairs as well as the table in the ceramics display room.
The lecture/ Research
This week we also had our free mind exercise lecture. Interestingly my creative thought process mirrors that of last semester in which part one of the lecture had much more writing and free thinking through text, where as part two is made more up of expressive drawings.
Roger Hiorns – Seizure, 2008.
This piece was an experiment using Copper Sulphate on an old council flat which was scheduled for demolition. The post war London council flat had been completely stripped of all its fixtures before being sealed and filled with 75,000 of liquid copper sulphate. The results were unknown prior to the piece, despite Hiorns`s previous experience with the substance.
As the building was still scheduled for demolition the room was excavated and then transported to its new home in Yorkshire.
I chose to look into this piece further as I can see the themes of deconstruction and reconstruction as Hiorns turns the structure into something new. I also find the contamination to be a good metaphor for the home as stresses from the outside world can damage our home.
Do Ho Suh- various 2010-
I had previously looked at some of Do Ho Suh`s work at the beginning of my project ( the brainstorming stage), I find his sculptural pieces to be eerie and a brilliant example of physically abstracting the home.
Looking at his work makes me think deeper about my own. How can I physically represent the home in a sense of wonder as he does? I want my audience to be impressed with the work?
A room of ones own – Virginia Woolf, 1928
A room of ones own is an extended essay written by Virginia Woolf which explores the space for women in literature. The essay is demanding and powerful especially for its time. As a woman in a creative space I instantly feel a connection to the writing and I wonder how it captures my feelings in relation to home. My home is full of my creativity, paintings and drawings on the walls, the pieces and spaces in-between filled with random ideas or features I’ve put together to express myself.
Experimental development
Developing on from my individual tutorial and my research I began to experiment with different materials. This is because building an actual wooden doll house would be possibly slightly out of my skillset and wouldn’t seem as well crafted as I hope. This is where the importance of me being clever comes into place, if i use materials such as cards or matchboxes it could be really impactful (for example The House Of Book Has No Windows took a lot of skill due to the ages and bendiness of the book spines and material)
I began my experiments looking at origami, i found a wikihow on making a house which I followed blind without seeing the end result first. The finished piece was too simplistic and lacked any real dimension. However it took some time and thought to build (which was the whole point of the exercise) and made me think about how paper could be used in my project. Maybe a thicker paper like wall paper would be more ideal.
The video above is of myself ripping/ destroying the origami house. I didn’t really feel any remorse for the destruction, if anything the sounds were satisfying. However this was anticlimactic and I needed to experiment further with different materials.
Moving on from the origami house I decided to make a more typical house structure. I recycled some card out of my rubbish and began to build and paint my house. It took around 20 minutes to make, which was longer than I anticipated due to the fiddly parts.
At first I thought it would be easy to take up and destroy my little house. In hindsight I was wrong, it quickly became and inside joke between me and my partner and I felt sad about having to destroy it.
In conclusion I from this weeks experimentation I can see my creative process in which I feel a need to evolve past this idea. It’s possible that destruction is difficult for me as an artist, however I may be more well suited to the transformation process, like that of Roger Hiorns.