For this task, the works I have chosen are some images from my A6 primary research sketchbook in which I jot down quick sketches and ideas. These are immediate, undeveloped, initial responses to any visual stimulus that I find interesting or sparks ideas in any way. They serve as a means of processing any information – visual, textual or otherwise.

I use the materials that I have to hand – masking tape, PVC tape, paper scraps, occasionally pencils, but mostly fine liners and markers for their distinctive graphic qualities.

I was inspired by Peter Driver’s talk on his artistic practice and the way in which he expanded his upbeat, positive small-scale print work in a conceptual manner to create the ‘March For Optimism’ through Winchester in 2014. In a similar manner, rather than physically enlarge the drawings by simply scaling them up, I have developed this further and enlarged the drawings conceptually, by extending this into my manifesto project.

In order to up-scale this work, I integrated the ideas and imagery gathered in my A6 sketchbooks – this took the form of a collective consisting of myself, Lauren Culloty and Poppy Ash, formed as a rejection of the Manifesto project – the AMP movement, in which we created over 400 zines (40 designs) and distributed them across Winchester.

I was able to expand on the simple ideas I had captured in my A6 sketchbooks and through the collaboration, contribute to develop this to take on a life of its own.

Initially, I found the process daunting – putting my ideas out there on a public platform was intimidating and confronting. I’ve found the blog to be increasingly useful for me to reflect on my working practice and processes, in a similar vein to a sketchbook or reflective journal. It has been rewarding to look back on the blog posts and see my development and progress from the start.

Approaching Task 1 of the RCS blog, the passport project, ‘Trace’, I was keen to explore zine-making and experiment with the photocopier more. Through the manifesto project, I was able to develop this to a far greater extent – appropriating images and text, forming a collective, breaking apart and subsequently re-assembling, making over 400 zines and widely distributing them both publicly and anonymously across Winchester.

The blog has allowed a space for greater reflection and awareness of practice as well as theoretical aspects that have arisen in lectures that often link to aspects of my work.

Playful, Experimental, Chance, Line, Contrast, Manual, Process, Expression, Negative Space

Commentary to reflect on choices –

The above image is of a selection of zines from the manifesto project. as it is my most recent work and probably best encapsulates my overall attitudes and approach to making and my own practice.

Zine-making was a process I wanted to explore further

Reproducibility, somewhat slapdash

I was keen to embrace and play with the ‘lo-fi’ aesthetic, whereby the process of reproduction via photocopier is evident and becomes a part of the overall aesthetic, such as the offset margins and edges.

The words I have used to describe the image

old words –

Slapdash, Zines, Lo-fi, Text?, (Collaborative), Appropriation

Hollywood Africans, 1983

In his painting, ‘Hollywood Africans’, New York-based artist Jean-Michel Basquiat depicts himself, alongside fellow experimental artist-musician Rammellzee and graffiti artist Toxic, both emerging figures in the underground music scene. Music was a powerful source of inspiration for Basquiat and the trio collaborated to produce the single ‘Beat Bop’ (1983). This was in the midst of the rise of hip-hop as a new movement and an increasingly powerful force in the 1980s.

The work is a powerful, unapologetic and striking depiction of the trio, the intensity of colour and high contrast of the electric blue on yellow, as well as the expressionist, trademark, gestural use of paint gives it what critic Skye Sherwin describes as a ‘raw energy’. Text dominates the canvas in the artist’s distinctive writing and particularly pertinent and shocking are the words ‘paw paw’ branded across the artist’s hand. As Sherwin notes, this references the ‘obscene view’ of black people as animals. ‘

Basquiat uses his work to critique the stereotyping and marginalisation of black artists across the arts industries. Many of the artists and musicians he admired and referenced in his work had suffered ‘extreme racial prejudice’ during their lifetimes; the title of this painting references the ‘inescapable racism’ in the film industry. Phrases such as ‘gangsterism’, ‘sugar cane’, and ‘tobacco’ allude to the lack of roles and opportunities for black actors.

For this task, I decided to appropriate the work of contemporary collage artist Jesse Draxler. I was drawn to his abstraction of the human form and obscuring of the face, and was keen to develop this in some way. His monochromatic black and white colour scheme gives his work a sharp, graphic quality, due to the clean lines and high contrast. I thought this would be a good starting point from which I could develop some work.

I was inspired to consider methods of distortion and abstraction and how I could ‘edit’ his work in a way that would be relevant to my practice. Having previously discussed my use of manual image manipulation using the photocopier, I was keen to develop this in another experimental and playful way, using ‘Glitch Art’, incorporating the element of chance and unpredictability.

Using the software Notepad++ I was able to edit the code of the original JPEG image and slowly alter the makeup of the image. With limited experience in coding and no knowledge of the coding language used, I did not know which bits of the code I was changing, a very playful and unpredictable process.

The attached images demonstrate the range of outcomes from this experimental process. The results included discolouration, pixilation, the image shifting to the right or left and missing pixels or chunks of the image. Image 1 was my first attempt at ‘glitching’ the image and I did not edit the code significantly. Similarly the code for Image 3 has not been massively altered, yet the image itself differs significantly from Draxler’s original collage.

Image 1

Image 3

Images 6 and 7 however were significantly altered and I was careful to ensure the files were not corrupted from too much of the code being damaged.

Each image had multiple iterations as, at each step, the work needed to be saved as a different file, thereby documenting the process and development of the work as well. The below images are examples of the more heavily edited works, both the eighth iterations of their respective developmental processes. Having had more practice with this technique, I had a greater degree of control over the results, the compositions and effects somewhat more intentional.

Image 6 (8)

Image 7 (8)

I found this process transformed the images – some more successfully than others – and it worked well with both the colourful and monochromatic images in entirely different ways. This process raises questions about authorship and authenticity – to what extent does altering another artist’s work make it your own? Does this only happen if the work no longer bears resemblance to the original? As a collage artist, Draxler himself appropriates imagery and material in order to make work and I thought it apt to take this a step further by adding to it myself and making it my own.

Leo Steinberg, ‘Excerpt from Other Criteria: The Flatbed Picture Plane’, 1972

Steinberg explores the radical shift from verticality of the pictorial plane towards horizontality. He explains this in literal terms, describing a physical shift of the painting from an ‘uprighted state… correspond[ing] to human posture’ and the way in which Rauschenberg ‘seized’ and ‘uprighted’ his bed against the wall. He uses this literal description to explain the ‘transposition from nature to culture through a shift of ninety degrees’. This move from ‘nature to culture’ is a rejection of the

Rauschenberg symbolises this shift, his work surface ‘tabulates’ information – linked with Pop Art and emblematic early work of Jasper Johns, in this shift in art towards culture.

He described how Rauschenberg’s work of the early 1950s became a metaphor and ‘dump’ for the mind itself, through his

Richard Serra, ‘The Yale Lecture’, 1990

Richard Serra, in his 1990 Yale University Lecture discusses his practice and his attitudes towards site-specificity. He considers the way in which the decision making process is made evident in his work

In their respective texts, Richard Serra and Leo Steinberg present their attitudes towards art and question the general societal perceptions of it. Both artists consider the changing way in which artists produce work, while Serra discusses his own practice of creating steel sculptures; Steinberg’s focus is on Rauschenberg and his radical method of ‘flattening’ the pictorial plane, even with his use of collage and assemblage, as well as the way in which he drew his ideas and imagery from everyday life.

Both texts explore non-traditional attitudes and dismiss commonly held views. Steinberg’s rejection of the vertical picture plane, as a mirror of our own human form, parallels Serra’s rejection of ideas of the traditional studio, in favour of site-specificity and more industrial production methods.

For this task, I decided to pursue something I would never typically choose to do voluntarily – performance and performativity. I took the opportunity to try something far from the remit of my practice and be more open-minded with the results of what this may yield.

I became increasingly interested in the presence and role of the artist in the creation of work and undertook a series of explorations using the body as a canvas – as opposed to just my hands as tools for making. Having previously considered the ‘artist’s hand’ in my work and how much of yourself you expose in creating work, I began to embrace these notions of identity I typically use my work to evade.

On separate occasions, I covered myself in masking tape, painted myself orange and wrapped myself in newsprint. Using familiar materials, I was able to approach ‘performance art’ without being put off or running in the opposite direction.

For this task, I also participated in a collaborative project with three others in which we connected ourselves to one another with yarn, tying our hands and heads together.

Working performatively and collaboratively

Attending the ‘Everything at Once’ exhibition at 180 The Strand, I was inspired by the sheer size of the exhibition and the wide range of contemporary art. Amidst all the work, there was one piece in particular that really captured and held my attention, ‘The Black Pot’ (2013), a stop-motion animation by Swedish artists Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg.

Immediately walking into the room, I found myself immersed in the mesmerising video installation. The panoramic film spanning the four walls did not

nor did it obnoxiously force itself on me, an unwilling participant (as I find installations can sometimes do).

The animation consisted of spheres and bands of coloured light, ebbing, flowing and pulsating against a black background, alongside a soundtrack of ambient electronica. The movements of the forms were natural and organic – reminiscent of something, perhaps nostalgic, yet somehow avoiding sentimentality. It could be argued that the abstracted, surreal animation seems to communicate on more of a subconscious level, perhaps that of a dream-like, hallucinatory state.

loss of meaning, balance – the uncanny

In an interview on the work, Djurberg discusses the inspiration the work draws from ontogenesis (the transformation of an organism from an egg to a mature form). The curation of the work within a ‘darkened, womb-like environment’ could be argued to depict the cycle of life.

I was struck by the undulation of the forms and the way in which they seemed to occupy the space – such as through the use of negative space – purposeful and deliberate. This was alongside the eccentric and hypnotic music of Hans Berg, creating a distinct atmosphere. Experiencing the work in situ, as an immersive and panoramic installation, the ‘poetic and metaphorical abstraction’ is evocative and moving.

The Barbican’s ‘Basquiat: Boom for Real’ exhibition covers the life and career of New York-based artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. It demystifies his working process, explores the various stages in the development of his artistic practice, as well as his collaborations and relations with fellow artists and musicians. It was compelling to learn about the diversity and fluidity of his practice, working across a range of media, from poetry, performance, music and Xerox art to paintings, drawings and objects.

It was fascinating to better understand his working process, both in and out of the studio – he would surround himself with source material, drawing inspiration from books scattered around him on the floor to the sounds of the television or boom box. As the writer Glenn O’Brien commented, ‘he ate up every image, every word, every bit of data that appeared in front of him’ and ‘processed’ and ‘synthesized’ this all into his work.

The exhibition also revealed the extensive selection of source material from which Basquiat drew his ideas and content, particularly in the ‘Notebooks’ and ‘Encyclopaedia’ rooms. I found this allowed me to deconstruct his large mural-like paintings and altered the way in which I actually perceived his work. It was particularly intriguing to see pages of his notebooks and contextualise the role played by text in his work, as well as its musicality and rhetoric.

‘Part 14’, Nikki S. Lee (2002)

Nikki S. Lee’s photograph, ‘Part 14’ depicts the artist in the backseat of a car, with a man’s arm around her, his hand resting on her shoulder. The woman’s body language, facing away from her companion, and her blank, withdrawn expression reveal a degree of hostility held towards the unseen man.

The image is one of a series of works, ‘Parts’, in which the artist is depicted in an interaction with another person, cropped out of the image, indicated by the partial white border that runs around three sides of the image. As the title suggests, we may only be glimpsing a ‘part’ of a larger image from which the other person has been cut out of – as if to suggest that the relationship has ended, the couple has broken up and the former partner has been removed from the original photos.

As in her series, ‘Projects’, Lee herself dons disguises in order to explore notions of identity in a performative approach. Similarly in this work, Lee herself poses as the subject of the photograph, playing the woman in question.