start

This is the beginning of the end.
I am going to begin the year by experimenting with ideas; I have two initial ideas that do not relate at all, but I am going to give them both a go and see what happens, as I do not work systematically!

Following on from last year I want to continue with the performance. I am interested in social interaction with the public and also labour. I am intrigued by the variety of reactions. Some are willing, others angry, it is a gamble.

However, I have just come back from Venice and saw the Anish Kapoor exhibition at the Accademia. In this exhibition, I have become slightly obsessed with the world's blackest paint- Vanta black. Photos on the right.
So it would be rude not to experiment with this paint, or the closest thing to it, black 3.0 as Anish Kapoor sadly patented the colour. I want to combine the paint with my own body, as I think there could defiantly form a striking photo.

The paint absorbs 99.96% of light, which allows for a completely bizarre experience. When walking into the exhibition everything seems 2D. this experience was incredibly unsettling and unlike anything else I have ever seen. Kapoor has used this and patented the colour, which has angered a lot of artists, such as Stuart Semple. It is a controversial move from the artist as he is claiming a colour, which has caused him lots of backlashes.

As a response, I wanted to create the illusion of myself being genderless. Painting my penis with Black 3.0. I believe the rare paint combined with human skin could be a powerful and humorous move.

I now want to focus on the social interaction aspect of my art. Going back to what I know. I originally wanted to speak to strangers and ask them to tell me a story or a phrase they like. Then get them to tell me their favourite artist. With this information, I wanted to put it into an artificial intelligence (dream studio) program. The outcome would be the result of our interaction. However, when I went out to look for people I came across a woman, Dee, who said her phrase, 'Live, laugh, love,' and then she proceeded to show me her tattoo saying the phrase.
I enjoyed the idea of getting people's written tattoos. This seemed like a much more personal interaction. A story of what they have put permanently on their skin.
Putting their tattoos into an artificial intelligence combined with their favourite artist. The outcomes are to the right and below.

Having run this idea through my tutor group, I've decided against the idea. I think as I do not want to focus on the subject of gender politics I don't think it's a good decision. I think I need to focus on a subject matter I am truly interested in rather than just what could potentially look good. However, using the black 3.0 is not out of the question and I do think it will turn up at some point through my experimentation. Kapoor will still be looked upon as I am so curious about the idea of making matter disappear. Onwards and upwards!

I am not a fan of the results. I don't think the outcomes were effective, the story does not come across. I think that there is potential in the work and I don't want to give up on the idea of linking artificial intelligence and strangers, this is just the first step of many. I want to look into the artist Sophie Calle, who has looked into the venerability of strangers, stalking them. I think this could be a healthy progression in my work.

The top photo with Dee was not a successful outcome. The actual interaction with her was great, however. I want the outcome to reflect how interactive the conversation was. She chose Van Gough as the artist because her favourite work was sunflowers by van Gogh and the artificial intelligence response was more based on the artist than the actual work.
The second two were with a homeless woman. She went into depth about how the homeless are mistreated and misjudged. She explained the story of her upbringing. She said she liked graffiti art so I chose to use Banksy with the A. I as Banksy is well renowned. Once again I do not believe the art reflects the interaction.

Sophie Calle
'Her work frequently depicts human vulnerability and examines identity and intimacy. She is recognized for her detective-like tendency to follow strangers and investigate their private lives. Her photographic work often includes panels of the text of her own writing.'https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sophie-calle-2692

Sophie Calle does work outside galleries and then manages to incorporate it in exhibitions, in my opinion, beautifully. The piece that I want to speak about is, 'The Hotel, Room 47.' Sophie became a chambermaid as she had this curiosity about the people who stay and sleep in the hotel rooms and this obsession with what you can tell about a person by just interacting with their material things. She uncovered this mystery of strangers. Getting obsessive with their personal items creates their personality, and comments on materialism and what it means.

What I find very successful is how she presents the work in exhibitions. This skill I have struggled with previously. She has made a very simple collection of photos with a description of what she did. I think there is a lot of power in this as she does not try and oversell herself. She is completely humble with her approach which is an effective method!

Another piece I have become a big fan over is a work by Roman Ondak as part of an exhibition called '11 Rooms,' which happened in Manchester. Rather than a typical gallery, there were doors to each room and each room was given to an artist. The human body was the main medium.
Within the 11 rooms, there was Roman Ondaks work called 'Swap.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJSEfk75FzA

'As its title implies, it presents a performer in a room with an object available for swapping. A chain of exchange is created throughout the exhibition, which sees the last performer take away the object with them when this process ends on Sunday.' https://fadmagazine.com/2011/07/14/11-rooms-manchester-arts-gallery-review-by-jareh-das/

I think the simplicity combined with the intimate boundary that is crossed between artist and viewer is an exciting concept. The viewer comes away with a material object, almost forcing them to remember the work as they have a memento to hold onto. I enjoy the concept of giving someone who enters the exhibition something to leave with. This will help embed a memory, whether it be good or bad.

This work provides a mixture of interaction and humour, two concepts that I enjoy. I do think this piece will influence my work to come; especially as it seems to be such a human exchange. Destroying the boundary between performer and artist. Something I tried to do in my second-year final exhibition where I explained the work to passers-by which led to extreme divergences about general life chit chat (as seen on the right.)

Thinking about my future within this journey I want to continue looking into artists who have used members of the public. I am furthering my research before I begin my work as I want to home in on an idea and it run with it, rather than have a sporadic array of work.
An artist that has used people in their work rather controversially is a man named Santiago Sierra. The work that I resonate with the most is a piece called, '160 cm Line Tattooed on 4 People El Gallo Arte Contemporáneo.' (video on the right) This is a work where he tattooed a line onto four girls. However the work is not about the tattoo, it is largely about what people will do for money/ what they want. The four girls he has chosen are prostitutes; he is exchanging a permanent mark on their skin for a single shot of heroin. Two men in intimidating trench coats occasionally come up with a tape measure to measure the line. It is rather sick work, as it shows the desperate situation humans can be in. He exposes how far people are willing to be degraded for money, drugs or other things depending on their situation. I understand why people find his work disturbing as it is bluntly exposing the hideous reality. Not beating around the bush, he does not fear judgement or hate.

Now I finally feel like I have a direction within my own work. Having looked at what my work is about and what want it to be about. These are; SOCIAL INTERACTION, LABOUR, AUTHORSHIP AND HUMOUR. I also want to critique the world of art through my work. I think as a student this is could be a brave move, But I also see lots of potential in this.
So I had the idea of getting artists in China who create these recreations of famous paintings (example of one on the right.) I want one of these artists to create a self-portrait. The works created on the websites are priced purely on size, which I find amusing as you can buy an exact replica of a masterpiece and the price is dependent on the number of materials used. So a self-portrait from these talented outsourced artists is effectively using an existing transaction for a different purpose. However, I am not certain if the business will allow me to conceptualise its successful business!
If I cannot succeed in this self-portrait idea I may delve further into the idea of fakes. As this outsourcing business also offers a service where if you send a photo they can recreate it with a painting. I like the idea of sending them a photo of a painting that I could pick up from a charity shop for less than ten pounds. Then sending it off to get it recreated in China. After this, I could get it valued somewhere. This breaks down the barrier of prestige. Trying to uncover what is making art valuable!
In China, they have a variety of factories that promote repetitive labour. Things such as click farms (right), where all people do are repetitively click on hundreds of phones to make it look as if people are watching adverts. I think I may look into the idea of repetitive labour as I continue.

For weeks, I have been back and forth with multiple men in China who are running these oil painting factories. These men would not put me in contact with any of the artists and definitely did not want to give their artists any form of creativity. I am still trying to make this work but it is deemed rather difficult. One of these men has hinted that a self-portrait may be valid but has not got back to me once I pestered him for the artist's name and details etc. I think this is the main part of the work, the relationship I have with this worker, so i don't think it would be a valid piece. So now I think I am going to revisit Santiago Sierra as lots of his work involves labour. I am still looking into other sites where I can find people who will make work for money. However, I feel as if independent artists doing the same work is not as effective as labourers in factories. Going forward I shall further my research into Sierra and see who and how I can positively 'exploit!'

I think the idea of workers still remains, however, I may flip the switch and I, myself, may become the worker. As I have been seeing what people will do for money, maybe I could push myself and see what I will do for art and money!

After looking into Santiago Sierra further. I am obviously a fan, but I was less attracted to the idea of paying people for labour.

This felt very cyclical for me as last year I was looking into labour. Especially with the artist Tehching Hsieh last term. I was shown this work, ‘Time Clock Piece.’ This was one of five, year-long performance pieces. He states, ‘One year is the basic unit of how we count time.’ ‘How we measure our existence.’ This piece consisted of the artist stamping a time card in his work uniform every hour of every day for a year. This caused great psychological pain as he could never truly rest. He grew his hair throughout the year showing a change in appearance, but I think you can see a change in his face, he looks tired and restless. I love how this work is about labour and how one is controlled by their work. He creates this unnecessary labour that does not pay for his work, a true discipline that in my opinion, has paid off greatly. There is a seven-minute video which contains the compilation of every photo, here is the link https://youtu.be/k4_xw2zyQN4Furthering this, I thought I could look into my own labour. The nichest work I do is work on a battery chicken farm once every six weeks. This is where I unload two hundred thousand chickens into industrial sheds.

As I am essentially in an artist's block, I decided to revisit Santiago Sierra, looking at his top ten most famous pieces. I am so intrigued by the idea of him being controversial, but because of this so effective. I still am clueless, but am happy I have discovered this great man.

I think due to the multiple failures I have had this year I have been very static with my approach, nothing seems to be working for me. So I've sat down and thought about my work. What am I interested in; the idea of labour!
I think I have been trying to overcomplicate things. But I'm just letting the weeks go by without creating anything.
I am going to film people at work and go from there.
I looked at the artist Mika Rottenberg who worked with niche videography (above right). The work she creates is all about people processing this idea of mass production. It has a similar vein to the topic I am interested in. I think filming people at work is a good place to go from here.

I have established multiple relationships on the website fiver. However, I think I need to move on. It does not feel as if the message will be conveyed using this. As it is freelance it seems like less of a forced labour.

I had this idea of stealing a chicken from work; bold. the plan was to raise the chicken and let it live a full, happy life. This is outsourcing a life which I enjoyed the idea of. Completely changing the purpose of the chicken from food to a pet. Sadly when the time came I came to the understanding that stealing one would be impossible to do without someone realising. I did not want to lose my job as well as the blokes who work there are quite an intimidating bunch of men. I mention this idea as I think it is my most courageous one yet and I cannot express how close I was to just swipe one. My adrenaline spiked during the shift.

I am very aware that many ideas have been present, however, my execution has been poor. I am in a rabbit hole of failure. So once again, time for a change.

I am pleased with the videos I have gathered. It was a very interesting experience. I got to speak to many people at work which has helped me think about my work further. Before I did this I was under the cynical impression that most people would not enjoy their jobs, I was mistaken. Having gone around I met many people at work. There were a massive variety of people's reactions to their work. Some people noticeably enjoyed what they did for work, however, some hated it and they were only working to survive or support themselves. I think this variety is interesting because people have to work and some love it and others hate it. These videos are just clips from people's day to days, only a snippet of what they do. I edited these videos together to portray that labour was wholly negative. I learnt a lot in terms of editing, it took me a very long time to do and to be honest I do not like the outcome. My message of the video was false, I portrayed that their work was a painful task, even though I knew this was not the case, however it was a learning process and I learnt a lot about editing.

VIDEOS OF WORKS ON GOOGLE DRIVE

Mika Rottenberg, (video above) sets out to tackle challenges revolving around mass production and labour. She does this in humorous videography. The outcome is effective as well as interesting to watch. I have been intrigued by her video editing and wanted to give it a go.

VIDEOS ON GOOGLE DRIVE

So the video was a flop, however, I do feel as if this research was beneficial. I understand that a lot of labour is a process that involves maximum effort and the outcome is minimal. As well as this, much of our labour is being taken over by robots and we are soon to be useless. I wanted to create something that combined all of this.
The idea of a repetitive, useless task being a part of our daily lives.

I had this idea of making a hammer move back and forth in a repetitive motion. I wanted the hammer to have this clunky movement. I wanted it to look as if it was inevitably going to break (but stay together.) The thought of having this overly complicated machine perform simple tasks, unsuccessfully, is such an intriguing idea to me. It is both humourous as well as poignant. My sketch of the plan is on the right

I chose to use a windscreen wiper motion as the back-and-forth action was perfect for what I wanted to achieve. Lots of obstacles arose when building the work. The motor originally did not have enough power, as well as the motor, kept slipping on the attachment. Balancing the weight was definitely the most challenging aspect of the work. But it came out working, in a perfect, imperfect way!

This is the first time in the year I have been truly happy with an outcome. I love the way the 'arm' moves and how it looks so imperfect. There's this charm to the fact that there are random blocks of wood and wholes everywhere. It looks as if it is going to break itself which I find comical. I want to continue this hammer experiment with other items used in labour, the next tool I am going to use is a broom and try and recreate this same aura.

I think going forward into next term I would like to make the robots more reliable as the brooms motor died on me. I want to use just one motor (a much larger one,) to power multiple tools. What I want to do is create my own CAMS allowing for each tool to have its movement (right.) I think that one motor would allow for more reliable systems (less likely to brake.) Also aesthetically would be good-looking, an assembly line of chaos. I want to position each tool to perform a task, unsuccessfully. Have the hammer trying to hit a nail in, but failing, for example. This pushes the idea that we often perform these tasks within our labour which is completely pointless and robots will be doing it all for us soon.