Transformation

Refill /  by Justin Harrison

I’m back in the woods harvesting material. I’ve had an idea that’s pressing on me, although I suspect the raw materials won’t be here. I do find something of interest and set to it - cutting disks off a larger fallen tree, It’s hard work - as I cut I looking for an efficiency and wonder what this means also. Why be efficient? Why is production so important. Does efficiency matter in the Liminal?

I like that it’s all cut bulky hand but the novelty is beginning to em wear off.

More importantly I think is that I am in the forest. It’s a place of refilling - even if I don’t get much made. The head space I find is likely more productive…but then do I need to be productive? Or is that a capatilaist conditioned relfex?

 

Studio Notes - Jointed Paddle /  by Justin Harrison

Previously I had cut a joint into a length of Holly. It had a resonance that I especially liked. So now I am embarking on making a full length paddle form. I don’t need it to perform or look exactly like a paddle but take essential qualities from one.

I find all the wood I use fallen and never cut it from a live tree. It’s left behind too. The branch is particularly straight but I suspect it could be interesting if it had a noticeable bend in it. But for now I just want to get this made and se what it says to me.

I need to cut two fairly good joints and I also wonder if its possible to make a ‘universal joint.’

The blade of the paddle is forming but I’m not entirely convinced I like it just yet, however I think it’s best to just let it evolve for now.

Another thought is if I could find a dead standing tree and put a joint into one of it’s larger branches…

 

Studio Notes - Cabinet Paddle /  by Justin Harrison

Cabinet Paddle. I’ve had an old draw knocking around. It’s been waiting for me to do something, so I set to it with a saw. The lock and holes to fit the handle still present, it’s former life still marked, haunting it. (I also like the connection to draws that I have been drawing.)

I’ll put in joints again, the other preoccupation I have, it’s purpose and use rePlaced.

I love the history to the materials again, more than just a cut of wood it’s history marks it and places it in and out of time. ‘Time is out of joint’. (The wood smelt peculiar when I cut it, it’s history was given up in it’s scent, mothballs and varnish and everyday life).

I hope to make this a little better than the current ‘Physical Sketches’, cut the joints nice.

I also had a practice carving it that I will need to cover somehow as it detracts from the dialogue. More copper cladding perhaps.

 

The Forest /  by Justin Harrison

Image my own

Been thinking about ‘The forest’ as a ‘place of non place’, of unbelonging.
Of being lost.
Also does the Forest as a site resist colonialisation? Especially in it’s resistance of structure and the centre. An anti-land (Cixous)

The strong vertical presence marks a from of time - yet time also looses it’s bearing here. Bodies grow tall and then yield themselves to the ground.

Hamlet encounters the Ghost - the Spectral in the forest. His father pulled out of time in his orchard. ‘Time is out of joint’ Hamlet.

Ursula Von Rydingsvard’s work rooted in the body of the forest, her life a liminal existence.

What else does the forest offer as a site, no site. Does it reflect the essence of Derrida’s enquiries, of the nature of Differance, the spectre, and so on.

Is it a site of transformation? The passage through summing change. After all the forest is a site of constant change, growth and decay.

On a practical level - I keep returning here to dwell, think and work. I feel like there is an obvious connection that I am blind to.

 

Caputo and Derrida /  by Justin Harrison

Just documenting and collating key quotes for research- don’t worry about reading unless you really want to….

leaking

overflowing

contaminating

Density of language

The granular

Khôra

Differance

Leaking

Atolysis

Emptying out

Container

Liminal

Thoughts

Transform

Passage

“Transcendental conditions nail things down, pin them in place, inscribe them firmly within rigorously demarcated horizons; quasi-transcendental conditions allow them to slip loose, to twist free from their surrounding horizons, to leak and run off, to exceed or overflow their margins. The problem in a transcendental philosophy is how to establish communication across the borders; the problem in a quasi-transcendental philosophy is how to keep things from running into each other and contaminating everything. But a quasi-transcendental condition is a condition of or for entities, not an entity itself; a condition under which things appear, but too poor and impoverished, too unkingly, to dictate what there is or what there is not, lacking the power to bring what is not into being, lacking the authority to prohibit something from being. So différance describes the possibility and the impossibility of a language that addresses God, of positive, onto-theo-logical languages, like that of Thomas Aquinas, and the extraordinary languages of mystical theologians like John of the Cross, of mystical poets like Angelus Silesius, with all their paradoxes and paralogisms, detours and dissonances. Différance describes the languages of faith and prayer which, as Derrida's Work evolves, prove to be not just particular examples of language, but wemplary uses that exceed linguistic categorization and tend to coincide with language itself, to become the very yes, or amen, of language to what Is happening. That is why deconstruction is not ultimately neutral. Even diftrance describes the possibility and impossibility of the language in which God is coldheartedly denied by Hume of Bertrand Russell, excortpied by Nietzsche for all of It’s failings, or brushed off with a shrug by kon'y, who does not see why we need bother to talk like that,_Dilitance is altogether too meager and poor a thing to settle the quiete” Caputo Payers and Tears of Derrida p12-13

I wonder does Derrida provide the conceptual context for where transformation can occur - the passage way?

 

I bled on it, it must be finished. /  by Justin Harrison

Really wish I’d put a coat of Aussie wax on it, just three coats of neats foot oil feels too vulnerable. But then it is a fragile little piece. The wood is thin, knotted and brittle, the leather porous and sensitive to it’s environment (including my blood - I jabbed my finger several times sewing it).

I think that’s what the piece is about, sensitivity and vulnerability in passage. But its more as well///

I finished late Sunday night - just in time for Monday, an annoying tension of kinda rushing it but then taking too long. ((( Note this started out as a piece that’s supposed to be made in an hour)))  But what’s come out of it is interesting and suggests to me that I should attempt the experiment of’ limited making time’ again,especially as the concept was generated through that process.

I’m intrigued by the artwork thats been made and what it touches on: Restoration, RePlacement, Resistance. Strongholds (my ref - not a theme clearly described in the piece) Momento mori, death as passage, way marker, the fear that permeates change.  

/// I’ve burnt the wood so intentionally, the surface quality is really important, transitions from raw wood into charred wood through to high polished grain and knots. I’m wanting to use the visceral feel of materials and their treatments to articulate.

I am curious to work with the fencing panels some more ( I have a bunch stashed in the studio), sanding and polishing to transform it to find value and beauty. \\\ I spoke in class the other day about ‘Agitating Agents’ people or situations that rub us up the wrong way, how they can work to refine us, teach us. Slough off the surface detritus. Process and change and discomfort.

I also wonder what would happen to the piece if I were to change it’s scale and it 3 meters high. But then I’d really have to love the piece to commit to it.

///////

Is this work  a documentation of passage or an intercession for change? or both I can’t really decide at the moment but then maybe I don’t need to and it’s in the process of practice I may find answers.


 

T up >> T down<< /  by Justin Harrison

Image my own

In writing my Study statement - I began to think about Transformation in a particular model. The problem with models is they are often wrong. Things don’t fit into categorisation or structure neatly - but it’s a way of temporarily holding the information for me, a way of looking at it - till I find a better way…

Actually a lot came out of writing my Assessment and Study statement, I’ve not considered my practice, art or interests so formally before. It was hard, I had a headache after posting it all. But so worth it, to find structure, plans and actually discover that my interests do connect.

Does transformation exist in two differing states that cycle round:

Transformation down <<

In the transformation down<<<  the process of deconstruction, decomposition. The gradual and eventual disassembly of structure, division of cells, molecules and elements.  

A rendering down to constituent parts.

“Everything is divisable” (Derrida)

Transformation up >>

In transformation up>>> looking at the coalescence, aggregation, cumulation of elements or events. The newness of creation. Being RePlaced. Becoming new, becoming more.

A circle of transformation cycling through stages of Life>>>Death >>> Decomposition >>> Creation>>>New life>>>

“Far from being ‘dead,’ however, a rotting corpse is teeming with life. A growing number of scientists view a rotting corpse as the cornerstone of a vast and complex ecosystem, which emerges soon after death and flourishes and evolves as decomposition proceeds.” (Mo Costandi (2017). Life after death: the science of human decomposition. [online] the Guardian).

So in light of the nature of Derrida's approach to deconstructions and undecidability - where in his thinking does he reference a constructive approach? What if anything isn’t left undone -  Reinscription? Somewhere I read about a part of his work that touched on this but cannot remember which book it was.

I need to locate more specific and rigorous texts that at least allude to something akin to Transformation up>>>