Structure for the talk?

Hey everyone

Really great to see the questions coming through. It will give us something to talk about when we all meet up!

Regards the talk - yes, we should have some structure to it so it doesn't turn into a mess. i've invited a quite a few people - so if they all turn up we could have quite a big audience!

Any ideas for how to structure the talk?

Should we have someone chairing it? I didn't managed to contact anyone over reviewing it (partly short notice....A-n need a fair bit of notice to select a reviewer....and I've been dead busy) but I could try and contact someone who might want to join in the debate and chair it? maybe one of the reviewers you mentioned andrew?...someone from mancester who might be receptive to our concerns.

also, Sara the curator will be in the audience and ask some questions as well.

We'll obviously have lots to talk about, so we don't need to worry about that, it's just making sure it's kept on track. We should think about aims of the talk. what do we want to get out of it?

Sarah thought the issue of artists curating their own work (as opposed to just curators) was an interesting angle......

For me, it's about learning from other peoples approaches to making art. Sort of seeing if the issues I get wrapped up in and often get stuck with, are similar in other peoples practices, and therefore how do they deal with them....just an idea.

H

Question for Hamish

Sorry, a bit slow typing this up but I did tell you the question on the phone yesterday. So, for the benefit of everyone else my question is:

Does the place where you are from or where you live affect your artwork?

Question for Mr. Bracey

Andrew, I really enjoyed your work at the Halifax show, by the way. So I was thinking about your work, and it's sort of easier for me to talk about things like colour or material that come up in my own work. But one thing that I don't really consider often is scale. And I know you've worked with doing things on a really small scale. But I wonder about the decision making process, and in particular for the works you are making for this show. Are they a sort of direct reference to drawing on paper? And maybe you can talk about how the scale of items imposes (or doesn't) upon the space their in?

Question for Amelia

Does anything transcend language?
will say why i asked this on Monday.
i think we should talk about the talk event on Monday while installing, but we need some sort of rough structure of what we are to talk about i think or else the chances are it will be too messy.
really looking forward to seeing the work together

Question for Michael

Hi

Right, here goes. My question to you Michael is:

What draws you to working in moving image in comparison to still imagery?

Thanks!

H

Spelling it out or letting the mind wander

Hi Amelia,

Yes, you've got the idea!

I suppose I'm working with two things here, - the marks I take directly from the environment I'm in, and then the marks I create in response to that.

So far I've been layering my painted marks over the top of the drawn marks taken from the dock road. I've been aiming not to pay attention to the marks beneath (almost ignoring them in a way) so as to create a more genuine buzz between the painted parts and the drawn part underneath. In doing this I'm aiming to make a connection between the real world out there, and the abstract marks I create in the studio.

However, If I'm painting on top of something I'm bound to be influenced in some way by what's already on the paper. So I thought that If I'm wanting to make a connection between the two things, then maybe they don't have to be on top of each other at all. Instead I could show the 'real world' marks on separate sheets to my paintings.

It's still something I'm working through at the moment. It reminded me of a performance I did a few years ago in Munich where myself and another musician played improvised music in front of piece of film to do with roads and travel.

The set up for the performance we were playing to the side of the film and unable to see it. I thought this was a bad idea, as I felt the point was for us to respond to the shapes and images and colours coming through on the film.

However, our positioning actually strengthend the performance, as we could be left to our own devices and take inspiration from what's in our own minds at the time (and of we course we were thinking about the themes of the film anyway). But the fact that we couldn't see the film to respond didn't matter. The layering of the two things made independently of each other strengthend their interaction. We weren't compromising our playing and people could be left to find their own connections between the pieces - we didn't need to spell it out.

It also reminded me a of a comment Andrew made in my studio a few weeks back - that although in recent paintings I wasn't directly responding and trying to paint the environment of the docks, it was still in the 'ether'. It might sound a bit wooly or mystical, but it made a lot of

sense in what I'm doing in the studio.

Hope that answers your question Amelia. I feel it's to do with a certain editing process, about choosing when to spell it out and when to let people make up their own mind. It also links with the amount of detail that goes into specific pieces I'm working on - how representational do I need to be to be connected to a place I visited?

Question

Hi Hamish,

Just realised there was a new post from you when I posted my last one. So, to respond to that, I'm not sure I totally understand your question. Are you talking about the difference between drawing on paper whilst you are out and about and then working on top of it vs. using these marks themselves as part of the work without going over on top of them but placing them with something else (ie more worked up paintings or the photos) to complete the work instead?