Cleansing /  by Justin Harrison

I had some time, so Iwent to the forest. I find it such a refreshing location to be in. Immersed in sea of tress and green. I find a place to be, to quiet myself.

I took my coffee pot - it’s a ritual. A place of prayer.

There is a clearing I favour, occupied by Oak and Holly. When I came upon it today it had litter and various bits of evidence human passage. It upset me, it felt very wrong. I cleared it as an act of cleansing and humility. Remembering that I make mess, literal and spiritual.

Some small works came…’little nothings’ - quick and unselfconscious. (More limited timed pieces). Playing with materials. Stripping. Stripping small branches of their bark The work seems overly simplistic, but then this is an exercise in me getting out of my own way, not censoring everything and realising what can come out of play. So much is serious and ‘oh so earnest’.

The drawing followed and I can’t decide which way it should go up, or where it should go. But I almost need to just get this stuff out of my head to make room for the following ideas. A cleansing. My head is full of stuff, it’s getting crowded.

Breathe.

I see the forest as a site of constant change and micro transformations. Growth and Decay. Transformation up and Transformation down.

 

Increased viscosity of the text /  by Justin Harrison

With Derrida there is an increased viscosity of the text, it flows easier , it flows further. This is what is useful for art, this freedom of interpretation and meaning, of language, that flows that trickles down between the cracks. That can bleed and saturate. With the ‘bleeding through’ motif, the meaning can seep, can creep and separate out into the granular. In chemistry there is the practice of ‘Chromatic Separation’ with colours, where they can be added to one end of paper and let to creep up paper separating out into their residual parts. This can also be witnessed in Derrida's approach to writing, a ‘chromatic separation of meaning’ though the viscosity of text , by liberating it from the rigid structures that are not real, meaning production is liberated.

Then in Spectres of Marx, Derrida talks of the ‘Spectres’ presence being elusive, they carry the past with them, yet they are neither present nor the past manifest, they have an essence of the future as they can continue to appear but there is no control over how or when they will appear. Their nowness is fluid, their presence their bodily corporeal presence is a mystery. Then in addition Derrida talks of the desire to localise the dead through our mourning.

Looking at UvR's work there is a mourning to her work, there is a funeral feel in the dark wood, the large wooden forms are like sarcophagi, cases, vessels.

She admits that there is a sense of the body in the work, in the scale, gestures, bodily presence ‘room for a body’. Almost trying to contain or localise something that is elusive. Is UvR trying to localise her being, her belonging, which she is mourning for, yet it is elusive.

UVR - "I think it's equally important that it envelopes the human, becauses it's tall and it's wide. That somehow when you can embrace the body, you can aslo embrace the psyche more effectively". Rydingsvard von Ursula

Spatial relationship to her belonging: Spatial temporal, spatial physical and spatial conceptual. Almost like trying to reincarnate something - bring it back, reanimate. But is that what she's trying to do or am I missing something?

Writing about Droga

https://www.artnews.com/art-in-america/aia-reviews/ursula-von-rydingsvard-60671/

Talking about her making - beautiful dialogue.

"It needed the scale, it needed every inch that was in it" UvR

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28Nt3Lmh8Ys&list=PL1boWZ4URBmoMu_BuM4hansQYJVV45WhT

UVR - "I think it's equally important that it envelopes the human, becauses it's tall and it's wide. That somehow when you can embrace the body, you can aslo embrace the psyche more effectively". Rydingsvard von Ursula

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfDDH0DIc7o&list=PL1boWZ4URBmoMu_BuM4hansQYJVV45WhT&index=6

 

Mechanics of Paper /  by Justin Harrison

MA Session - Paper folding.

I like it when there is no clear boundaries with certain disciplines, especially in the arts, which is why I like Derrida’s work, the structures get broken down and bleed into each other.

With the paper folding the surface becomes space. 2d is both 2d and 3d. Sculpture and single plane. It seems a natural response to then photograph the work, explore the tonal planes and how the sculpture can return to an image, abstracted and RePlaced.

It’s no secret I love process and the practical tuition was very satisfying. Finding the form in the paper feel good too as we creased the paper. In this I chose to work with waxed paper. I love how it takes and draws each crease in white, whilst maintaining a warm translucent qality. Ultimately the paper doesn’t perform so well structurally but then moving beyond folded form it then lends it’s self to more possibilities. Again the language of materials is there to be found and negotiated.

 

Paper Spectres /  by Justin Harrison

I realise I’m missing an opportunity after the MA sessions we have - I need to reflect on the sessions after each one, that I’m missing out on the thoughts and ideas that arise from each Thursday. Sounds obvious now I say it but I’ve been so focussed on my own practice that it didn’t occur to me. Plus I should just pretty much document anything - especially if everything is research.

Thursday’s photographic session was an interesting one as I didn’t have time to think, but just throw stuff together without too much consideration, the speed with which I wanted to work meant that it was very intuitive and unconscious. Normally I would have liked tie to think about what I would do and prepare materials. But coming straight from work and not quiet being sure of what was going to be asked, meant I had to work on the fly.

(((I find an interesting tension between working intentionally and intuitively, I see value in them both, but struggle to reconcile a way to work using both - although I wonder if this is the value to making the ‘little nothings’ that Ursula von Rydingsvard creates.)))

Taking the direnct transfer images I was still working true to my practice taking layered paper and collaging. It’s quiet close to my practice already. Accumulating images and working them back and forth. It’s a part of my visual language t he photographic image. I note how often I use photography as a means to thinking a nd documenting ideas.

What became more interesting was when I collated the images together and place. them as one long block on the Miro board. Putting all the images together made sense of them, the colours and movement through form, with elements being lost and captured.

How the images are captured on the paper has a ‘spectral’ quality (Derrida - Specters Of Marx) , it’s evidence of history, present and future across the same site. Unfixed the image won’t remain, and the image viewed is not how it will be in the future, or how it was. There is a ghostly presence on the paper which cannot be entreated to stay or name itself.

Currently I’m reading - Spectres of Marx by Derrida. I’ve moved onto this text following a conversation with someone more versed in Derrida and other associated writers. There are a number fo terms that Derrida uses in Literary critical analysis, Hymen, Trace, Differance, Spectural. Thera are all similar but different, and I need to get a little more familiar with them for the sake of my research and my sanity.

I’m especially liking the notion of the spectre it’s connects easily to what I am investigating with my research paper and own art practice. More time with it is needed, as there are nuanced motifs in what I am reading that play out in my own work - especially the choice of materials. In discussion with Jonathan during a turutorail we discussed how the history of a material (a fence panel) has a key role for me in the nature and language of the art work I am making. That it becomes woven into the heart of the artwork and it’s integrity, even though it may not be clear to the viewer.

 

Coding of Space /  by Justin Harrison

Image my own

In thinking about the Summer school - ‘Rivers the Jugular veins of Empire’:
The coded language used in the past and now is key. E.g ‘Exploring party’ or ‘Civilising Mission’- this is not correct or transparent, but something else - more sinister, treacherous and obfuscating. Perhaps more accurate would be ‘Murderous pillaging of assets’ and ‘A mission to aggressively encode a people in preparation to enter the financial machine of empire’.

Then the concept of space: Ownership, occupation and outworking.

Can Space be described as occupying 3/ possibly more realms:

1.Physical space
2.Temporal space
3.Conceptual space.

How can/should this space be occupied in light of what we know and what has been learnt from history. (All history)

Other unorganised thoughts:
Space: giving/using space in film - temporal, spatial, conceptual?

Relationship of belonging to/in space. 

Again the idea of belonging is one that I find challenging and multifaceted.

Historical ref of Belonging: set against empire and obstacles overcome to this point.

Cultures erased by colonialism in name of ‘civilisation’ were/are subject to an aggressive recoding to financial production.

An aggressive re-coding to financial production.

 

Encombre In Autolysis /  by Justin Harrison

It’s as if the house began to consume itself. Autolysis.
The structure that was akin to a vessel or a body - is now aggregate.
I know some of the properties history, a grubby past that is hung upon darker secrets.
There is a little sadness with its passing, more relief.

The site has become passage and place at the same time. Khôra the space outside, a dumping ground and non space or ‘antiland’

What is Khôra? I need to define better.

Division  for generation?

 

Tutorial /  by Justin Harrison

In thinking about my research paper investigations JK encouraged me to investigate Ursula Von Rydingsvard more having already engaged with her work. Especially her ‘Little nothings’ work which appears very close to my current investigations. Look at her work even a single piece. Look for connections including things not apparent. Don’t need to focus on existential issues - they will naturally enter into the work. Derrida ect

Unison

1 + 1 = 3

Regarding my art work I discussed my reluctance to repeat motifs too much and my desire to create the new.

JK mentioned the value of repetition of exploring. How through repetion of a theme 10 or 20 times things can come out that are not expected but unique and valuable. Which is likely what happens with Ursula Von Rydingsvard who works aound key motifs and materials.

Wood

Through repetition it can make more heightened work further down the process.

In my work there are key and connected motifs:

A Relationship with wood that has a history

An Intervention creating a differing narrative to its past.

Useful question: What is the interaction with audience? Why they are being shown the work.

Feedback to recent art work:

Forest hill astonishing. Drawing is a natural and apparent part of my work.

Also the photographyThe words from my blog agianst the picture could be displayed. Juxtaposed at same scale. Stunning piece of writing. I question the photographic work I make as not connected to my usual practice. I was Resisting photography as not beautiful or crafted.

JK reflected that I  still crafted composure, observation, lighting, content. It’s worth noting that the Photos generate the prose and the two work very well. In the same way I draws - landscape - noticing light context opportunities. The Blog is pulling elements together - little nothings, draws, drawings photography. A strength in my work is listening to the materials - to guide, inform and refine the making.

We discussed that Ursula Von Rydingsvard has given herself permission to be free and not work to a script but explores and listens closely to the materials she uses - and this permissionis  helpful for me too.

“The only way you learn is to make things that fail, and sometimes the things that fail abysmally are the things you learn the most from” Ursual Von Rydingsvard You Tube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv4cI2k_rZc 1hr 22 mins

“Ongoing creative decision making - continuously unfolding…Once each beam is stacked new decisions are being made, where to cut, how to cut” Solomon Adler

“There is a way in which  I grope the whole time I am making a piece”. UVR YouTube 20 mins

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFzYDTjh2VI

Investigate Rydingsvard more. Making freely is helpful. Also the Mini deadlines.

JK Asked: Drawing sculpture photography are they related or seperate?

Trinitatrain  related - yes it is

Do you see them as three distinct separate things?

Derrida flow over flow bleeding through. In Process I work back and forth

Do you print photos? Bring them into the physical- could show.

There is a thread - repeat more, it’s safe.

JK asked me to imagine a gallery space I’m exhibiting at - what would you show?

Me: I wanna show the better work I haven’t made yet.

The curse of approval

I realise my desire for originality is not helping

That it’s overwhelming to recreate everytime ‘to be back to the drawing board’

Jk said that I could show what I have right now and it would be strong.

JK flagged my statement “Hang on I wanna make the better stuff.” as a key one to watch out for, that it’s unhelpful.

Catford the drawings I chose to show were astonishing, amazing.

A feeling of ‘Wow I wish I had made that’

Effortless and beguiling yet significant energy put in. Looks like it always should have been that.

Drawings - Exhibition next week Id have an astonish show.

The ‘Little nothings’ I am making are important - edition your work.

Art give us the freedom to be extravagant

Dragon are flies extravagant thousadnsd of species.

Make 10 leather or wood pieces.

Pulling together of ideas trying to hold in my head some in blog some in head.

Reflection that there is a Deep honesty in the blog

Why am I doing this - exploring the materials or context - there’s a depth to this.

JK

1. Desire for originality not helping

2. Be strategic with paper - how does she relate her work to drawing.

3. Reach out to UVR. Have a conversation?

4. Grounded context in making will help with Derrida

5. Mini deadlines really helping

There is an extravigence in the work what comes acoss is the integrity, love, compassion and commitment.

I came to realise in discussing the challenges I’m facing regarding feeling that the work is all over the place and had not come thogther - wasn’t correct there are definitely strong related threads and also quality to what I’m doing.

In discussing my process and approach to work we highlighted key ares that are working and I just needed a nudge to realise it.

Making the little nothings is working for me and to editions and repeat similar motifs, is not just valid but important. Out of it can come nuances and ideas and it’s ok to be extravigant.

I worried that I had too many disperate ideas, but there is a commonality to them especially around working in wood that has a history to it. It is coming through in my blog, which is becoming a valuable tool.

JK recommended investigation Von Rydingsvard more because of sheared sensibilities and differences.

The drawing I make are important to whether they become final pieces or not and that the photography too

Good to reflect back across my blog.

 

Transformation by Aberration /  by Justin Harrison

 

This is kinda ‘off brief’ and unusual for me to work in this fashion, but then I kinda liked the effect. Overshot a. source and forced the camera to over compensate creating aberrations, and then pulled stills from the movie.

It’s ‘little transformation’ of an object which I’m gonna keep a secret, for now.

Light changes fast and the capturing created anomalies, which I find kinda interesting, as the generation is from a inappropriate use of technology.

I wonder how it would work to slow the movie down? Thats the one thing I’m not sure I like is the speed of the changes.

Not sure what any of this has to do with my studio investigations in wood…

 

Chest /  by Justin Harrison

I still want to make large scale drawings. The desire burns slowly at the back of my consciousness, something inside of me wants them to come into being, to exist. There is something to say.

The chest of draws and the ribcage have a connections through the ‘Chest’. In addition I like the chest of draws as a site, as vessel and an agent of …something I haven’t quite figured yet. So I draw. It’s a better place of meditation for me as I try to distill what all these ideas are leading to.

I do not the presence of vertical columns again.
”For from you are all things and to you are all things”’

I used a sepia ink and it doesn’t give the deep blacks I like, or the range of tone. I’ll try agin with Indian ink and also with the Acrylic which granulates nicely but has less control.

 

Gregory Crewdson /  by Justin Harrison

What I am interested in is that moment of transcendence, where one is transported into another place, into a perfect, still world.
Gregory Crewdson - https://gagosian.com/artists/gregory-crewdson/

I find it a little strange to be engaged in sculpture and abstract work, and yet of all the artists right now that I feel any affinity to would be Gregory Crudeson. I’m working through a list of a whole bunch of different artist in my research. However usually I only connect to one or two works of per artist and not so much the body of their work.

However with Crewdson I don’t get weary of his work. I find that there is a movie in one photograph, I find enough room in his work to wonder around. And then I discovered the above quote which feels akin to my preoccupations of the Passage and Place of transformation.

I feels like I am witnessing a slow decay in his images, the gradual reduction of a granular world to an exit of some form, either physical or existential. His work carries a romantic sadness that reminds me of ‘Flemish Game’ paintings but goes deeper.

I’m not sure exactly how he connects to the Derrida theory I’ve been reading but intuitively I feel like it’s there.

Also I’ve noticed of late how much I use photography in my blog that it is a natural part of my visual language. I think I should permit it some more space alongside the drawing and making. There is a piece I’d like to shoot that’s been lodged in my brooding, but I worry it’s just a cheap copy. However I’ll at least draw it out to explore it, maybe print it an I can decide on it’s virtue after that.

 

Sticky place /  by Justin Harrison

In my first few writings I talked about honestly rather than performative. And later in my statement about not creating work for academic approval but to make art that Is fiercely my own.

Even to this day, I don't know if I put enough of the hurt, anger, and love in the art I make. I still don't know if I'm too much of a good girl in the pieces that I do. I don't know, but I think I would like to be a lot tougher and more raw. Also, over time, I'm hoping that my want and my will have not been undermined in some way.

Ursula Von Rydingsvard speaking in The contour of feeling p35

It’s hard. I’m not surprised. I’ve come to a sticky place and I know to work through it.

I’m researching for my Paper, and not really coming up with much, my studio practice feels dry and infantile. I look through art books at contemporary artists and I don’t envy their work neither am I excited about my own right now.

I worry about being an object maker, generating endless objects of little or no significance. And then drawing …there are a million drawings floating around this world and the next, imbued with some significant thought or feeling I’m sure but I just don’t care. Does the world really need me to make another average assembly of wood, metal and plastic? Or another pensive little scribble endearly rendered in some familiar style?

I’m in the studio making objects and draughting semi abstract drawings, but the relationship of everything seems too disparate. I have grand plans of large scale drawings but the content seems to elude me. I can see the drawings in my minds eye, ink bleeding across stark white paper moments of black, suggested yet elusive in form. But all I seem to do is take photographs. I look back over my blog and it’s filling with images of banal decomposing machinery.

I do like photography and want to stage some specific compositions, similar to Gregory Crudeson, very specific lighting, carefully composed and staged. (Also aware that he uses a Phase One digital medium format camera - that I don’t have) But then this is another random avenue to go down!

I’m finding it hard to pull focus - what is my central practice? What am I really interested in? What is worth investing time in? I can’t keep on just making little bits and pieces, and random drawings…

I hope this mess is the ingredients all coming together in one bowl, ready to transform in the baking.

 

Transformation and Thought /  by Justin Harrison

Image my own

I’ve been pondering transformations, the working title of my Study Statement. What territories therein might I explore. Historically I’ve looked at death, however this area is a little heavy handed, prone to cliche, it potentially lacks subtlety and therefore limits the capacity of my research…potentially.

In my feedback from the assessment I was encouraged to consider smaller transformations and what they might look like. One that has come into view is that of our ‘thoughts’. Changing our mind. Changing out thoughts - changes us, can transform us and can even manifest physically. Although ‘thought’ also covers such a huge discipline and field of enquiry. However the mind is very interesting, it’s still an uncharted territory, with neurological breakthroughs and discoveries regularly being made, the sphere of our thought also holds its own great mysteries.

I find it interesting as Dr Caroline Leaf talks about how thoughts turn into real estate, chemicals and proteins, in her book ‘Switch On Your Brain’. Which connects to the idea ‘from nothing comes something’. Belief into substance. Similarly in Derridas work touches on the formless space/non space of Khora and differance.

Earlier I asked the question where is the nursery of our beliefs, where do beliefs herald from? Now I begin to wonder if beliefs are born of a seed thought sustained. A choice. We choose our beliefs. Yet such a small essence that can have global implications

So how does this play into my practice based research? What am I trying to say or explore? What is the passage and place of a thought?

Maybe more neurological research? However the fills me with dread - more dense text…

 

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?

 

Making stuff /  by Justin Harrison

I glue some more battons together in the stack as it felt too light weight not enough presence, fiddle with a clamping system and revert back to string wrapping.

Then I turn my attention to the base plate - Ive been sanding it and start thinking about just the transformation the material from rough to finished - am I adding value or meaning? Can I also do this with copper too - I still want to draw on it. (I also realise I should have dipped it in water to raise the grain before adding some oil - but I got too excited by the material wanting to see its grain)

Still not sure about the direction of the sculpture stuff it seems too tight and controlled and unimaginative. I don’t feel excited about it. But I need to push on and make not worry.

I move on to a funny little piece started last time I was in the studio the tin batton pieces I’m following the idea that at times it’s good just to make and not overthink but let the art evolve. I’m undecided what exactly its about other than ‘an article’. A collection of physical sketches. I keep on rearranging it and get tired and just make a decision and glue it.

Ursula Von Rydingsvard has a collection of pieces called ‘little nothings’ a collection of smaller less self-conscious pieces. this seems like a helpful technique and I’m trying to fill my bench with quicker pieces whilst I settle with my practice.

Then because it’s been on my mind and in my drawings for a while I cut out a paddle from a fence panel. It’s crude, quick and dirty. But then. I am trying to make quick pieces too and to do it to my satisfaction would realistically take weeks. There is something satisfying seeing it in the physical, it represents something but needs to go under more transformation.

When mounting the paddle quickly on the wall to view it I place the ‘article’ next to it and something small happens that I like. A relationship strikes up between the two pieces it’s small and quiet but present non the less. I leave up and arrange the there current pieces to see them together.

There are various thoughts around the purpose of the paddle that I’m beginning to explore in sketchbooks also relating to the vertical poles.