Month: August 2010

I’ve decided to keep this exhibition to the original three of us. One because it’s easier that way; not having to okay things with Pierre, and two because Pierre’s decided to add it to the calender as a group show so there’ll be lots of room in the future for other artists to have a go.

Had a little trouble with the invite and who is identified with what picture but it’s all sorted now and I’m the one going cross gender and brazenly extreme in the physical attributes department…

Also the Art as War theme has cross fertilised Pierre’s imagination and we’ll be running an associated underground add campaign to state the galleries intentions using some of the pictorial gems found in photography books of war… with the odd twist.

Comin’ up alongsidee this exhibition is a contact I made at Deus Ex Machina to make stuff for retro styled motorcycles; seats, exhausts, etc, leather and steel basically which could be the bread and butter activity I’ve always wanted but it’s hit a snag as the man has gone quiet on the paying me front. I’m not too put out as I still have a Harley Davidson seat I can sell to defray expenses but I really don’t want it to go that way because I really like the work, and the owners directions, so I’ll say, hopefully, it’s just a misunderstanding.

As well as the above, Valerie the dancer and Kristin the story teller, and myself are working up a performance to do at the performing arts centre dance festival in mid october. We had the big talk yesterday at mine with the fire going, which made everyone feel absolutely cosy, and nutted out the general parameters and also figured we might need a little absurd added in so we’re going to approach John Radford to come along.

The idea is to make pods in which each of us defines ourself. Valerie dances in hers, Kristin tells a story in hers and I make noises in mine… and then John adds the absurd as only he can from the confines of his.

It’ll be very post apocalyptic Tibetan meckanikistical vaudeville… and then we’ll all go see the Red Mole tapes at the film archive… we might cal ourselves Blue Badger and the working title is “A title will emerge”

My thoughts on the subject, somewhat defined after sitting through at dance performance at Galatos last night, are that the dancers, by themselves, are too consumed by the dance narrative to see the importance of sound, story, sets and acting elements as a way to hold an audiences attention. Last night Valeries performance, after a slow cumbersome start (though it did help to set the scene) was really quite gratifying to watch as she danced with and made great use of the ambient lighting and well chosen music. I don’t think too many dancers realise how important pacing is, dramatic pause and suchlike, to give our eyes the needed rest and activity they need to find a performance stimulating. This is why the sound is so important in dance but they just don’t, often, see the big picture of performances existing in a world full of so much other stimulus; that they should be acknowledgeing and not fighting the losing battle of high art and culture versus the popular choice.

Dancers may not think they are but they are storytellers regardless of their own motivations, just like musicians and actors, but ther chosen medium, almost exclusively powered by sight, means they must work that much harder to hold our attention and not drop into the shallow pit of riffing to show their prowesses. We don’t care!

Slow and soft against hard and fast, light and dark etc, the dancer fraternity really needs to apply the idea of chiaroscuro to movement and time while also realising that the use of sound joins our eyes to our hearts and this joining will frollick through the emotions if given the cues and opportunities to do so.

The art of War is a book written in the 6th Century BC that has become a corporate bible.
I am crossing out the “The” and covering the “of” with as and calling an exhibition scheduled for November “Art as War”.

Art as War

The basic concept evolved from my interest in war economies as an efficient use of power, resources and the labour pool while also being umbrella’d under a cause most, if it is to work, believe in. The biggest obvious problem with this idea is the war itself. Everything else that unites a nation and brings forward working together and being open to innovation is a good thing but the destruction and death that underlies the motivation for war, in its classical sense, is the great human tragedies.

But on thinking of ways to directionlise an economy so that the efficiency of war could be attached to a more beneficent cause I realised that most artists, and other people with passions they follow, have what could be called their own little self contained war economies that they live within. The artist has a cause and the art is the propaganda they employ to forward that cause towards ultimate victory. Neccessity being the mother of invention then it is tantamount that the artist innovates under conditions of lack to be able to funnel the required resources to the war effort.

But of course, when the war is won, the fat comes back and lean is no longer mean, so to ensure that the economy of purpose is always in vogue the sense of victory or the reality of winning must be above rewards. Therefore monetary success must just become another tool for the artist to expand effort and not a reward in itself to sustain the status quo.

But before I digress too far into semantics and make a treatise of this little set of notes, without mentioning that such a need to be expansive underpins the motivations of the conceptualisation at hand… but I have mentioned it anyways, I think that the notion of treating the art of making art, in our modern world, is indeed an act of war by many artists against the enemy that is the state of things. We artists often lie at the edge of change calling forth the multitudes to see the possibilities for life that we envisage. We are calling to charge the multudes who just want to stay warm and not too wet in the protective ditches that lie on the fronts of progress. We seek to rush accross the no mans land between what is accepted and what could be and push our flag into that new land and call it ours!

To do this, to be brave and unheeding of the comforts we could have, we require less, and make better use thereof, and hone our skills so that our work amongst the craters of the possible will push forward the lot of all those behind.

Good Golly, I can’t help myself. What was supposed to be a factual discussion on the merits of the artistic in the way that much of it is created has become a call to arms. I’ve already strayed towards my own propaganda when I really should be desseminating on economies of scale and the reasoning behind motivational fronts in support of those economies. But all in all, this is what I seek in this concept of “Art as War”. To discuss and argue the mindset of the type of artist who comes to art as a tool to make their feelings about liife understood, the passionate ones who seek to win over the buyers to a way that goes deeper than the motivation to have a bigger and better shiny thing.

Though, of course, it can always be argued, that the artists actually create newer and bigger shiny things, that they push the edges, are the edge dwellers of any note, that widen the conceptual possibilities of modernity while going through the process of learning that it’s the doing of the thing and the power to venture into unknown territory are of far greater consequence than the finished articles. But this too is about the question of innovation and its dialectic within the world vision of any singular artist and applies to the concept as a adjunct.

So if you allow yourself to take the time to view the military uniform as both totemic item and utilitarian article, totemic item to define status and enlist motivation towards a goal and the question of efficient utility of available materials, the application to a singular artist with regards style, content and support skills is an obvious connection between the idea of war on a macro national scale being also the definition of an artist, singular or within a group, on the micro scale.

Bombs Away!