Tutorial – visiting artist

tutorial w visiting artist

octavia butler – dawn
10 min a day writing – womb as material focus

new species – consider this ‘regeneration’ process of making the new forms and construct a clearer definition of what i’m trying to get across – when speaking about regeneration am i discussing the formation of a new species? or am I linking it to the process of the womb 
define for myself what the womb is

‘the new species’ producing something which has been birthed from an unknown space, made from the interior of the material – correlates with the process of birth

 

solid wax box with strawberries showing through – take photo of this – print photo and then recover the photo with wax/ resin- material to preserve the ‘life’ of the fruit

fruit of the womb –

The pomegranate was popular in antiquity. The fruit and its seeds were often associated with female fertility, and was considered sacred to Juno and Venus. Contrastingly, the overwhelming symbolism often and still attached to the pomegranate would be its reputation as “the fruit of the dead”. One of the most famous myths including the pomegranate is the story of Proserpina and Pluto. After seeing Proserpina, Pluto stole her away to the underworld and from her mother Ceres. Ceres’ distress of losing her daughter caused the land to wither and grow cold. It was a rule of the Fates that if one would eat in the underworld they would be kept there for eternity. Before her rescue, Prosperpina ate seeds from a pomegranate and unknowingly condemned herself to stay in the underworld every year for the time that would be Fall and Winter. As a result of this myth the pomegranate is one of the foods prohibited in the Eleusinian Mystery initiations.

A popular fruit in both Greece and Rome, the fig took on generally favorable associations as being sacred to Ceres and Bacchus, and representing female fertility and femininity due to the appearance of the inside of the fruit. In myth, the fig takes on a contrasting role from the pomegranate. As Ceres was searching for her daughter Proserpina a man who had received Ceres with hospitality was given the first fig tree. From this myth the pomegranate, despite its popularity, was condemned and the fig was introduced into favor.

We’re so used to the association of fruits with sensuality and sexuality that you probably encounter a reference to it at least once a day. Eating strawberries, for instance, is often seen as a seductive act that gets you in the mood; bananas symbolize the phallus, and papayas the vagina; even apples, the famous forbidden fruits of the Genesis, are a metaphor for sexual desire.

peaches in many cultures are representations of female sexuality, mainly in relation to genitalia. In that way, for instance, in Japan peach blossoms were seen as the tree that bestowed life and immortality. If you take a look at Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Marriage painting, he places a plate of peaches next to the couple as a symbol of love and fertility.

In these ancient cultures peach juice was tied to female arousal, and it makes sense, when you open up a ripe peach and its juices flow out, it is tempting to bite into it. – similarities in materiality of the fruit in comparison to the body

sting rays born fully formed, same as humans – not born through eggs – sting ray – shape similar to sperm – ambitious but could be assumed from combination of the sculpture and the material – enveloping of the sperm inside the womb – then again this contradicts the idea of making a new form from the unknown space

Notes

Bodies of space

The Shape Left by the Body

Alisa Baremboym, Alice Channer, Piotr Łakomy, Gillian Lowndes, Alina Szapocznikow

Co-curated with Dorota Michalska

the work engages with notions of the human body

bodies in contact, bodies defying gravity, bodies succumbing to their inherent heaviness

The Shape Left by the Body investigates this tactile conundrum by providing opportunities to experience various kinds of bodies

 

industrial materials, notably transparent plastics such as polyester resin and polyurethane foam

Again, explicit and thus bounded intimations of skinliness make the tactile a simultaneously certain and disconcerting experience

the materials
are absorbed into one another

Defined both as sensual and repelling, her work is also deeply interested in the vulnerability of materials and to that moment where they are held in states of becoming, flux and transition.

these have a dual nature, a tenderness linked to the so rubbery pink of the ceramics’ natural, unglazed, rough and porous surface, and a synthetic slickness re ected in the use of transparent vinyl, acrylic, and gels. the material paradoxes are directly layered on top of each other, coexisting within each object.

She brings together alienated, oftentimes contra- dictory ingredients to form an alien body, one in which alien relations are taking place

pool publication 2014 kunst au london exhibition publication

The artists participating in Pool share a material language that is characterized by a fas- cination for the contingent and the fleeting, for complex transformations and changing states, for synthetic metamorphoses and processes of organic decay. Objects, surfaces and materials are loaded with contrast, seem seductive or repulsive, oscillate between organic and synthetic, atness and corporeality. Liquidity and water – on various levels – are recurring motifs in the work of these artists.

The impressions of purity, transparency, mutability, naturalness and freshness that are evoked by liquids and water in this exhibition are consistently con- trasted with the antithetical tendency toward lth, opacity, in exibility and decay.

Experiences of alienation resulting from transfor- mations, amalgamations and mutations in the cat- egories of labour, work and action are evident in much of the work by the artists exhibiting in Pool. In the search for the place of the human body, for its traces and points of reference, impressions of loss are paired with the hyper- presence of the corporeal and the organic. Both are aspects that con- stitute the sphere of labour. The appropriation of technical produc- tion processes and the shaping of models and worlds are elements of productive work.

Alice Channer traces the mutability of mate- rial, the independent lives of objects and the positioning of the body. As interactions between human and machine, object and matter, her works are the end result of complex production processes. Material passes through various states, from liquid to solid and analogue to digital; procedures informed both by traditional sculptural processes such as moulding and casting as well as industrial production methods and digital technologies such as 3D printing.

 

Interim statement and notes

My focus is on the intermediate environment in-between the interior and exterior. Through manipulating materials, I play with the concept of this indefinite space. I’ve been exploring the transition which takes place from the inside to the outside in relation to the form of the human body and its functioning’s. By using materials that resemble a ‘skin’ or ‘sac’ such as inflatables and plastics I’ve filled the void spaces to create new objects which have been produced with fluid, bodily materials, originating from the unknown and ambiguous space of the in-between. By looking at casting materials such as inflatables as ‘skins’, I’ve been experimenting with using the inside area of a ‘skin’ to create an object which then exists on the outside with its own regenerated skin. Although mainly focusing on the physicality of these new forms through sculpture, I’ve also been experimenting with photo. The print being used in the Interim Review Exhibition presents a layer of milk where pigment has marbled across its formed skin, this adding to my focus on the fluidity of specific materials which could be associated with the intermediate spaces of the body.

I’m currently challenging my work by putting a focus on materiality, this naturally occurring due to my interests in certain materials but also from me wanting to explore my interests and ideas further. The use of certain materials, for example wax, silicone, resin, plaster etc. all have a fluidity in which I’ve involved in my work but I’m currently experimenting with the way in which these materials are used and how this could impact the ideas I have about my work.

My studio practice and dissertation interlink, with my dissertation being based on Didier Anzieu’s theory of the Skin Ego, this being an exploration on the importance of bodily contact between mother and child to secure psychological attachments. Through my research and writing of the dissertation, I became more aware of the physicality of the body, for example the womb and how this is a sac which contains and protects what’s inside of it. This also being an intermediate environment where for the child the womb is on the outside yet for the mother it belongs in their own interior. Investigating Patty Chang’s performance of ‘In Love, 2001’ for both my dissertation and my studio practice pushed the exploration of my current themes, where in Chang’s performance the focus is on creating a connection through kissing and sharing food, uniting two intermediate spaces together. Looking at the mouth as an environment on the body which belongs between the interior and exterior has been important in my practice, where my interests in certain materials have derived from the physicality of bodily fluids such as saliva and spit.

indefinite space experiment with moulds, interiors of objects 

‘skin’ or ‘sac’ such as inflatables and plastics I’ve filled the void spaces to create new objects which have been produced with fluid, bodily materials consider more materials that present this fluidity 

originating from the unknown and ambiguous space of the in-between – relating to the maternal, womanhood and the creation of new life – when a baby is growing inside the womb, its forming from a space in between the outside and the inside – filling the exterior with jelly, a material which sets and develops inside of something – making transparent jelly moulds with objects/materials inside this – fruit – print inside the jelly? – test out layering a print inside jelly – incorporating the sculpture and the print together into one object 

fluidity of specific materials which could be associated with the intermediate spaces of the body figure out the use of the image – being inside the image – making the installation interactive in a way where the viewer may experience the sensation of being on the inside of something sac which contains and protects what’s inside of it

list of things to do – gelatine inflatable  

try adding components to the set gelatine – strawberries? growing inside – decaying inside – ‘fruit of the womb’ an internal material growing/transforming inside the regenerated form 

inject gelatine with dye to create an effect replicating the marbled photo

the image is taken during the process of the making – a form of documentation which surrounds the new form. perhaps experiment with the previously said idea of creating an immersive environment where the viewer gains a sensation of feeling like they’re a part of this regenerating process – the process is ongoing and accessible/easily seen yet also adds to the unknown

physicality of the body

 

http://alicechanner.com/early-man/?fbclid=IwAR1NaDa2XdUeQw5LlKPayXj-a0gL7PhpaE3AasrHqm7i2SqpmhUsKxh5ZPw