I don't know /  by Justin Harrison

I don’t know what I made, or why I made it. But I like it.

I wanted to test the print screens at work, so I knocked up a quick stencil. Impromptu - I went with an impulse and a sense, I briefly saw this in my head. Cutting the stencil freely it took no more than 10 mins to make. (Using newsprint paper as the stencil)

Again in a rush due to other commitments - I pulled a quick print preloading the screen and pulling 2 passes.

The above is the first print. I was kinda pleased and surprised. Again I worked quick and unselfconsciously as it was just a test. But I can tell Iike the result… I photographed it and have been returning looking at it from time to time.

Again - It this thing that I need, to give myself permission to make work easily- not every worry piece of art hs to be laboured.

It’s inspired me - I want to use the stencil and make 2 colour prints of the black, grey, amber and the yellow that follows me. Also I had thought to make a print of the stairs, reduced to stark blocks of tone. A translation. I make a test in Illustrator - trace over the photo but dislike the literal iteration, it needs to evolve and be an interpretation. I’ll approach it again with simpler more intuitive making.

I also worry as this os quiet a departure form what I have been doing, but somehow I need to make it, get it out of my head.

 

Cartography of the Intangible /  by Justin Harrison

The bag made me do it///
I managed to rescue a bag from the recycling. I’d noticed the colour and texture the other day, but had forgotten to pull it out. Thankfully it’s still there - survived untouched. There is something very delicious about its colour presence, deep almost like leather, no - skin. I’ve also had squirrelled away brown waxed sandwich papers that take a crease so well it’s like drawing, translucent and sensitive. It has a particular kind of me memory to it.

I like the papers so much I start to get stuck, not wanting to waste them. AND I don’t even know if I’ll  be able to get the red bag again - ever. It slows me down and I can feel the creative process locking up. I think about what I’ve been doing in the studio and realise I should just make and not over think it a a limited timed price. This allows my intuition to kick in and I soon find a form and layering I like, also I start to think about maps, making abstract maps that have their own code and meaning. What does it mean to map something to chart it? How can this be explored? in making leaving paper altogether.

I also find the paper wants to stand proud of the surface to be sculptural. I set aside some of the precious red paper and finish up finalising the composition of the first piece.

After gluing and completing the first one I realise that I don’t like it all so flat to the surface. There is a sculptural and textural quality to the papers and it gets lost when it’s adhered as one would normally. So for the second one I anchor key points allowing other parts to stand proud.

I roll around old phrases that seem related and haven’t quiet found a home in my work.

I have materials and a notion for third collage, but it is eluding me. It’s resisting being made, won’t tell me how to complete it. I walk away, I’m not fighting my work this week

/// sculptural kenosis

/// What gets infilled?

/// t up > t down

/// empty out > infill

/// Cartography of the intangible

/// Archives of unreliable memories

/// Emancipating the map from the surface

 

Drawing meditation /  by Justin Harrison

Just trying to get my head back into making, after the research paper I kind went off-line. I needed a break and to reset. I visit the movie the revenant again. Trying to summon what is it about kenoticism. Drawing is.good point of meditation,, in addition I also want to animate some more drawings and need to get my eye back in as well as my head.

I like the last drawing best - it even works upside down. I think I enjoy the departure from the formal and real, a fluidity of movement where translation is free to move in a less linear fashion.

(Am also still misusing the Stuart Semple ink)

I’m keen to hold onto a few thoughts that have manifested over the past year: Bundles, Granular, Bleeding through, Kenotic, it’s hard to keep up with all the thoughts and I need to find a more organised way to formally collate the most significant. The curated blogs help but I still fear I am forgetting stuff.

Been also looking at Benjamin on translation as a point of research.

 

Ritualised Tools of Passage /  by Justin Harrison

I'm sanding some reclaimed wood for a piece and I hesitate, the colours of the grain - the history of the wood are emerging subtle yet sweet; knots, creosote, grain and dirt, its like a book with an obscure narrative that I'm trying to follow - I'm slightly torn how much to sand, I love the glassy feel of super smooth lacquered wood but it feels like a crime to remove anymore of the paternation, like I’m erasing memories. I'm trying to engage with time in a disrupted way. Keeping the history yet making new.

I accidentally put Danish oil on first - I had planned to use varnish however I know that these mistakes often work for the better so I don't worry too much. Fine saw marks appear, as forgotten half healed scars as the oil soaks into the dry fibres of the wood. Then I put too many layers on and it changes the colouration I had been obsessing over, the oil takes the wood to more warm honey colours and some of the paternation disappears.

/// I lament for a moment///

However these sculptures are meant to be fast explorative pieces, all of which is research and informative. The more I make - the more I learn about the materials and my work.

As the oil is drying I cut a second piece of wood, it's thin and brittle and doesn't have the subtlety of shape that I want, so I take to carving at it in attempt to have a little more control. This works but ads time to the process. I'm able to manipulate and manifest the forms that I feel in my head.

At some point it also occurs to me that I can char the wood that I will get a nice contrast against the Holly pegs I've been making and plan to add. This changes the voice of the piece, more gravitas than the honeyed wood. I like it and putting the two together creates more dialogue that I enjoy. (I do wonder about how I animate this work more a feature of the other recent sculptures)

On reflection of the two sculptures placed together as a piece - I almost feel as tough I've happened upon something that I shouldn't have. Like opening a tomb.

The apertures agents, the pegs agents in conflict. Some sort of holy/unholy moment. The passage at crux. The threat of the outside coming in.

I'm not sure I quiet understand what I've made, I need time to absorb what is going on. A slow burn.

 

We are haunted by our past crimes /  by Justin Harrison

Both boys have bullet fragments inside them. Imran has a large fragment lodged in his spine. Julian Busch/BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63908301

We are haunted by our past crimes. The ghosts of them appear and are still to appear…

I am deeply concerned by the report that: “Unknown to the British public at that time, SAS operatives were already suspected at the highest levels of UK Special Forces of illegally killing Afghan men who had surrendered and been detained, and later covering up the killings with fabricated reports. A BBC Panorama investigation published earlier this year revealed that one SAS squadron killed 54 people in suspicious circumstances in one six-month tour. The pattern led one of the highest-ranking special forces officers in the UK to warn in a secret memo to the head of special forces that there could be a "deliberate policy" in effect to kill detainees, "even when they did not pose a threat".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63908301

 

Tutorial /  by Justin Harrison

Following notes are from latest tutorial:

Research Paper:

Much to my relief JK said my research paper on Derrida and Von Rydingsvard was great, very good. That my supervisor very much liked it too. There were some small points to tweak but that it was publishable.

JK talked about how I had managed to take complex ideas and connected them together in a way that was clear and accessible. That it was evidence I can think and make sense and connections in an academic context. Ability to take complex thoughts synthesis it into a readable paper.

In addition I have succeed in what I wanted it to do.Taking some of the important principals found in and around Derrida’s approach to analysis. Using his literary critical analysis and applying it to interpreting the work and intentions of the artist.

We discussed that It was a slow coalescence of my past years thinking and practice That the thinking'/theory had been challenging and at times a hindrance but had evolved into helping.

The research has given specific language to my making and process. it is Interesting and awkward in it’s fluidity. I don’t like to cop out and say the concepts behind the work is whatever you make of it. However I do like the freedom for the work to expand, explore , evolve whilst maintaining direction and intention. a difficult but worthy balance. It’s important that the audience can come along pick up on the direction I am taking but be free to find their own associations in the work and not be overly prescriptive or illustrative. I want the Audience to be able to come alongside for a while. And try the ideas out.

JK asked - Has the paper affected my practice and how I approach it and the thinking?

Yes most definitely. Under the banner of ‘make more’, the pragmatic requirement of the course and the timed pieces, I have let things go - the need for beautifully made, the need for the thoughts to all be resolved. That some thing had to give - my level of finish. “I said I have Forgiven myself for not arriving’. Instead tried to ‘Make lots’. Not just for the course or the sake of assessment but fundamentally my approach to my practice.

That in letting go - it has taken the pressure off. It has become way more generative. Which then leads to more ideas and conceptual enquiry. Which can weave back into the artwork I’ve found this through what appears in my Blog. Ideas and concepts that appear. Ones I discovered in reading for my assessment. There is a consistency and correlation. The release of perfection and performance has made enough space for the thoughts and research to integrate into the making.

JK also asked if letting go of my former methodology and adapting new methodologies. Was for the sake of the course or was it a long term approach I was adopting to my practice?

I discussed how it was a generative state for me new approach which I very much wanted to take on long term. That it has given me a larger inventory of work to show and develop beyond the MA - In addition it might be a more beneficial and productive use of my time, to continue to explore and research. Rather than trying to peak and make something specific for the final show. which would be approval based.

It’s tough as I know my friends and family will be imagining a particular type of work for the final show and their support has been invaluable - its hard not top want to impress them with some really dramatic piece…

However I feel like I am addressing the gap in my practice. The correlation of theory and practice, a more natural flow of theoretical production and the manifestation in the making.

I can’t remember if it was me or Jonathan but someone said that I had 10 years worth of ideas potentially from this time of free exploration. I guess the time isn’t important - more that my practice as an artist is evolving my approach, rhythms and beliefs.

JK said - I could have an Interesting exhibition tomorrow. With what I have in the studio. Just keep on making.

That what is very positive is that I could have large show or small show. “So much material”

He also expressed that ‘Wood’ has become a strong side of the work. My work in the woods. The Liminal.

The Hinged branch - was pivotal moment in my work. That it had a ‘purity’ it was what it was meant to be.

Film/animationis also a generative area for me and makes more inventory. That the small film sketches and animation which is appearing in my blog is more potential work to engage with.

I have realised that in my work - ‘ritualised tools of passage’ is a growing narrative.

In essence alot of my work is about my relationship to God and the Spirit. Movement of discovery. Passage.

Also interesting to JK was the idea of ‘Kenosis’ that has begun to appear in my work. It’s closely related to ‘Difference’. To Pour out, empty out. A spatial and theoretical anomaly where the outworking is beyond our expectations. My latest post was ‘ver’y interesting’t. JK he asked where it came from - was it an Intentional direction. I felt that my research all connected and had lead to it rather that a specific intention but that I wa keen to explore it some more now that it has begun to evolve in my blog.

A lot if the Blog has been a bridge to finding understanding. In reading back for the Assessment I have found a number of older posst have specific language and ideas that appear in my paper similar to Kenosis. There is a pattern of me ‘Fixating’ on word that resonates and I will chew on it. Finding strange connections that then have accumulated in the research paper.

Emptying out.

Bundle.

Aggregation.

All connected to my convictions and beliefs. Possible route to pursue over the next few months or beyond.

Kenosis - ‘Kenarchy‘ as a political theology. Might be of interest to my research. Roger Mitchell

Also Roger Forster? Truthfulness to him and his thinking in an academic space - found his methodology.

That my practice is developing in truthfullness, deep, honest and engaged.

In addition interesting to explore - Steven Shakespear’s work - Author on Derrida:
Poetic liturgy - https://www.stevenshakespeare.com/about

Other references to look at:

Truth is stranger than it used to be - book. Middleton and Walsh 90’s

Post modern reading of Biblical text. On the book of Colossians - touching on anti-empire

‘Collosians remixed’.

JK - ‘I Hope you hear a little bit of my excitement - genuinely think this place your getting to is really interesting’ Generative very exciting. Just keep going - really enjoying feeling privileged energising to read and look your work.

What I realise is key is the methodology I have begun to discover: The freer making less restricted in finish and concept has lead to a more generative making which feels easier and freer yet still my work, this alongside my more conceptual enquiry, the condensing and connections and exploring can work alongside creating synergy. My thinking is not getting in the way of my making. But free to work alongside and also independently. There is a generation of momentum, the freer I am to make the more I make which contributes to more making and more thinking and exploration of thinking. Sporing. Fertile.

Chris Drury and HENRIQUE OLIVEIRA /  by Justin Harrison

Chris Drury and HENRIQUE OLIVEIRA. Just to contextualise my work more - here are two artists way ahead of me.

OLIVEIRA

“With constructions constantly taking place in his hometown of São Paolo, the most common wood used for building houses is often discarded, and left for reuse by others. Connecting the visual similarity of the wood when broken to a brushstroke, Oliveira started to explore the properties of wood, and in particular, the wood of discarded tapumes.”
https://champ-magazine.com/art/henrique-oliveira/

 

Drawer Paddle - Ritualised tools of passage /  by Justin Harrison

Completed recently is the paddle cut from the front of a chest of drawers. I chose to leave in key details as I wanted to maintain elements of it’s history. The key hole and holes from where the handles were once fixed and the dark varnish.

I like the way it sits when folded back on itself, again a sense of animation, movement, something animalistic. I like how the gesture is minimal but also suggestive of presence. It leads away from the notion of a paddle that works, that is ‘fit for purpose’ and is becoming.

There is a passage to be made through. Through uncertainty, through mystery, through the unknown.

It does feel incomplete - that it need s something to pull the narrative through. When I say narrative I don’t need an explicit story more something of the mystery to continue on. I need to think about whom these paddles belong to and why.

 

Jointed Paddle - Ritualised tool of Passage /  by Justin Harrison

It’s take all summer and I was supposed to be working on fast pieces. But I had this paddle planned for a time since I cut a joint in a section of thick Holly wood. This is the progression from the initial idea. It’s just so hard cutting and drilling Holly. It’s a defiant material and somehow I like it’s resistance.

It feels good to work at a larger scale and I’m keen to find a better way of displaying it and perhaps contextualising it. I do wonder about the previous discussions on animation and film. How would this lend it’s self to being filmed? Could a short looped film of it in the forest with a liminal persona?

There’s a lot I like about this, the surface with some under bark left for texture, the pegs holding it together are kinda cool, brought cut and also from nearby Holly, a little like tuning pegs, I enjoy their prominence - somehow they add something more to the piece. I like the way the blade moves the animation that comes through the articulation. Again it asks to be animated, but how and why?

I do imagine a multiple sectioned paddle spiralling round with a figure in the centre. Or could it abstract more, and focus on essences?

 

Why the forest? /  by Justin Harrison

Image my own

During my first tutorial Jonathan asked me ‘why the forest’? ‘Why am I drawn to it’? Now I think the forests significance is because it’s a strong liminal place, ever shifting and changing, constantly in decay and growth - always moving. It’s a site that is not occupied but free of dominating presence and technology. Natural and free of intent. In the space time feels slower and is of less consequence to the forest, it posses it’s own language, one I only barely understand intuitively and where my words are of little significance, finally the forest shares a rhizomatic consciousness, it thinks in community.

There's a neutrality to it, a reset. I get tired of all the demands that come from the digital world and to be honest I actually dislike a lot of it. I do find it useful and use it, but I don't like the way it kidnaps my time and energy.

I like making work that is devoid of this, and in a conversation with George, he mused on it having a 'prehistoric' feel to it. Which led to us wondering about the final show, could it just be a set of coordinates to site specific work in forest somewhere, or if that warrants the use of GPS, just some hand written directions. In rejection of the capitalist gallery space and commodification of creativity.

 

Post paper reflections /  by Justin Harrison

Well I've submitted my research paper. And it's given me a lot to think about - been thinking a lot of things, a lot. Right now post submitting the paper I'm just please I can still dress myself in the morning. It's been challenging. The logic of writing formal papers is not something that comes easily to me and so it's taken a lot to pull the intuitive understanding into something cogent. I've had to dig deep and put in a lot of late nights.

In no particular order - more a brain dump, the following are the significant things that have arisen from writing the paper.

What I want to research following submitting the paper:

There is a Metric ton of stuff I want to look into further:

Derrida: Differance, Hauntology Spectral - Differance god creativity.

Bhabha: Translation and Displacement

Bhabha: Location of Culture - Read

Benjamin: translation

Reading the language of art through Derrida('s approaches).

Wittigstein

Marxism, and Karl Marx.

I do note that there are no artist listed her, I do find it hard to identify artists who's work I particularly like. Often it's bits and essences of one and then another.

The truth is II really kinda got lost in the research and it was hard to focus in to a specific area. Most of my summer was investigative. I covered a lot of ground and also feel like a discovered some significant commonality across key theory. Derrida, Deleuze, Bhabha, Cixous, Benjamin.

That what Homi Bhabha said about Anish Kapoor connected with what Derrida was saying about 'differance' and that connected with what Deleuze and Guittari were saying in 'Minor Literatures' and that came back to another lecture by Homi Bhabha on 'DIsplacement and Translation' which incidentally I am still working through as it touches heavily on the liminal, language and translation. That translation could be a significant area around the movement of language, meaning and identity. Which all then goes off into post colonial theory, displacement and hybrid identites - again not something I could fit into the paper.

'Sigh'... and then there's Hamlet which has now become way more interesting after investigating Derrida's 'Spectres of Marx', also socialism, Marxism and Karl Marx.

It's was hard for me to finalise on a title, and to be honest the paper was forming as I wrote it and rewrote it. The title came at about 2:00am Monday morning the day of the deadline. Probably not the best way to go about it, but that seemed to be my process - an intuitive understanding and attraction to certain ares of art, language and thinking. Which eventually coalesced.

I'm genuinely pleased with some of the things I've discovered and at the same time at concerned that they are bullshit and will get torn apart by a close reading. The framework for understanding the liminal feels like a really useful tool and I feel better able to work with it as a specific concept rather than a woolly vagueness that it seems to have become.

One thing that has been foremost in my mind, has been the conceptual underpinning of my practice, I’ve wanted it to be clearer and not inchoate. I’ve had a preoccupation about language for a long time and I am happy that it’s further being woven in. I realise that this sphere is huge and I have only just begun however seeing threads of commonality, weaving in is very satisfying.

I'm tentatively thinking about a 'Theory of incompleteness' which is part of the conclusion of the paper and research. And curiously was the subject of a discussion I was listening to today on Ludwig Wittgenstein. The more I research I see increasing variables and uncertainty, may be that's a good thing, being an artist and the state we live and make art work in.

I'd like to collate all the notes I've been making - I figure it could be quiet a useful document, to pull together all notes and thoughts that didn’t go into the paper.

I think especially what's been useful is to collect together specific things that appear in my art work and to begin to better understand elements that are appearing in my own practice. There is growing thought about the history of materials, the history they posses and how that can affect and appear in the work - a hauntology of materials the spectres of materials.

I feel like I need to be back in the studio - to have a time of reflection and meditation. There has been a lot happening and I don't think I have come close to processing it. There has-been change in some of the direction of the work especially around the group criteria we had, were it transpired that a short gift animation was working better than I had realised and this could be a direction that could open out my work.

I keep on wanting to write more as I feel that this has been a really significant experience but I also feel like I’m waffling - which in light of the past 2 months I could do with a break from.

Film I also want to try and investigate film, that this could be a natural extension of my work, what it needs to further explore the thinking behind my work. Portraits of the ritualised tools of passage. I like portraits.

In researching form my paper I’ve found studying in depth Ursula von Rydingsvards practice very helpful to study; her way of making; her freedom - her use of uncertainty deep respect for her materials. I’ve heavily borrowed from her studio practice where she makes what she calls ‘little nothings’, shorter intuitive studies.

I also feel more confident to talk about my work my critical enquiries. Conceptual underpinning that integrates with my instincts, the connection to language through Derrida’s approaches to text and meaning. Then in a general notion to make as much as I think, rather than over think and not make. Which is a great temptation.

 

Ghosts, partial presences Spectres /  by Justin Harrison

Image my own (Digitally edited). It’s a failed digital photo but I love it, I confess I found it in my photo album, and have no idea how I made it.

If the ghosts of UVR past haunt her work, ghost being actual history imagined history and environmental and inherited history both direct and indirect

Something that has theoretically died, returns as a spectre. Revenant. Not just people but also  concepts, values beliefs. Returned but transformed.

Something of the past has returned and is revenant in and through UvRs art. A spectre, a ghost.

Her father, the camps, the wood, the people. More importantly her geographical imagings - simulacra - ghost of a ghost. All manifest around her work.

If the ghosts of UVR past haunt her work, the ghost being Rydingsvards lived history, her inherited history both direct and indirect and her imagined history . Then what of it? What does this mean. What does this mean for the liminal?

The liminal is the naturally occurring 'differance', that brings us the necessary temporary relief from our rightful and wrongful structures, to allow change to enter.

Ghosts are the active but partially agency that differs from the liminal inactive

Wood the Ghosts of trees liminal agents in the in between

Working with the ghosts of materials

Disturbing Ghosts:

Does the liminal disrupt language because of translation? The need for translation. Which creates a change i the angle of vision?

Disruption of language. Hamlets father . Is he called father, ghost or king? As a spectre he is all three and none, for his body is dead and gone he cannot embody the king or father and a ghost is not embodied.

 

In-between /  by Justin Harrison

In-between having purpose, being discarded, becoming waste. The wood and cigarette packet lie in the passage awaiting transformation from one state to another. Passing from one territory into another.

Passage is the beginning of movement of all things, references, being, knowledge, place, identity, territory, history, home, meaning.

More materials to process, strip back and rePlace. I’ve taken them back to my studio, to see what they say.

 

Stacking /  by Justin Harrison

This piece has come from fussing in my studio over various works, I’m not sure I love it, but I don’t hate it either. It needs re-photographing as it’s flattened out in the photograph.

More intuitive making without solid plans or intentions but rather letting the materials find their own voice, working quickly I ask questions of the form and wood, where does it want to be, in what state, why is the harder question I have left aside for now. I’ve been thinking a lot about materials and their role in the language of the work. Dialects and translation and interpretation. Intentional application of histories.

The elements are bundled again, stacked the wood finished and unfinished, left in different states. Histories are stacked and layered.

Benjamin's proposal Cultural translation is a coming to terms with the foreigness of language. Such foreignness revealing the liminality of both the indigenous and the extra territorial. Working with materials and modalities of difference whether linguistic, visual or digital demands something other than finding a consensual form of resemblance or appropriation.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=homi+bhabha+translation+and+displacement 1:01:40

 

Colour /  by Justin Harrison

In the past few days colour has come into my frame. I’m noticing a particular pallet - I’m missing drawing and I wonder if this could play a part of it.

 

Sketchbook /  by Justin Harrison

Collating my sketches over the past few pages of my sketchbook as an act of documentation and reflection. I often forget entire ideas and often specific details.

All this is my processing. Especially around why I am focusing on the paddle so much. I don’t think I’ve actually addressed this out loud in my blog. So here goes.

The paddle is a strange level. Does it moves the water, the boat, itself? I think it moves all three. It uses the dual state of the water, which provides the resistance and yielding at the same time, levering itself and the boat. A tool of the liminal. Offset. Offset meaningthrough small apertures, Interstices.

Also I see the paddle as an agent of change/ movement - Passage through the liminal. Navigating change.

The Liminal can never be resolved, located in time, or space or concept. The passage facilitates change, movement. Accepting continuous change. Progressive generation.

The paddle as self governance.

In movement and change is uncertainty. My work engages with the sense of unknowing. Transformation is the aspiration, yet not necessarily the out come. Making a piece of art work is also to engage in uncertainty.

What do I want my audience to take from my work? A sense of wonder - to be inspired by a strange unfamiliar beauty and to see something perceive something formerly unknown.

 

Small Beginnings - What if? /  by Justin Harrison

These drawings I could have easily ignored, but at the same time they matter. They are small beginnings form me. In my performative state as an artist I would not let them be seen (I need approval). But I’m staring to see the value of my process, ideas that germinate from the seed forms. In addition sometimes the simple and the small posses greater depth than I realise, I am seduced by the grand, yet I also discover the magnificent in the small.

These drawings are my posing a question to myself and the world, ‘What if?’ a short but potent and provocative question. What if I made this larger? What if I draw this on a tree? What if I took clay from a nearby river and drew on the tree? What if I drew something else? What if they become something else?