a bearing is a direction, relative to a fixed point

an awareness – a sense of one’s orientation

a range is a position, relative to a visible limit

the area of concern

thinking/making: catching thought in process

8 May 2016: The supersensible world

“It might only be through the engagement with the void of memorialisation that people are able to confront their consciousness of perception, because that is all there is.  What is not here is commemorated at the site of its disappearance…As a consequence, the most obvious way to set about this research is to detect signs of the missing objects’ effects.  This task is made possible by a complementary form.  In other words, the inverted supersensible world, is in itself signified by the existence of the actual world, just as quarried cavities are the inverse of monuments.  These antithetical objects are locked into a reciprocal bond, perpetually reflecting each other as necessary counterparts.”

Katrina Palmer End Matter (2015)

testing recording devices in preparation for Weather Station (II)

“The human impulse – to separate and measure a constantly changing world – is critical to our present understanding of and reaction to climate change”

Measured and sampled by the Weather Station-come-trundle-wheel and the requirement to stop for ‘fresh air’, durational audio recordings will attempt to ‘hear’ the erosion in pebble size as I walk along Chesil Beach, using the sphere to separate pebble sounds from the predominant sound of the wind and crashing waves.  How will the recordings ‘hear’ the change in pebble size?  By their duration or differing content?  Or will my protective bubble completely deny what lies outside?

I will be finding out on Monday…..

Para(meter)
Weather Station (II)
Chesil Beach
Portland
Dorset
9 May 2016 (from 10am)

Listening Post a point near enemy lines for detecting movements by sound; a place for the gathering of information from reports etc.

click to hear:

Weather Report (29/03/2016, BST 13:16:04, 51° 44.20′ N, 005° 14.83′ W )

Weather Report (30/03/2016, BST 11:50:24, 51° 44.20′ N, 005° 14.83′ W )

thinking/making: catching thought in process

29 March 2016: Draw

Draw pull or cause to move towards or after one; pull a thing over, or across; attract – bring to oneself or to something; take in; take out – remove; obtain or take from a source; make one’s or its way – proceed; infer, deduce; make a demand on a person’s skill, memory, imagination; frame, compose; formulate or perceive; protract, stretch, elongate; approach its end; persuade to join – entice

(The Concise Oxford Dictionary p355)

Marloes Sands, Pembrokeshire 28/03/16

thinking/making: catching thought in process

29 March 2016: Drawing

drawing: a mechanism by which ‘things’ are held together, gathered

pebble (-) Anthropocene (concrete) pebble
(sliced) pebble with calcification
Anthropocene (brick) pebble

(ENG)Land
(ENG)Lish
Lisp a speech defect; a rippling of waters
Lissom lithe, supple, agile
List a number of connected items to form a record or aid memory; a selvedge or edge of cloth usually of different material from the main body; lean over to one side
Listen to make an effort to hear something
Listening Post a point near enemy lines for detecting movements by sound; a place for the gathering of information from reports etc.

(The Concise Oxford Dictionary lingual-litany pp690-1)

(Nolton) Haven, Pembrokeshire 27/03/16

Weather Station II artists:
Laurie Lax  Laura Hopes  James Hankey  Nicola Kerslake Stair/Slide/Space  Phil Smith Jethro Brice  Simon Lee Dicker  Alexander Stevenson  Elaine Fisher

Weather Station is a project initiated by OSR Projects, a mobile pavilion for the collection of images, objects and ideas and an artist-led response to flooding and extreme weather, exploring the changing relationship we have with landscape and the natural world.  Regional partners  B-Side (Dorset), Backlane West (Cornwall), Exeter Phoenix (Devon), Hand in Glove (Bristol), Plymouth Art Centre (Devon), and Stair/Slide/Space (Hampshire) have selected artists to host the weather station and take part in a series of exhibitions and events.

Para(meter) has been commissioned in partnership with B-Side (Dorset) and will use the Weather Station to audio-record the phenomena of pebble sorting along Chesil Beach.  Measured and sampled by walking inside the Weather Station-come-trundle wheel and the requirement to stop for ‘fresh air’, durational audio recordings will attempt to ‘hear’ the erosion in pebble size, using the sphere’s micro-climate to separate pebble sounds from the predominant sound of the wind and crashing waves.

Refreshing an existing body of knowledge – Loophole, Tide Table, Piddock Range and ness -ness nest nestle net  – (re)assembled through repeated walks along Chesil Beach, Para(meter) aims to highlight the human impulse to separate and measure a constantly changing world, critical to our understanding of and reaction to climate change.

Weather Station (Part I) brought together new and existing work by OSR Projects associates Jethro Brice and Simon Lee Dicker alongside work by Alexander Stevenson (selected by Hestercombe Gallery Curator Tim Martin) in an exhibition documenting its journey so far.

Weather Station (Part II) will take place throughout the South West between February and June 2016. Cumulative rather than collaborative, the structure passes from one artist to the next, gathering traces of its journey through the streets, fields and rivers of South West England and gathering on Portland for an exhibition at B-side Festival in September 2016.

thinking/making: catching thought in process

20 January 2016: Research-Led?

Lucy Gresley (2015)

Looking into artists to interview about their research I came across the term connected research.  This got me thinking about the term research-led used within our PREFAB-Lab project description and open call.  What does this actually mean?  To Lucy and I as practicing artists?  Is it the right term to encourage artists with a broad range of research methodologies to participate in our trial?  Who are we excluding?  Which artists might self-exclude because of the language we have used?

“My need to keep connecting, understanding and making meaning out of everyday encounters drives my artistic practice.  My artistic practice is therefore research-led, driven by its subject, the human drive or impulse to be in the world, to find out about the world in which we live.  Yet this research is non-specific.  There is no clear aim.  It is dependent upon an encounter to propel it forwards, towards a particular investigation, towards an understanding of something.  It is this act of going towards that I define as research, even if the destination is unclear.  Towards is the endless question to my endless quest.  What am I doing? Why am I doing THIS? What meaning can I ascribe to it? What is my research? How does it connect to what seems present in the world today? to what matters to other people? to what people are talking about?  I identify my research then through my practice.  It does not lead my practice.  In the same way I identify myself.  I think therefore I am.” 

We want to explore the differences between the terms connected research and research-led.  It seems that the idea of connectivity might serve both to free up the artistic impulse from preconceptions of what research might be and go some way to explaining the apparent ‘lack of fit’ between artistic research and art objects/installations we encounter at exhibitions – they may in fact be separate or separable things.  In which case why do we encounter one and not the other as an audience?  We want to open up a conversation that we can continue in the lab in May and June.  Whatever the terminology our questions are the same: What does artistic research look like?  How and where does it function?  What are the results?

Free submission, email PREFAB-LAB@fringeartsbath.co.uk deadline 14/03/16

an invitation to artists to participate in PREFAB-Lab (Practice, Research, Exhibition) an exploratory trial and interim analysis exhibition exploring artistic research through the lens of a scientific Research Lab  – what does artistic research look like? How and where does it function? What are the results?  http://www.fringeartsbath.co.uk/prefab-lab/