Occupy Paper Issue Nine by John O'Brien

OCCUP YPAPE RISSU ENINE

OCCUPYPAPERISSUENINE AUGUST2014 SUPPORT

OCCUP Y P A PER ISSUE N I N E CONTE N T S EDITORS NOTE

SUPPORT SPACE (OCCUPY)

Drawing Jacob Stack

Underlining Something Important ﾃ（ne Phillips

SUPPORT FOUND To Seek and FIND Support Joanna Hopkins

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REGENERATIVE SUPPORT A Hand in Opening the Hidden Door Mary Stevens

INSPIRED BY SUPPORT Extract from proposal for ideas about Support Rachel Thomson

DEFINITIONS OF SUPPORT

Catherine Mary O’Brien

24 AMATEUR SUPPORT

SUPPORTERS

Amateur Tactics - Dr Naomi Sex and the lecture performance Claire Walsh on Naomi Sex

Images Wonderwild

UNWANTED SUPPORT Tamed Art - Painting the Town Patricia Romero Jimenez

SUPPORT FOR ARTISTS What’s Next? Aoife Flynn

EVIDENCE OF THE FOOTNOTE AS AN UNRELIABLE SUPPORT How To Fake Your Own Death: The Aporetic Demise of the Artist Formally Known as Suzanne van der Lingen or An Epilogue Written in Footnotes Suzanne van der Lingen

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OCCUP Y P A P E R EDITO R S N O T E WE SUPPORT CURIOSITY THEMES ARE INTRINSIC TO HOW THINGS ARE FOUND AND THEMES ARE PRACTICAL

A themed tome can be filed and categorically drawn upon more readily than a non-themed one. In a frenzied hunt for inspiration a creative individual familiar with the whereabouts of Occupy Paper or with Google searching may stumble upon your contribution, and so it has the potential to travel and expand out from itself. This is our plan. As the encyclopedia lends itself to spring-boarding, we wish to copy its style in producing a series of somewhat coordinated volumes, beginning with an issue on Support. Surely beginning with an S word is a little bit odd but then again so is beginning our project with issue 9. Every Tuesday since January we have posted a reading to our Facebook page inspired by the word Support. Below is list of these readings which constitutes our joint submission as editors. It is the most suitable opening to Issue 9 that we could think of.

TUESDAY READINGS The Space of Support ‘Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias’ Michel Foucault

‘So, this book, this f*****g book, is sexy’ – Amazon review ‘A Lover's Discourse’ Roland Barthes

In Support of Curiosity and Cabinet Magazine Link to Radiolab podcasts

Artworld Support Systems ‘Dark Matter’ Gregory Sholette

Support from a Critic 'Portrait of the Young man as an Artist' John Hewitt

Manifesto ‘11 Statements on Art Writing’ Maria Fusco, Michael Newman, Adrian Rifkin and Yve Lomax

Words as Support for Art Objects A couple of introductions: an editorial from FR David magazine and an introduction to the book ‘Writing the Image’ by Yve Lomax A Friend in Life and Poetry ‘You Are Here; a Poetic Experience Explained’ Lygia Clark and Helio Oiticica Support within the Artworld 'Representation and Power: The Artist as Public Intellectual' Simon Sheikh to defend, advocate belief, uphold, justify, back, side with, second and so on ‘Dear Claes…’ Dan Fox

Support from a Museum ‘In Art We Are Poor Citizens’ Gavin Murphy Stretched Canvas ‘Art and Objecthood’ Michel Fried Art by Instruction ‘Do It’ Hans Ulrich Obrist in discussion with Christian Boltanski and Bertrand Lavier Small digression from main theme in favour of amazing wordsmith Tillman ‘Blame it on Andy’ Lynne Tillman

Supporting Local ‘A Rocky Road’ Sean Lynch Web of Lies ‘The Untold Truth About Nixon, Anguish and Taber's Adventure Album’ Dave Young Resource Books ‘Ideal Syllabus’ Maria Fusco Read Quick Twitter Feed, Ulysses Reader Paper Paper at the Cutting Edge of Fiction, Bram E. Gieben

SUPPORT verb (used with object) 1. to bear or hold up (a load, mass, an editor, structure, part, etc.); serve as a foundation for 2. to sustain or withstand (weight, pressure, strain, text etc.) without giving way; serve as a prop for 3. to undergo or endure, especially with patience or submission; tolerate

4. to sustain(a person, a writer, the mind, spirits, courage, etc.) under trial or affliction: They supported him throughout his ordeal

6. provide for: to support a family or community of creative practitioners

5. to maintain (a person, family, establishment, institution, online arts and culturejournal etc.) by supplying with things necessary to existence;

If ever was a theme reflective of its audience then that theme is now. The current theme for ninth issue of Occupy Paper is ‘Support’. This theme was chosen for its plurality and its ability to translate/ transverse/ trans-warp singular definitions. Working cross borders, cross countries, across the world wide web of things OP’s three editors have experienced support from one another but also from our readership and followers. A paper such as this cannot exist as a single entity but is reliant on the on the foundations its readership creates. With that in mind we began to think about the support and all its guises; support for the arts; funding bodies, universities, schools, festivals, residencies. What it means to support via physical manifestations, the support within an art work, the frame, the canvas, the mould, innumerable sketches doodles, photographs and notes on paper and skin and beyond that, the never ending cups of tea and coffee and the collateral and stained trappings of the creative process. The introduction of the use of thematic issues is our sci-fifantastical nod to the future. Ideally in a not so distant future these themed issues of the paper will behave themselves and will lend

themselves in a manner akin to a source book. They will inspire curiosity on various subjects and will showcase a variety of writing alongside contemporary art practice. The theme is not a means to an ends but rather is a force for propelling forwards and every other ways. We aim to view these thematic issues as almost an encyclopedic journal of the seemingly random. To appropriate from Wittengenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: ‘Remember that we sometimes demand definitions for the sake not of the content, but of their form. Our requirement is an architectural one; the definition is a kind of ornamental coping that supports nothing…’ We would like this paper to be viewed, accessed and appreciated for its mutability of form, its ability to weave a mixture of genres and art forms all within the one space. With all that in mind enjoy, indulge and support curiosity and weighty nothingness. 

OCCUPY PAPER TEAM Claire Walsh Co-Editor

Catherine Mary O’Brien Co-Editor

Aoife Flynn Co-Editor

John O’Brien Art Director

Claire Walsh graduated from Limerick School of Art and Design in 2011 and from Edinburgh College of Art in 2013, receiving firstly a BA in Painting and secondly an MA in Contemporary Art Theory. She currently works for the National Galleries of Scotland as a freelance educator and gallery attendant and is busy organising an exhibition of artists’ books for Edinburgh Art Festival 2014.

A Cork-born, Limerick-lover and maker of words and things, currently based in Edinburgh, who writes theoretical and critical texts but has recently begun to delve into the process of linking this style of writing, which is accredited to a Msc in Modern and Contemporary Art History, Curating and Criticism, with an interest in creative writing. Parallel to all this, a passion for arts education has lead to the privileged position of working as a freelance educator for Jupiter Artland.

Aoife Flynn is an artist originally from Wicklow and based in Dublin. She graduated from the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dublin in 2011 with a Masters Degree in Visual Arts Practices and received a BA Hons in Fine Art from Limerick School of Art and Design in 2008. Currently she works on the Artist/Guide/Lecturing panel for Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane and tries to fit in some time for art-making and tea drinking as well.

John O’Brien is an Edinburgh based Graphic Designer, who hails from the county of Mayo. Graduating from Limerick School of Art and Design in 2010 with a BA in Visual Communications, he has steadily being building up his portfolio as both a Freelancer, and also as part of the Leithbased design agency Creative Storm team, where John has been based for over 2 years.

ISSUE NINE EDITORS NOTE/JACOB STACK

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JACOB S T A C K

Hi, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m Jacob, from Donegal. My home is right beside the Bluestack mountains... a wee bit of a coincidence. I graduated from the Limerick School of Art and Design in

2012, and remain working in Limerick. I like to draw, make pictures, and find stuff.... then drawing on the stuff I find. ď Ž

Previous Spread: Joan Brossa, Poema visual, (Visual Poem), silk-screen print, 1970 This Spread: Jacob Stack, ...here you go..., 2014

U NDER L I N I N G S OMET H I N G I MPOR T A N T ISSUE NINE UNDERLINE

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UNDERLINE

WORDS: ÁINE PHILIPS

JANINE SÉAMUS ELAINE OLIVIA

The Frank McCourt Museum building close to Limerick City Gallery has become the most recent venue for Occupy Space. True to their name, the dynamic artist led organization has taken up residence again in a new deep-space, a balustrade basement chamber alive with the lingering resonances of its incarnations. Previously the space was a snooker club and before that a factory line of men’s clothing swathed the cavernous premises. In the lost time of Frank McCourt’s childhood, school children in regimented tiers hungered for raisin scones. Haunted by these antecedents, the historicity of the space is somehow

DAVIDSON/FRANK WASSER/ MCCORMACK/ LEADER/TANYA O’KEEFFE/ HASSETT

CURATED BY ORLAITH TREACY OCCUPY SPACE, LEAMY HOUSE, HARTSTONGE ST. LIMERICK JUNE 6TH-28TH 2014

lightened by the bleak modernist style dear to snooker devotees of the 1980’s. It is gladdening that this building is being re-purposed again, and reopened to the public to experience its nuanced histories that are well considered in the exhibition Underline. Occupy Space curator Orlaith Treacy has produced the show of 6 artists work with respect to this particular architecture and it’s past lives. Treacy has worked with Occupy Space for three years as a driving force within the organization and she has been a durational presence - a still point in the moving world of artist run initiatives. The cultural influence of such groups for the promotion and advocacy of emerging artist’s careers is vital but can be diminished by the transitory nature of membership and directors. Occupy Space flourished in the past 4 years since its inception thanks to dedicated organisers and artist-curators such as Treacy. She has developed a singular elegance and deliberation to her curatorial approach, evidenced by a number of shows she curated and produced such as Scratching the Surface 2014 and Common Ground in 2013 with Barry

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Foley. Underline reaffirms her meticulous graceful ordering in the selection of this group of early career, Dublin and London based artists, who completed MFA’s together in NCAD in 2012. The site specific emphasis of the exhibition generates an immersive installation-like experience that also serves to unify the diverse artist’s works into a coherency. There is a sense of entering a clandestine underground world on descending into the shadowy chamber where flickering projected and screened images reveal enigmatic sculptures and arrangements of found objects. In the centre of the space, a cinematic spot light irradiates a low structure in thin wood panels. The construction is like an obsessional architect’s model of a modular office plan influenced by a high density chicken coop. This is Elaine Leader’s sculptural structure Untitled (2014) of repeated boxed divisions, giving formal pattern to the impersonal and rigid conditions of the authoritarian or corporate work place

Previous Spread Top Left: Frank Wasser, The Far Right is Here (2014) , Vinyl wall text (photo: Orlaith Treacy) Top Right: Frank Wasser, Kipple Fiction (2014), Two-annotated screen plays (photo: Bella Walsh) This Page Above: Elaine Leader ‘Untitled’ (2014) balsa wood models, plywood, castors (photo: Orlaith Treacy)

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and classroom. She gives physical manifestation to a Kafkaesque politics of space where the function and productivity of a working environment are prioritised. We look at her dystopian facsimile and avidly imagine the alternative creative, interactive and relational environment we need to properly survive and thrive as human creatures. She highlights the slippage between the process based orientation of most individual human endeavour and the outcome focused desire of large-scale corporate profit or autocratic regimes. A precisely installed monumental projection of Janine Davidson’s An Edge to Perception (2014) HD video shot in the Irish Museum of Modern Art amplifies some of Leader’s explorations of human values within architecture. Here we enter a modular and repetitive historical building (the camera walks through room after room like a recursive Magritte painting) projected to actual scale, so we sense the possibility of our own physical presence and experience of architectural space. This film was shot during IMMA’s recent renovations and we witness the traces of remodeling exposing the constructed, temporal nature of human interventions into seemingly immutable buildings. Davidson’s slow mesmeric visualization of this other building full of history and meaning strangely brings our awareness to the space we are in. This projection, like an apparition or a trace of the past gives us leave to project other traces of ephemeral and fleeting backgrounds and back stories into the broader space of its installation in Leamy House. Tanya O’Keeffe also shows video work ingeniously screened inside a 1970’s electronic poker machine.

We arch our bodies over the console to view Fancy (2014), the intimate engagement of her camera into the hidden crannies of this building. She brings us on another type of a journey through the space, one that is bodily, sensual and tactile. O’Keeffe’s practice is grounded in live performance that presents her body, actions and engagements as central to the meaning of the work. In her work for Underline, this approach is affirmed through a unique methodology she has developed of filming with her body, as opposed to a conventionally ocular or visually oriented filming. The video images are illuminated by a portable light mounted to O’Keeffe’s body and the camera feels like it is directed by her bodily movements. Also a masseuse by profession, O’Keeffe physically engages with the space through palpation via the camera, focusing on each ‘cell’ of the building, opening it up through touch sensation as each ‘cell’ in the body responds to massage. The body of the building is explored in her corpophilic rather than scopophilic aesthetic. Additional to the video she presents an installation of found objects gathered from the defunct snooker club: two herringbone inlay card tables arranged with geometric parquet chips produce an elliptical and humorous simile between the lives of this building and fateful games of chance. Frank Wasser in Kipple Fiction (2014) presents an ominous grouping of formal table and chair bathed in a melodramatic spotlight accentuating long shadows and a floating wall text “the far right is here”. On the table two books are placed, both annotated theatrical scripts of a futuristic sci-fi narrative. The texts (attributed to both

This Page Below Right: Janine Davidson, An Edge to Perception (2014) Duration: 8 mins 34 secs loop HD single channel video & Elaine Leader ‘Untitled’ (2014) (photo: Orlaith Treacy) Far Right Séamus McCormack, Gobo (2014) Video projection with audio, 3 mins 18 secs (photo: Orlaith Treacy)

the artist and another identity we presume to be the artist’s alter-ego “Jason Dunne”) explore future-dystopic ideas through a focus on issues of labour and working conditions. These enigmatic scripts are illuminated by a series of interspersed evocative and hilarious drawings where human forms morph and transmute between animal, vegetable and mineral to darkly comic effect. These illustrations are reminiscent of Alice Maher’s recent animations (Sleep and Flora 2009). Wasser plays with decoys here, enticing us to consider his work an artificial, theatrical construct or a situated artwork where authorship and artistic purpose are confused. We are also invited to occupy this installation and become the player or actor, seated at the spot lit table ‘performing’ this uncertain scenario where the value and function of language are re-negotiated into a revision of cultural production. All this is bathed in the refracted anti-glow of the signage, reminding us of the “far right” which we are obliged to consider is most definitely here. The exhibition space is divided by a mezzanine and ascending a set of slender metal stairs, Séamus McCormack, and Olivia Hassett present their work. Theatricality and performance are themes that are further developed in McCormack’s large scale projection and suspended sculpture Gobo (2014). The projection is of a video work featuring the artist’s face in close-up being garishly painted in theatrical cosmetics. The visceral and intimate sensuality of the black paint like coagulated tears, being applied to the magnified eye references Georges Bataille’s Story of the Eye where the eye is positioned as a metaphoric object. Elsewhere Bataille writes “It is clear that the world is purely parodic, that each thing seen is the parody of another, or is the same thing in a deceptive form.” McCormack’s appropriation of theatrical tropes brings us to a realisation of deception and parody in representation. The sculpture also functions as a metaphoric and parodic object. It slumps, glistening from a meticulous line of monofilament into a necklace of shining golden bells, metamorphosed from an object of performance (the bells when worn jangle, the patina glints and dazzles with movement) into an object for visual regard, a stand-in for performance and a signifier, in the Barthian sense of cultural values and the social performance of culture. A series of somatic, corporeal objects are assembled behind an ancient hospital screen, all flushed in a glowing greenish light. Screened (2014) by Olivia Hassett explores the abject body and its parts highlighting the potential of the body to be both sublime and grotesque (Bataille is also a useful reference here

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as he extensively examined the violent contradictions of bodily beauty, repulsion, eroticism and death). These human sized objects denote divested limbs, organs and musculature in re-organisations of form that defy actual bodies while appearing strangely familiar and physically comfortable. The work of Irish artist Siobhan McGibbon is cited in this work but where she often creates strange narratives through representations of the abject body, Hassett here generates an eerie sense of embodiment much like the encounter with animal dissections in an abattoir. We resonate with these body parts and have a physical, subjective and corporeal understanding of their functions. Annette Messanger’s epic installation works Penetration 1993-94 is referenced here. Messager used sewn shapes from brightly coloured fabric, stuffed to resemble human internal organs and assembled to create a floating forest of anatomical parts. Similarly Hassett works with repurposed clothing (materials so related to the body they are inseparable from it) and converges these forms together as a throng of visionary organ transplants, misfit prosthetics and maverick limb replacements.

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Hassett’s ‘body parts’ speak of the whole body, its public and private liminal boundaries as a microcosm of the greater whole of society. She proposes the individual body as a fractal of the body of humanity. The entire exhibition in its individual parts also explores aspects of a ‘whole’, a unifying of various ideas such as the representation of the real, deception, belief and engagement with a space via its histories. Underline as an exhibition works site specifically and this group of connected artists respond to the space and each other’s work with tender inter-penetration and they boldly underline some things that are important to consider. 

Previous Spread Artist Name, Olivia Hassett, Screened (2014) Mixed Media Installation (photo: Orlaith Treacy) This Spread Above: Elaine Leader ‘Untitled’ (2014) & Frank Wasser, The Far Right is Here (2014) (photo: Orlaith Treacy) Top Right: Séamus McCormack, Gobo (2014) bells, metal (photo: Bella Walsh) Bottom Right: Olivia Hassett, Screened (2014) Mixed Media Installation (Detail) (photo: Bella Walsh)

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T O SEEK AND F IND S U P P O R T

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WORDS: JOANNA HOPKINS FIND IS A SERIES OF SIX TEMPORARY ARTWORKS/ INSTALLATIONS/ EVENTS IN AND AROUND THE TOWN OF CASTLEBAR, CO MAYO IN APRIL 2014. THE WORKS WILL BE INSTALLED WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE OF EACH OTHER AND FOUND VIA A MAP, GUIDED ARTIST TOURS AND CHANCE FINDINGS. THE LINENHALL ARTS CENTRE WILL ACT AS CENTRAL HEADQUARTERS/STUDIO FOR PARTICIPATING ARTISTS AND AUDIENCE ALIKE. Unprecedented opportunities and events find a way into your life and have a surprising way of sticking. I arrived home to Mayo in late summer 2013, after a year spent in the turbulent city of Belfast. I had experienced a good run in Belfast with artistic opportunities; a first solo show and two artist residencies. However I was still working in a throbbing Belfast tourist café just to get by, it was the best summer weather since I was eight years old, and I was ready for a new adventure. Having lived in cities since starting college, it is indirectly ingrained in you that these are the places for opportunity. This is where the contemporary and cosmopolitan art crowd is, where you make work among peers and carve out a living with your palette knife or your mouse. Coming home to the small west coast town of Castlebar in August I had intended to take a couple of weeks off, lounge languidly around some warm Mayo meadows for inspiration and then begin my administrative duties in applying for new work, projects and residencies. Scouring the Internet, newssheets and e bulletins for artist opportunities is time consuming. Finding work via a residency, a public art scheme or open calls for submissions becomes a laborious task in which you must weigh up, very carefully, the time it takes to create a competitive proposal against the possibility that your 2-3 weeks of careful research, image creation, budget and timeline outlines may result in another thirty second rejection letter. I came across the FIND Percent for Art Scheme advertised both locally and nationally. The first collaboration between Mayo County Council Arts Office Public Arts Programme and the long standing Linenhall Arts Centre, I was immediately drawn to applying for the project for three important reasons:

- All works to be selected were temporary installations. - Two leading Irish artists were involved in the project as mentors, Alice Maher and Aideen Barry. - The theme was FIND, in which the artworks were hidden or concealed in someway. The artist brief from the outset was very clear, concise and unique in its addition of two mentors; who would work with the selected artists. The brief also included multiple art works that would comprise an art trail in which the audience would have to seek out and find the work. The idea was fun and intriguing for the public, though complex in its origins and execution. The project was based in Castlebar, and I was inherently drawn to creating something in my hometown after having lived away for so long. Having completed my MA in Social Practice and the Creative Environment in Limerick, one area of interest within my practice is the site specific; temporary artworks that step away from the once accepted idiom of permanent, static sculptures or object that can often be associated with Percent for Art Schemes. At the time of writing, six months later on a chirpy March morning, myself and the seven other selected artists (6 projects, 2 collaborations of 2 artists) were currently over half way through the FIND project. This article will focus on the journey and how the support offered by the Arts Office, the mentors Maher and Barry and the Linenhall has impacted our projects for FIND. The fellow Mayo artists who were selected for the commissions are Ian Wieczorek, Amanda Rice, Chris Leach, Nuala Clarke with Crystal Gandrud, and Alice Dixon with Anthony Champa (Exterus).

Left: Production Still of Joanna Hopkins and production crew from the filming of the ‘ The Star’

SEPTEMBER 2013

DECEMBER 2013

Upon selection of my initial proposal for the FIND project, a meeting was held with the two mentors Aideen Barry and Alice Maher, and the Public Arts Coordinator and project curator Gaynor Seville. In this meeting the mentors focused in on certain areas of my proposal. My initial proposal was to research certain buildings in the town and create new video works in response to the research. The video works would then be shown on specially adapted ‘invisible’ screens that would be placed in the original location of the research.

A series of monthly group meetings were organized by Seville for the mentors, artists and project coordinators. These took the form of ‘group tutorial’ like situations, in which the artists presented our projects, research and issues to date, and there was round table discussion on each project. Discussing and divulging both your developing project and the many issues that arose with each one were dealt with in a supportive and peer like manner. I was working with a local business owner researching the history of one of Castlebar’s first Silent Cinemas, and had presented my proposed installation for the commission. The group and the mentors were able to look at my research with fresh eyes, and help me distill my vision to a more laconic and finely executed idea. The group discussed and offered multiple methods, which ultimately helped me to decide on an alternative method of installation for the final work.

My original idea was to use one of the multiple unused retail outlets along Castlebar’s Main St. Upon initial discussions with Maher and Barry, they stressed the point that newer buildings could also be used, as there would be a hidden history and legacy from those locations that may have been built upon or covered over. Though my proposal had been accepted for the commission, I felt I had along way to go to develop a project of the caliber that was expected for this commission. Public Art Co-ordinator Gaynor Seville offered support in the logistical areas of potentially using vacant buildings, and highlighted the necessity of liaising with landlords and the town council in this respect, stating the she was on hand to aid negotiations.

NOVEMBER 2013 Following the initial meeting and discussion, and while developing the project and conducting research, an unprecedented area of support offered by Gaynor Seville was to be funded to partake in a workshop in December in Kilkenny city, titled ‘Pop Up Exhibitions and Museums in Retail Spaces’. This was immensely helpful in learning how multiple diverse organizations and individual artists have set up temporary exhibition spaces in empty retail units across Ireland. An opportunity I would financially have been unable to avail of otherwise, the extra element of support demonstrated the need for local artists to travel to secure external training. It highlighted an awareness on the FIND commissions overall ethos and organisation, offering a support to both the projects and the individual artists in our professional development.

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ONLINE AND PERSONAL SUPPORT:

SEPTEMBER 2013 In January the group met again to discuss the stages and development of their projects. Here our ideas for installation and dissemination were also shared. The writer Crystal Gandrud elaborates on the ‘supported free reign’ the mentorship had on her collaboration with artist Nuala Clarke on their project; “I would say that both Nuala and I have felt very supported by the mentorship of the FIND project. From the first meetings to our recent meeting with Alice Maher at her studio, we have felt both respected in our process and encouraged to go deeper (and wider) with the project. We have been offered very thought-provoking observations about the role of colour and its simplicity in a way we both found helpful. Additionally, we have very much appreciated the space and trust we have been afforded in which to develop the project. Sometimes, curators and editors-in an effort to help--speak too soon or too much, offering insights and musings before they were useful, often sending the project off on the wrong path for a time. The mentorship project, in our experience, has been perfectly and non-invasively timed; knowing precisely when and how to offer feedback is extremely important in any artistic process and we have appreciated what we have received very much.”

Contact was maintained between meetings with the mentors via emails and face to face meetings. Both mentors took an active and physical presence in their advice and support, organizing studio visits, coming along to research days and attending film shoots. Advice and info was on hand when it came to logistical advice regarding contracts for sub commissioned work within the projects themselves, for me this involved commissioning a musician to compose an original piece of work. The mentors personal networks and contacts also aided my own work in helping to secure props for a film shoot, alongside technical and Public Liability Insurance support from the Linenhall. Amanda Rice, one of the commissioned artists, states the difficulties in event based work, “The mentor-ship was quite beneficial as previously I had little experience of orchestrating a live performance involving a team of people, variables and unpredictable elements. I found it difficult to relinquish control to unforeseen circumstances that might alter my vision for the work. The support and experience of the mentors in terms of being able to talk out practical solutions to potential problems was really beneficial.”

DECEMBER 2013 An added element to the support of this project was the highlighting of each the individual artists’ processes exercised throughout their work. The Linenhall Gallery would be available for the month of April to run along side the public art works. The install for the Linenhall was discussed, and how the space as an open studio to the public will be utilized. My project utilized the gallery space as a working studio, allowing for continual research on old Castlebar cinemas and inviting information and contributions from the public. It also became an opportunity to display the immense amounts of research, drawings, photographs, and sound recordings accrued by many of the artists in their research over the duration of the project. As the demand for professional artist studios exceeds availability in Mayo at the moment, it offered the support of a residency style working studio for myself and many of the other artists for the month of April. The project having now reached its final public dissemination and conclusion I can reflect and evaluate the range of opportunities and support it provided me with; a mentorship by two prominent and experienced Irish artists, the fortuity of working alongside a group of diversely talented peers, professional development courses, a month long studio residency and the funds to research, create and realise my first film and public art installation. Mayo’s main town is not simply following suit in creating public art, it is working hard to invent its own sustainable methodologies for a renewed creative vision of Castlebar and an entirely new conception of supported opportunities for contemporary artists. 

The FIND Exhibition and Public Artworks was launched on the 29th March in the Linenhall Arts Centre and fifteen different locations around Castlebar, and ran until the 26th April 2014. www.findartproject.org

Joanna Hopkins is a multi media artist currently based in Co Mayo. For the FIND commission she has created a short film in the disused building of one of the first silent cinemas in Castlebar. The work features original music composed by a direct descendant of a local piano player from the cinema, circa 1920 - 1923. www.joannahopkins.com

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Above: Nuala Clarke and Crystal Gandrudâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s studio preparation for handmade flags, referencing the line industry in Castlebar Right: Amanda Rice conducting interviews and research at the World Indoor Tug of War Championships 2014

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A HA N D I N O P E HIDD E N D O O R A WORDS: MARY STEVENS HIDDEN DOOR ARTS FESTIVAL Twenty- four derelict and disused vaults in the centre of Edinburgh provided the platform on which Hidden Door festival was literally staged. This was a pop up venue like no other, where over eighty visual artists, fifty live music acts, plus numerous performers, poets, filmmakers and actors all used the space to enhance the cultural fabric of their city.

questioning the most accepted modes of display it ensures that art remains innovative, challenging and unedited. Encouraging rookie and established artists to work alongside each other, this culture of artist run events and shows is in pursuit of extending the boundaries of art that we have grown accustomed to.

A not for profit arts production in a city overrun by firmly established cultural institutions, such as the National Galleries of Scotland and the Royal Scottish Academy, to name but two, Hidden Door Festival was an exciting proposition for artists who need to ‘do it now’ and ‘do it themselves’

The nature of the derelict site of Hidden Door, however, insists that some funds had to be procured. This mainly came from crowd funding and ticket sales. Running in a similar way to a music festival, one could buy tickets for one of the themed evening events and enjoy the variety of happenings taking place for that particular night. Opening the vaults to the public between the hours of 12noon and 6pm for free ensured the equality of the event, opened it up to new demographics and cemented its’ insistence on giving back to the local community of Edinburgh.

In its third year, it has become a celebration of alternative culture in Edinburgh, by the artists, for the artists without the support of government or institutional funding. This kind of DIY approach to exhibitions has seen a re-emergence in contemporary culture as diversification from larger institutions. By driving the art world into something different and by constantly

The vaults created a dark and damp environment which in turn provided an exciting and tactile background for the events to take place. The symbol of the festival became the low arch of Edinburgh stone, a tentative metaphor, perhaps of support structures for non-profit organisations and DIY culture. Lighting was dim and heating was absent, giving

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E N ING THE A R TS FEST I V A L all who attended a very direct sensual feel to the festival, it’s roots, it’s aims and the importance of urban art locally.

on a level and equal footing can enhance cultural diversity for the city residents and give more opportunities for/to artists.

Artists who were also working and contributing on a voluntary basis had the unique opportunity to become involved in a support network of practitioners from different cultural sectors, working together and independently for the good of each other and for the future of the arts in Scotland.

The creation of art in this way is vital to a city’s cultural output because of its aims and intentions. Artists, missing the return of their personal money used to develop the space, put the festival at a financial loss. However the need for a cultural platform such as this in Edinburgh is so great that it can count its successes as achieving the initial aims of the festival. These were ‘to provide exciting and inspiring opportunities for emerging talent’. It linked artists together in a community that nurtures and supports one another and supports the arts.

It appeared that the festival was created in a utopian sort of ‘togetherness’ with a certain lack of professional competition. In a world well known for its competitive nature it is always refreshing to see these peer groups created and brought together to support one another. Talking to The Skinny, David Martin, the festival director, commented: ‘I wanted to create a festival made by Edinburgh, for Edinburgh, and invite talented individuals and acts from all over to come and join in with what we are doing’. The success in creating an artist led festival by Hidden Door gives hope for the future of local cultural protocol for artists. It proves that working together to make something that is supported from within,

Hidden Door holds out a hand that empowers both artist and community, demonstrating that a vibrant and exciting a rt scene could be created for a week without government funding, supporting both artist and community. With more one-off Hidden Door events planned, its influence extends beyond it’s week long slot in the Edinburgh festival cycle. Inspiring, creative and inclusive, the Hidden Door has given Edinburgh an exciting platform from which to show its multi dimensional creative community. 

Image: Hidden Door Photo: Mary Stevens

Above: Installation shot of mixed media piece by Henry, Paul and Ben Martin Photo: Mary Stevens Right: Hidden Door Poster Photo: Mary Stevens

ISSUE NINE REGENERATIVE SUPPORT

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“ I WAN T T O R E L A T HE EA R T H A T T I I T CAN B E F A L L I H OW PE O P L E F E E L B UT NA T U R E A L W A T O MAK E T H I N G S W ITH T H E R I G H T C AN TO O . I W O U L T HE NE G A T I V I T Y L IKE E V E R Y T H I N G W RONG A N D T H E T R EALIS I N G T H A T E VERYW H E R E I F Y S EE IT . ” ISSUE NINE

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A T E IT TO HOW I M ES SEEMS LIKE I N G TO BITS AND L LIKE THAT TOO A Y S FINDS A WAY R IGHT AND THAT S UPPORT YOU L D EXPLORE BOTH O F FEELING G IS GOING T R ANSITION TO S UPPORT IS Y O U KNOW HOW TO Excerpt from proposal to Occupy Paper Issue 9, Rachel Thomson

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AF I C T IONAL &M E T A PHYSI CALHI STORI CALOV ERVIE WO F S U PPORT

*MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF NUTS*

WORDS: CATHERINE MARY O’BRIEN MY INTENT WITH THIS TEXT IS THAT IT IS TO BE AN ENDLESS AND EVER CHANGING LIST THAT ALLOWS ME TO LOOK, SQUINTEDLY, AND LEARN FROM THE BANALITY OF OBJECTS, EMOTIONS AND EXPERIENCES THAT CAN OFT GO OVER LOOKED. EACH DEFINITION IS TO BE ONE THREAD IN GARGANTUAN RAG RUG THAT EARTHS ME. INFLUENCED BY THE CRITICAL DICTIONARY OF GEORGES BATAILLE AND THE MEANDERING WORDS OF GEORGE PEREC WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO ME IS NOT THE MEANING OF WORDS BUT RATHER THEIR TASKS AND THEIR JOURNEYS. EACH DEFINITION IS TO BE READ AS BOTH MINE AND YOURS.

IDLE (-NESS):

1. not working or active; unemployed; doing nothing: idle workers 2. not in use or operation; not kept busy: idle machinery 3. habitually doing nothing or avoiding work; lazy. of no real worth, importance, or significance: idle talk

Idle Support: As a creature of habit, though never puritanically strict, my routine has repeated components without which my days would be unanchored and unsure. On waking idleness allows for the days preparations. It armours and supports participation in promising unforeseen adventures. Idleness breeds a subspace of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;timeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and contemplation. It cultivates a festina lente ethos, resulting in a lived experience with your object of rumination.

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PLAY FIGHT(-ING):

1. An un-refereed contest in which participants try to dominate each other without inflicting injury; To engage in such a contest; to horseplay

Play fighting: has no intrinsic goals per se. It acts as a spontaneous and imperceptible prop to develop language skills via a non-verbal, explicative communication. Children’s play fighting and ‘rough housing’ teaches them about their physicality and when supervised correctly about limitations, de-coding and friendships. In adults it teaches us, to borrow from another’s words ‘As we grow older and realize more clearly the limitations of human happiness, we come to see that the only real and abiding pleasure in life is to give pleasure to other people’, by play fighting we re-tap into that elemental and often discarded aspect of ourselves from which seriousness and professionalism distract. No intrinsic goals but rather a perpetual circuit of re-examination of our own sub-spaces of reality and relations.

FOOTNOTES:

1. A note placed at the bottom of a page of a book or manuscript that comments on or cites a reference for a designated part of the text 2. Something related to but of lesser importance than a larger work or occurrence: a political scandal that was but a footnote to modern history

Footnotes1: are born of the same elk of the egg cup; useful and helpful doohickeys, weighted with knowledge and anchored to the bottom of the page. Of the academic variety there are a number of species in existence such as MLA, APA, Chicago, Oxford etc. but when used as a literary device the constantly evolving nature of the footnote is transformed into a many and splendiferous creature; one that supports and competes, creatures that are explicative and tangential in action. Artists and writers have availed of the services provided by the mighty footnote and two champions of such are Flan Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Brien and Terry Pratchet.

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CHANCE: 1. the absence of any cause of events that can be predicted, understood, or controlled: often personified or treated as a positive agency: Chance governs all

2. luck or fortune: a game of chance 3. a possibility or probability of anything happening: a fifty-percent chance of success

Chance: is a more pre-determined structure than when first meets the eye. It is intuitive, pre-cognitive and relates to a certain quantum reality that feigns innocence and spontaneity. It can appear elusive, evasive and dandyesque in habit. On closer introspective inspection, however, we find that chance is in bed with Instruction; together they create structures that provide an unknown outcome via an undetermined process but culminate in a known and determined product and this product is process. In other words it creates a stabile instability.

BRADAWL: 1. An awl with a bevelled tip, used to pierce wood, leather, or other materials for the insertion of brads, screws, etc A Bradawl: Consider the nature of the awl. It’s guiding, helpful and nurturing; depending on the swordsman that wields it can be misrecognised as a puncture-ly weapon of individual destruction. However the awl is also a negoitier of space as it unites the trinity of hand, surface and puncture itself. It prepares, affects and then steps aside; (waiting…) for the moment or space to be completed. The Bradawl is an ever so slightly more specific in character, verging on the pedant one could say. The Bradawl is witty, slight of scale, discreet almost and can be found on most factotums’ persons. No book, frame, indent could ever have existed without the aid of the penetrating will of the Bradawl. 

DR NAOMI SEX, THE AMATEUR & THE PROFESSIONAL

Naomi Sex is a Dublin-based visual artist and lecturer in the Fine Art Department at Dublin Institute of Technology. She has been practicing for over fifteen years and has exhibited on an on-going basis, her work has received numerous awards,

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residencies and state commissions. Most recently, she was selected for The Artist in Residency Program by The Irish Museum of Modern Art. www.naomi-sex.com

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AN ESSAY IN THREE PARTS WORDS: CLAIRE WALSH THIS ARTICLE EXPLORES THE CONCEPT OF THE AMATEUR AS A KEY TOOL FOR INNOVATIVE METHODS OF ARTISTIC RESEARCH. IT FOCUSES ON THE IRISH ARTIST DR NAOMI SEX, WHOSE WORK CRITIQUES THE CULTURE OF PROFESSIONALISM IN THE CONTEMPORARY ART WORLD, IN PARTICULAR WITHIN THE ACADEMIC ENVIRONMENT. SEX MAKES ARTWORKS THAT EXPLORE THE IDEOLOGICAL SPACE BETWEEN PROFESSIONAL AND AMATEUR ART PRACTICES. NOT UNCOMMONLY FOR AN ARTIST, HER INTERESTS LIE WITH THE MECHANICS OF PRESENTATION AND SO SHE FOCUSES ON THE FRAMEWORK THAT SURROUNDS A CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS PRACTICE;

HOW THEY PRESENT THEMSELVES IN PROFESSIONALISED SETTINGS, THE LINGUISTICS OF THE ARTIST’S TALK (WHICH SHE LIKENS TO THE LINGO OF CAR SALES) AND HOW AS A PHD STUDENT, THE ARTIST MIGHT FIND AN APPROPRIATE MEANS OF PRESENTING THEIR ART PRACTICE AS ACADEMIC RESEARCH. HER WORK IS ESPECIALLY INTERESTING HERE AS IT DEMONSTRATES HOW SHE DEVELOPED A CREATIVE METHOD FOR UNDERTAKING HER PHD RESEARCH AT DUBLIN’S NATIONAL COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN USING THE CONCEPT OF THE AMATEUR. I WILL CONCENTRATE ON HER USE OF AMATEUR AND EXPAND BY COMPARING IT TO HOW THE CONCEPT HAS BEEN USED BY ART WRITER MARIA FUSCO.

PART I The Importance Of Being Professional

The upsurge in the development of new models for research stems from a recent rise in the number of artists undertaking research at PhD level2. While it is important that artists take their work seriously enough to study it at this level, it is also important that they recognise the sometimes mismatched relationship that exists between the worlds of art and academia and challenge the ways in which this may compromise their practice and/or research. Enough, at least, to question the ways in which they are expected to articulate their research under the terms designated by the educational facility. Understanding the differences between Professional and Amateur and how they apply to art practice and academia are central to this enquiry. Sexâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work looks at the ideological space between these terms and attempts to make it visible to us3.

context of an amateur and predominantly self-taught venue on the railings of St Stephens Green Park, Dublin. Her intention was to set up an active interface by bringing the two spheres into contact. The lines between amateur and professional were clearly drawn from the outset, apparently. However, her plans for the exhibition were met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm from the organising group who, after some negotiation, settled for the inclusion of Sexâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s curated group on the grounds that they be kept at a distance from the main body of the event. The various logistical details and summary of events from the project provide an intriguing insight into the varying classifications of amateur and professional in operation within the wider sphere of cultural production. The details, recounted afterwards by Sex in a performance lecture4, speak for themselves.

In 2009, Sex produced The Gatekeeper Project where she invited four academically trained artists to show their work in the

The issues she was met with in the organising process highlight the preconceptions of both sides and also

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the peculiarity of the contemporary art world’s ‘invisible’6 economy; the oddness of prioritising showing over selling being brought to the fore. Which ‘side’ has the right attitude it is not for the artist to say, she merely makes these oddities visible so that we can think about how we define the terms and what they mean for how we understand contemporary art practice.

exist between the definitions of amateur and professional and how they operate in academia. Her attempts to reveal these nuances expose the peculiarity of the code of language and gesture that the artist is expected to perform in professional contexts to demonstrate artistic professionalism; the aesthetics of which she compares to car salesmanship.

What I would term a ‘professional’ artist corresponds to the general academic understanding of it, i.e. what I was taught in Art College, and it is based around the reputation economy7 upon which the art world revolves. What I would term as an ‘amateur’ artist is someone who makes art objects with the direct intention of selling them i.e. without the principal intent of shifting paradigms, undermining the viewer’s preconceptions or other such motivations. In my experience at Art College this type of commercialism was considered crass and unprofessional. Sex is interested in these psychological separations that

The Synchronised Lecture Series, performed in 2013 across a multitude of venues, explores this notion further. 11 actors simultaneously performed a script written by Sex which was made up of a mishmash of “clichéd jargon” and pantomiming from artist’s talks and lectures and re-contextualised in a car showroom, where the actors channelled a strange mix of artist and wheeler dealer.

reveals snobbery (on both sides) and the mysterious contemporary art economy. With The Synchronised Lecture Series we are confronted with the barrage of meaningless phrases and jargon which alienate contemporary artists from audiences outside of the art world. Amateur / Professional is clearly a major subject in Sex’s work and, as we shall see, it is also a major influence on how she conducts and presents research as a professional artist. In the second part of this text we see how she developed her methods for research using the position of Amateur, most commonly condescended, as a strategic tool.

In different ways both of these works reveal to us the negative aspects of the apparatus underpinning the professional art world. With The Gatekeeper Project it

PART 2 Amateur Tactics

Naomi Sex undertook practice-led research as a PhD candidate, meaning that her art practice was the basis of her research. This method of research is a commonly chosen by artists and is both a creative and academically valid form of knowledge production. It makes sense that artists would chose this as an appropriate method to work with and while the research method is intuitive for artists, the mechanics of presentation (i.e. the instances of the research becoming public) are seen to be out of synch with art practice. Rather than side-stepping this disjunction, Sex develops her research through it; acknowledging the discrepancies and attempting to make them visible to us. It becomes apparent that her practice, research and presentation are inseparable. Her aim as a PhD student was to demonstrate that “art practice can be an adept conceptual, contextual mode of communicating its own particular character, to iterate and embody its own hierarchical structures and articulate, critically, by rendering visible its structures and evasive, invisible properties.”9 As we understand it, art is a process-based activity, or put more simply, it doesn’t always provide answers. It doesn’t always make sense. This clichéd je ne sais quoi character of art might be what intrigues us as artists but the university is far less embracing of that ne. Academic research is intended to gain understanding; to answer questions, and, although tailored for the arts, is primarily outcome focused. While art is primarily about setting up questions, it doesn’t necessarily set out to answer them. How then is the artist-as-researcher intended to produce academically appropriate knowledge? Not only is there a imbalance in the whole question to answer ratio but add to that the problem of the artist him/herself being the subject of their own research and you have a major problem for the very basis of any critical research: objectivity. Now you can begin to see cracks forming in the art/research relationship and the contradictions that Sex seeks to draw our attention to. The problem is that academia is the habitat of the professional and art sometimes struggles to tick the boxes of what that entails. For these reasons the

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Amateur becomes a powerful tool for the artist in the academy as I will now attempt to explain. “I am no amateur of these melons”10 Coming across this unfamiliar use of the word amateur (from the early 19th century) lead me to discover its origins as an expression of love or admiration for something (deducing that speaker was not fond of the melons). Further, I learned that it was in fact the beginnings of capitalism that brought with it the change in its meaning which constitutes our contemporary understanding of the word. William Haley, ex London Times editor, explains in ‘Findings: Amateurism’ that during the early stages of capitalism in the late 19th century the term was made use of in efforts to distinguish the activities of work and play, into “activity for pleasure and activity for gain”11. Ever since, the line has been drawn out in that Western dualistic way: affairs of heart | affairs of head. Transfer this to academic research and (accordingly) it becomes the distinction: subjectivity | objectivity. The problem is that as an artist undertaking practice-based research you are both the subject and object of your own research and so the line cannot be so neatly drawn up. Artists like Naomi Sex are developing new methods towards finding a critical position for themselves that somehow sidesteps this paradox. Although it might seem antithetical, they do so by highlighting the subjective nature of art practice and the fundamental position of their own selves within their research. They do so by centralising the mortal body of the researcher in the research and this is where we begin see the notion of Amateur coming in to play. In Rehearsed Practice, Sex positions herself as an amateur actor in the performance. The work took the form of a performance lecture at University College Dublin where she paid two actors to perform a scripted dialogue and positioned herself alongside these professionals as a means of ‘testing’ her performative abilities in public. The vulnerable position of amateur is taken by Sex as a “self-conscious strategy” used to “acknowledge, harnesses and present nuances of subjectivity”12. This particular

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work, as with many of Sex’s performative lectures was recounting and reflecting upon previous artworks the artist had made, and so it acted as a means of selfevaluation. The vulnerable position she puts herself in circumnavigates any allusion to the objective or knowing position of commentator; instead the artist is wrapped up in the process of her research and artmaking. The message coming from this strategy is that subjectivity is important; that it does not equal to a lack of criticality and in the peculiar world of contemporary art it may actually be seen as an integral tool for critical enquiry. But how might this be so? In order to explain Sex’s use of the subjective self in her research it is important to explain the integral roles of the academic setting and theatricality to attaining her critical position; as the subjective self alone cannot be enough to provide critical enquiry. As she explains, the subjective qualities highlighted during her amateur performance are “coupled with and couched in a formal academic context where the performative works play out, acting as an objective frame for the work.”13 This coupling of subjective self with objective frame is a tactic borrowed

from the world of Bertolt Brecht’s Epic Theatre14. She uses theatrical devices in the way that Brecht meant for them to be used; to encourage a critical audience. “Theatre” according to Brecht “is first and foremost theatre.”15 It should be an outright sham. Hammy theatrics made it implausible for Brecht’s audience to suspend their disbelief and be drawn away from their personal realities for the duration of the performance. He prised critical engagement over crowd-pleasing entertainment: “The characters in Brecht’s plays speak more formally, express themselves with greater decisiveness and command than they would in probability. This language tends not to express subjective awareness only, the characters’ probable social estimation of themselves, but also their objective social existence.”16 Sex uses literary strategies similar to this in producing scripts from what she sees as repetition, cliché and jargon from various types of artists’ talk. As Brecht used amateur actors alongside professionals, oversized props and awkwardly choreographed movements to create an uncanny effect that went against naturalistic theatre; Sex too plays up to the inherent theatricality

of the academic presentational context; exaggerating its formal ritual and role play in order to reveal the hidden aspects of its professional apparatus. We see this in an excerpt of her notes from Next-Previously-Meanwhile; “There is a strangeness in how the scene is played out which is evoked by the actors who perform the scene as if they were engaged in a type of uncanny reenactment. In this regard, they move slowly using various slowed-down gestures and speaking in rhyme.”17 We can see from this how Sex uses a combination of theatrical device, academic setting and her subjective self to attain a critical position within her research. It is not one that can be compared to an objective position by traditional academic standards. Instead she attains what she calls an ‘inter-subjective’ position. That inter troubles the straight line division between objectivity and subjectivity and provides a clear explanation of the basis for practicebased research: Inter; a prefix occurring in loanwords from Latin, where it meant “between,” “among,” “in the midst of,” “mutually,” “reciprocally,” “together,” “during”.18

PART 3 It is Important to Approach as Amateur, but not to take an Amateur Approach

Another individual who uses subjectivity as a means of criticality is Edinburgh-based artist and writer Maria Fusco. Similar to Naomi Sex, Fusco’s methods of artistic research are also bound up with the idea of an inseparable ‘inter’ position. Like Sex, she also centralises the body of the researcher within the research and her work troubles the idea of professionalism in artistic research by using the concept of the Amateur. Fusco is a founding member of the Artwriting department at Goldsmith’s College London.20 She is currently a paid researcher for the University of Edinburgh; selected as one of the Universities Research Fellows. Her writing is highly experimental and her subject matter unorthodox for a university setting, so I was intrigued as to how she garnered the position of a funded researcher with a University famed for its contributions to medical science. The troubling thing for the University about Artwriting is that is does not have a definition. The idea of such an enigmatic discipline seems absurd against the idea of traditional academic subjects and Fusco has spent a large proportion of her time answering for this. She has a unique way of talking around this issue and interestingly, it involves the use of Amateurism. Grilled

Next - previously – meanwhile” featuring Darina Gallagher, Naomi Sex and Dave Layde, Production still

Work of this kind is part of a wider debate that accompanies the idea of practice-based research in universities and colleges and the recent proliferation in the number of artists using the academic environment to present their research, known in contemporary art terms as the Pedagogical Turn.

Summary of Sex’s work taken from communications with the artist over the period between August 2011 and November 2014.

This performance lecture was titled Rehearsed Practice and was performed by Sex and two professional actors in a number

of venues including: University College Dublin, Newman House, Dublin, Ireland, 2011, The NSU (Nordic Summer University), Falsterbo educational centre, Sweden, 2011 & The Performance Art Institute, San Francisco, C.A. in conjunction with the Arts Council, 2011. “The Gatekeeper Project”, Installation shot, featuring the work by Margaret O Brien, “Halting Site”

The economy of the contemporary art world is often referred to as ‘invisible’ on account of the fact that overt commercialism is not often encountered in a contemporary art gallery. You will often find that contemporary artworks are not priced and that contemporary art galleries with the word

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as to how Artwriting minus a definition or perceived measurable outcomes positions itself within the academy, she responds: “It is important to approach as Amateur, but not to take an amateur approach.”21 As we outlined at the beginning, amateurism is not a term associated with the habitat of professionals that is the University. Academics, however witty or humorous their comportment may be, are expected to be engaged in innovative research; a serious business and nothing amateur about it. So what can Fusco mean by her statement? Some kind of adopted naivety? Further research into her work makes it clear that what she refers to is the lack of a straight compliance with academic role-play and with the professional culture that exists within academia and clashes with artistic intentions. Like Sex, she aims to draw attention to these discrepancies by making them stand-out and appear strange. And a lack of the expected reverence to professionalism is enabled by approaching as an amateur. Some of the research she has carried out at the University of Edinburgh has involved the publication of a novel dedicated to her infatuation with the Canadian actor Donald Sutherland. Which invites the question

‘commercial’ attached are a separate institution. This odd form of commerce was highlighted in The Gatekeeper Project which the actors remark on in Rehearsed Practice; “The artwork is priced overtly; not discretely like a typical white cube space. Cash and money exchanges are visible and spoken about openly.” This was referred to in the previous paragraph as the art world’s ‘invisible’ economy; reputation being one of its nonmaterial components.

inherent in its systems of production through art practice” Naomi Sex, PhD Thesis, Faculty of Fine Art, Department of Media, National College of Art and Design, 2012 10 Page 89, Recollections of the Tartar Steppes and their inhabitants by Lucy Atkinson, 1863

William Haley, ‘Findings: Amateurism’, From the Spring 1976 issue of The Scholar, http://theamericanscholar.org/ amateurism/#.Ugjo422ku2c, (accessed 07/07/2013)

“The Synchronized Lecture Series”, Live performance still

Abstract, “’Practice makes practice…visible?’ Revealing structures of the artistic field by articulating the evasive properties

Dr Naomi Sex, Lecturer Fine Art, DIT http://www.gradcam.ie/people/ naomi-sex/ (accessed 09/07/2013) Abstract, “’Practice makes practice…visible?’ Revealing

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‘is it appropriate to speak about your celebrity crush at a high-brow academic conference?’ (Directing the attention of the entire room of academics to your unrequited love for some handsome aging actor, having them view a clip of Sutherland in Fellini’s Casanova in which he makes love to an inanimate doll for 7 minutes, without explaining why…22) How can this be possible? It certainly challenges the idea of appropriate audience reaction and stretches the boundaries of what can be considered a serious topic for a reputable university’s funded academic research. Her composure suggests a seemingly naive lack of awareness of the inappropriateness; as though she is not aware of the inappropriate nature of the subject of celebrity crushes in this professional situation. In other words; she approaches as an amateur. But Fusco is serious about her work and most importantly, as she states; does not take an amateur approach. She is articulate and intelligent, an encyclopaedia of literary and historical references, she is witty yet formal in her deportment. She speaks clearly and confidently, she constructs argument and delivers research papers in the style familiar to academia. She is an experimental writer, an artist-as-writer

structures of the artistic field by articulating the evasive properties inherent in its systems of production through art practice” Naomi Sex, PhD Thesis, Faculty of Fine Art, Department of Media, National College of Art and Design, 2012 Brecht, a German playwright and political activist was one of the founding father of Epic Theatre; a theatre that removed the so-called ‘fourth wall’ and addressed the audience directly, going against the idea of illusion that the theatre is expected to create.

Page 63, ‘Henning Rischbieter: In the Presence of the Audience’, Brecht and Political Theatre, Laura Bradley, Oxford University Press, 2006

by her own definition, her writing is not straight but her delivery is seamless. It carries the slightly bizarre into the realm of the professional, for serious contemplation. It is with this blind conviction that she pirates these unorthodox subjects into the lecture hall. By the time the audience start to question her, she has gone too far in and the result is one of awkward consciousness.23 And yet still, in all appearances, she fits neatly into the academic world. To summarise the point I attempt to make here (which was Fusco’s): there is nothing unprofessional about assuming the approach of the Amateur. At the base of all this is the deep-seated relationship between Academia and Seriousness. We can see how Fusco plays with the notions of ‘appropriate reaction’ from her audience by using the seriousness granted to academic situations as the grounds for critical humour.24 Sex does the same with the slightly uncomfortable to watch, awkward humour arising from her performance lectures. It stems from the over formal, over-serious, overworded rituals of presenting oneself as a professional artist. It comes from her experience as an artist, researcher and educator and the daily rituals she must perform for her part in the contemporary

Ibid.

Actors notes from Nextpreviously-meanwhile

18 http://dictionary.reference.com/ browse/inter(accessed 11/07/2013)

“ARTICULULATE”, performance based symposium, featuring performance by Philip Napier, photography by Ruby Wallis

Along with a few others she essentially invented the discipline, bringing it into the academic domain.

Personal notes of the author, Maria Fusco speaking at Edinburgh College of Art Creative Publishing Seminar, March 2012.

art world. The Amateur for both Fusco and Sex becomes a tactic for dealing with these issues and out of this comes the recognition that the lecture hall is an ideal space to stage artworks and manipulate the dramatic dynamic that exists between speaker and audience. We have seen how Sex’s methods trouble the assumption that criticality requires a traditional academic standard of objectivity. Her explication of the intersubjective position proposes another way of assuming this critical distance; one that acknowledges the essential subjectivity of art practice. Naomi Sex is one of many creative practitioners actively contributing to the exciting branch of knowledge production that focuses on innovative research models for artists. Her use of the concept of Amateur opens up the ground for a more constructive companionship between the worlds of criticality and creativity. All of this bound up within the cosmos of professional, amateur, research, practice, objectivity, subjectivity, seriousness, inappropriateness, celebrity crushes and park railings. 

Fusco played this clip during a lecture she gave at the ICA symposium ‘Art &…’, http://blip.tv/ temporarysiteorg/maria-fusco-artsymposium-london-ica-1025243, (accessed 12/05/2013)

I experienced this as an audience member to one of her research presentations at the University of Edinburgh. I also witnessed the discomfort of my fellow audience members.

appropriate attitudes we should adopt in addressing them.” For further reading see ‘Dismantling the Serious Machin’, an interview with Gavin Butt and Mathias Danbolt, http://trikster.net/3/butt/1.html

Art-historian Gavin Butt dedicates his scholarly activity to Serious Culture; looking at how we attribute value to something culturally by being serious about it. He calls this a ‘Foucauldian technology of serious value’ “that not only produces the objects we take to be worthy of serious attention, but that also posits the

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For image mage titles, please refer to Pg 65

T AMED A R T – P AINT I N G T HE T O W N WORDS: PATRICIA ROMERO JIMENEZ “A WALL IS A VERY BIG WEAPON. IT’S ONE OF THE NASTIEST THINGS YOU CAN HIT SOMEONE WITH.”  BANKSY (BANGING YOUR HEAD AGAINST A BRICK WALL)

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As a kid, one of my favourite places at home was a papered wall in the entrance hall, which, up to the limits of my young height I tastefully decorated with pencil. I thought I was an artist and my work incredibly great, but my mother didn’t agree. Every day, all over the world, this wall is used by street artists as a canvas while society takes on the role of scolding mother. But times have changed and mother has softened in her old age; the original conflict is now giving way to co-operation and support. With dialogues opening up around street art and its role in contemporary society, there have been numerous opportunities for street artists to regenerate their bad reputation on the back of civic and corporate support. Interestingly, and controversially it has also garnered the interest of the contemporary art scene. This text looks at the ideas of authenticity and support in relation to street art, and how the embrace of the artworld affects these values. Street artists; traditionally met with antagonism and villanised, are now being accepted into society as major players in contemporary culture. Is this a positive, or do we believe it loses its authenticity and critical tooth as it becomes assimilated into society? And how is authenticity measured it in relation to support from the point of view of street artists?

When the notion of support is looked at in relation to street art, particularly graffiti, a dualism comes to the fore between its original anti-establishment ethos as a politically committed means of protest (mostly anticapitalist) on the one hand, and its current status as a commercially viable art trend on the other; the latter having grown in popularity through commissioned ‘works’ in strategic locations in cities as well as having been invited ‘in off the streets’ and into the Gallery. The two sides are at odds. But is this bipolarity affecting its authenticity? Is it fair to say that street art is more authentic and true to its roots without commercial and artistic support? The complication of commissioning In recent times street art has been associated with hiphop culture; a misguided link straightaway dismantled by historically deeper roots documenting how it arose in times past with a strong sense of social purpose and a radical political message to carry. There are a great number of examples of this world-wide, but interestingly many remarkable cases originated under official commission. Many of these cases were under wrought by philanthropic educational missions, for instance with Mexican Muralism in the 1920s.

Below: Change not coins Flickr.com – Joshua Rappeneker – used under CC BY 2.0

After the civil war, mural art was used by Mexico’s revolutionary government to reach and unite illiterate masses by creating a unified iconography which used imagery to communicate important educational messages addressing themes of local heritage, social issues and the future. Similarly, and more recently in 1982, a series of six murals themed “Peace through Nuclear Disarmament” were commissioned as part of the Greater London Council’s Year of Peace, where community and socio-political commitment were meaningfully portrayed through street art imagery. In both examples, a strong social commitment bestows a sense of authenticity through a solid progressive and political message: speaking out for positive change. This definition of authenticity holds hands in respect with its controversial commissioned character; troubling the commonplace perspective that commissioned work is non-critical; its message safe and its protest polite. Demonstrating instead that street art can be a powerful instrument to “make people know” and that commissioned work does not equal passive messages. A Romantic Idea- the embrace of the artworld In a changeable panorama divided between supporters and detractors of street art, a highly negative opinion is still given to graffiti, as it is seen to be dirtying streets and associated with anti-social behaviour. There is no sense of pride in the “furtive hooded artist” spontaneously spraying walls, shutters, trains, trucks and every vertical empty surface on public property. With these preconceptions intact, how has the street artist garnered public support and become accepted into the art world? The environment plays an important role here. Having street art presented within the art industry is transforming the way people see it: the focus on ‘pieces’ as alienated acts has turned it into a credible artistic creation. The fresh factor on things is the artistic value attributed to the ephemeral illegal action of graffiti. In this context, the act eclipses the actor. The aestheticized gesture of rebellion eclipses the social status of the person behind the mask; whitewashing the gritty side of the message to promote groundbreaking designs as the core element of street art. By remaining anonymous under alias like this, it can be considered an artistic entity. There are two sides to this romanticised embrace. On the one hand, this aestheticisation and its assimilation into contemporary art and design culture has resulted in the ‘muting’ of its rebellious message by the

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associated commercial stakeholders. Where it is used to sell consumers an image they can wear, it becomes passive. Used as a signifier for rebellion, it becomes a toothless illustration of it. On the other hand it has resulted in major opportunities for street artists to gain exposure for their work, with large scale commissions in trendy city centre locations. So it seems that graffiti artists are collaborating seamlessly with the corporate bodies they were protesting against, putting aside their expressive ingenuity in favour of a convenient agreement. This financial support not only changes the resulting design, but the aim too. Although such enthusiasm for street art has resulted in major opportunities for street artists: nurturing creative exchanges and allowing them to use their art to challenge the concept of public space, they are also advertising their sponsors who, as large commercial corporations, often have questionable social consciousness. While mass support has brought with it the recognition of its different visual narratives and sub-culture, it has negative effects on values of authenticity in street art as indicated by the vanishing of its social responsibility.

Above: Authors own image of shop shutter taken at Leith Walk, Edinburgh Top Right: Rage’ Flower Thrower by Banksy Middle Right: Rage’ Flower Thrower by Banksy Bottom Right: Banksy stencil of police officer taking drugs, London

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Safe-houses for Authenticity Showing its support through large scale commissions and the pedestal it has provided for some of the big name artists such as Banksy and Shepard Fairey; the art world has fully embraced street art. Having adopted their language and fashionable anarchic archetypes (the aesthetics of the gesture of rebellion) street artists are invited to take part in its fanciful selective circles. This may appear to be a superficial embrace, but the art world plays an interesting role in the definition of street art in terms of authenticity and support. Surely the same goes for support in the creative industries as it does for corporate commercial ones? We have already discussed how the effects of corporate support on authenticity are negative. But, as we shall see, the art world plays a more nuanced role towards authentic street art. Peculiarly, it is the celebrity game of the art world that has set up a space where graffiti and street art retains its critical edge. Famous figures with profitable art careers are playing a radical role in changing street

art definitions. There are some great examples of street artists whose illegal paintings have succeeded in becoming recognized and legitimated, resulting in newly tailored policies of law that ironically now serve to preserve and care for the maintenance of particular pieces (On the grounds that they are works of art). Graffiti´s best diplomatic and fundamentalist representative Banksy has never shown his face. Nevertheless, his works are sought and tracked by tourists, fans and art specialists. He has achieved world-wide recognition for being the first auctionable street artist, initially becoming famous for his eagerly awaited ‘wild’ performances, and now for commissioned works. So, while it would be foolish to say it is anti-commercial or anti-capitalist, it is also true to say that the artworld acts as a kind of safehouse for the critical and anti-establishment messages of its associates. In a different way, Shepard Fairey (Obey Giant) as one of the world’s most successful commercial graffiti agents (branding and selling his own clothes, stickers, and lifestyle), has safe-guarded the provocative critical messages of his art on the back of his commercial success. From the most radical to the most commercial angles, both examples reflect how street artists, though entertaining commissioners, curators and salesmen, are able to preserve and maintain their street cred and rebellious intentions. Prophets, peace messengers, philosophers, cultural diplomats, international guests Using a wall has always had consequential repercussions, positive or negative. Today, in the era of conceptual art, practices are continuously changing; where genre, form, media and the context are challenged and experimented with. Trends come and go. Different art forms are dropped as quickly as they are picked up. Art, as always, leaves a trail of fragmented opinion, but the importance of the role of street artists in today’s society is unquestionable. Although sometimes undermining their subversive underground concerns; street artists are getting the privilege of re-imagining urban landscapes, appropriating public spaces and leaving their hallmarks as part of the cultural heritage of cities. Argument abounds among street artists as to its authenticity and as always opinion will remain divided. Looking at this argument through the framework of support provides a means of understanding these issues. Street art has unarguably gained its place in history and also in art, or perhaps somewhere in

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between. It is no surprise that tomorrow will be different, and so, as is the artworld way, this remains an inconclusive row; It does make me wonder, if mum had told me to scribble on that wall and that she would contribute to my pocket money if I did so, would I have been as willing to and as fulfilled in doing it? 

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Patricia Romero is an Edinburgh-based media professional. Awarded with a BA (Hons) degree in Journalism (University of Malaga, 2003), she has developed a multi-faceted career, having gained a valuable experience of over ten years in TV production as well as cultural events

and photography projects. Co-ordinator, contributor, guest blogger, she is now approaching communications within the arts sector from an artistic yet commercial viewpoint. @patriromeroj

Left: Peace and Liberty mural on the right, Obey; left, D*Face; The Power of the Imagination front wall Boamistura Collective. Image courtesy of CAC Malaga.

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WORDS: AOIFE FLYNN

The question what’s next? is one that artists ask themselves on a regular basis and never more incessantly than on graduating from college. Back in January I went along to find out a bit more about What’s Next?, the annual professional development day hosted by Draiocht, Blanchardstown. The day, curated by Rhona Byrne, brought together a group of curators, artists and arts practitioners to discuss their practices and to highlight the supports offered by Fingal County Council in terms of bursaries and graduate

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exhibitions. Keeping in mind the character of Worzel Gummidge, the scarecrow with the interchangeable heads, the participants were asked to speak about their practice in terms of the different ‘heads’ they needed to wear in different situations. A common thread that ran through all the presentations is the need for selfsufficiency and self-starting, for both artists and curators, in identifying a way to explore their interests and ideas and negotiating a way to utilise places, spaces and opportunities to their advantage, ways

that are maybe not necessarily supported by any institution or grants. Considering that Draiocht is further out of town than most artists usually venture, there was a good crowd in attendance. The day started off with Grace McEvoy from Block T. She discussed the development of the space over the past number of years, growing from the initial gallery and studio space into a multidisciplinary space that now houses, amongst other things, a screenprinting studio and darkroom. Grace

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also outlined the international projects that Block T has been involved focusing in particular on the LINK Culturefest that hosted over 100 artists from Ireland and Europe over three days. Anthony Gross and Lucy A. Sames travelled from London to speak about their project Enclave, which is a row of purpose built artists studios located in Brockley, South London, close to Goldsmiths College. The on-site studios are housed in square commercial style units with the Gallery space as a double-width unit. Nine of the units are rented out to artists, artist groups, writers etc., which allows the Gallery space to function somewhat independently of this. The Gallery space in Unit 1 is curated by Anthony and Lucy, with exhibitions on a regular basis, and the social space, Machine Party, opens each week during the run of a show as a meeting/working space. They are looking for ways to develop the project towards creating artist’s residencies, with the aim that the overall project is as selfsustaining as possible. The nature of a contemporary artistic practice being able to exist and thrive in a rural setting added an interesting facet to the discussion. Rosie Lynch spoke about her project Commonage, based in Callan, Co. Kilkenny, which is a research project that creates new contexts for art and architectural practice. The name Commonage comes from the idea of land managed through collective responsibility and the project has worked with numerous designers, artists, historians, and architects to create a collection of permanent and temporary exhibitions exploring this notion of community. Rhona Byrne also spoke briefly about her project Station set in an old Dublin police station repurposed as artist-run studios. Within all of these projects is a common thread of negotiation for use of buildings or land and support from a wider community. Independent Curator Kate Strain took up this thread in the second half and spoke about her practice as forming organically from experiences and opportunities that came about post-college. She outlined a couple

of self-initiated and self-funded projects that she undertook in Kilkenny which she was able to realise using non-traditional funding methods. Taking up the position of Assistant Curator at Project Arts Centre in Dublin introduced her to the rules and routines of curating within an institution and she has gone on to complete the De Appel Curatorial Programme in Amsterdam. She has also created a curatorial partnership with Rachael Gilbourne(RGKSKSRG) and they recently won the Emerging Curator Award with the show Tonight, you can call me Trish at the The Lab. Seán O Sullivan, a writer and curator from Dublin spoke about his practice and his recent projects, in particular his work with The Red Stables Summer School over the past couple of years. One interesting aspect he commented on was that there seems to be a unique avenue into funding through printed work, possibly because there is a very tangible and physical outcome. Following this, three of the recipients of the Amharc Fhine Gall Emerging Artist Award (one of the supports that Fingal County Council offer to emerging artists and recent graduates each year) spoke about how their work has developed since receiving the award. Joshua Sex showed work from his degree show at Draiocht and was realistic when saying “your degree show is like Step Three, you may never get that many people at your exhibition again, and whatever’s after that is Step One”. Working away at home in Dublin, he took on odd jobs to fund his practice and while he was skeptical about tackling a Master’s Degree straight after college, he has recently moved to London to do so.

Aoibheann Greenan, another artist wary of taking on a Master’s for it’s own sake, concluded the day by discussing some of her projects in particular Tahiti Syndrome, which was initially shown at The Joinery in Dublin but re-presented for eva International 2012 in Limerick. She also showed footage from her recent collaboration with Lotus Eater at Project Arts Centre. During the performance the band wore sculptures and interacted with set pieces designed by the artist and she expressed a strong interest in recreating the project elsewhere. Overall what came to the fore was the precarity of the arts workers situation, existing from project to project with evershrinking funding opportunities. Alongside side it, however, was the resolve of the panel to continue to work in the arts and explore new ideas and projects in spite of these limitations and difficulties. Thinking back to the scarecrow head, the consensus ‘head’ that fit each speaker seemed to be the ‘Determined’ one, to take up any kind of work to fund their creative practice, be it teaching blind nuns to weave or even parttime modelling. EDIT: Over the past couple of months I’ve had the good fortune to be able to attend a series of events aimed at supporting artists and arts workers, including the Visual Artist’s Workers Forum at Project Arts Centre, Arts Audiences at Google and the VAI Get Together at IMMA. The broad range of supports offered by these groups shows a real interest in the state of the arts in Ireland today and with the input from large corporations like Google it signals perhaps a more serious emphasis being placed on the arts in Irish society. 

Ella de Burca, on the other hand, undertook her Master’s Degree straight from her BA and has worked continuously since, moving from project to project and participating in numerous residencies. Some of the projects she discussed included Dublin Contemporary 2011, The Moscow and Venice Biennales, and residencies at The Banff Centre, Canada and AIR Antwerp.

HOW T O F A K E Y O THE A P O R E T I C D ARTIS T F O R M A L L SUZAN N E V A N D E LINGE N O R A N E WRITT E N I N F O O

WORDS: SUZANNE VAN DER LINGEN

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O UR OWN D E A T H D EMISE O F T H E L Y KNOW N A S ER E PILOGU E O TNOTES [THE TRAGEDY BEGINS]1

A word of caution from Nietzche: it is not only the poets â&#x20AC;Ś on whom the resurrected author has to vent his sarcasm; who knows what victim he is looking for, what monster of material for parody will soon attract him? Incipit tragoedia we read at the end of this awesomely awesome book. Beware! Something downright wicked and malicious is announced here; incipit parodia, no doubt. (Tambling, 2001; p. 97)

Above: Fig. 1 Leap Into the Void (1960)

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Fig. 1 Leap Into the Void (1960)

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THIS TEXT IS INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS2

The characters in this text are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

HOW TO FAKE YOUR OWN DEATH (7 STEPS WITH PICTURES)3

4 5

1. Decide whether you really want to do this.

5. Decide on a death method.

Sit on it for a while (assuming, that is, you do not need to urgently fake your death as soon as possible to avoid being caught or even killed for real), and mellow over whether you really need a complete new start. Can you just move away? Are you being melodramatic? Are there any alternatives? You should only do this if you keep feeling that faking your own death is the only way to start over or escape, and you have no viable alternatives.6

Suicide is probably the easiest bet. While it may be hard for loved ones to stomach, if it’s obvious your ‘death’ is a suicide, innocent people won’t be accused of your ‘murder’. Also, suicide is a more open and shut case: chances are, people will be less searching of CCTV footage and personal records if they know you ‘killed’ yourself, rather than mysteriously disappearing.

2. Realize early on the implications this will have. You’ll have to keep no contact with any friends or relatives. If you decide to let them in on it, they’ll most likely call the police or betray you in the end. If you must let anyone know, try an understanding friend who will – for whatever reason – never rat you out to the police, family or general public.

6. Pick a ‘suicide method’ that means there is no body to be found, or failing that, where it would be very difficult to find. A common one is jumping off a bridge. The ‘body’ may not be found easily, were it actually there, so police will be suspicious. If you choose a stabbing or hanging as your ‘death’ method, people will expect a body. Unless you have a clone, it will be impossible to replicate a body with the exact teeth, bone structure, etc. So think ahead.

3. Get rid of all personal connections with yourself. 7. Do it. Understand that you cannot use email accounts, memberships or any other personal details after you have faked your own death. This is probably the trickiest of all things to get sorted before you actually do the deed. Since money is necessary to start your new life, gradually withdraw cash from an account. Clearing it completely may arouse suspicion. However, if you’re in a hurry, draw out a massive amount, but leave a little behind to erase suspicion.

Plant a note for your ‘suicide’ before disappearing. Travel out of the city as far as you can, and start again with a new identity. Be free.7

4. Watch out for little things that may give you away. Avoid acting fishy beforehand. Also, remember not to use personal laptops, computers or mobile phones (unless you can change the sim card) afterwards; these can be used to trace you once you’re gone.

Pictures have been redacted from this text.

Edited by Penguinwarrior, Katie, Maluniu, Carolyn Barratt and 18 others. First published on WikiHow.

This article was found in Suzanne van der Lingen’s browser history on her netbook and had been viewed shortly before her disappearance; she had allegedly been doing research for an essay on The Third Man.

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H OW T O F A K E YOUR O W N 8 DE A T H THE APORETIC9 DEMISE OF THE ARTIST FORMALLY KNOWN AS SUZANNE VAN DER LINGEN10 OR AN EPILOGUE WRITTEN IN FOOTNOTES

In his article, ‘Awaiting Faith: Jacques Derrida and the Impossible Encounter with Death’, John Martis recounts meeting Derrida on his singular visit to Australia in 1999. Martis describes how Derrida signed a copy of The Gift of Death and crossed out the word “Death” on the title page ‘in a move adopted and adapted from Heidegger’. He goes on to say that:

The gesture implied that use of the signifier “death” is not to be taken as confirming the existence of an essence of death, that is, of “death as such”. There was for Derrida no such essence around which all experiences of what is called “death” can be theorised without remainder. Correspondingly, the book makes

the point that the closure and definition with which death “gifts” us, in aid of analysing a life, are to be suspected as exacting their own price, reducing subtly but insidiously the otherness of that life. (2005, p. 1) Here Derrida himself explains the intricacies of the term aporias:

… it is impossible to determine time both as entity and as nonentity. And with the motif of the nonentity, or of nothingness, the motif of death is never very far away. (Even though Levinas, in a fundamental debate, reproaches Heidegger, as well as an entire tradition, for wrongly thinking death, in its very essence and in the first place, as annihilation). The now is and is not what it is.

More precisely, it only ‘scarcely’ (amudrõs) is what it is. Insofar as it has been, it no longer is. But insofar as it will be, as future to come or as death – which will be my themes today – it is not yet. By insisting upon the fact that ‘the aporetic is an exoteric’ and that Aristotle, ‘while acknowledging that this argument clarifies nothing’ ‘repeats its aporia without deconstructing it’, I was then trying to demonstrate, thereby going in the direction of Heidegger, that the philosophical tradition, in particular from Kant to Hegel, only inherited this aporetic: ‘the Aristotelian aporia is understood, thought, and assimilated into that which is properly dialectical. It suffices – and it is necessary – to take things in the other sense and from the

other side in order to conclude that the Hegelian dialectic is but the repetition, the paraphrastic reedition of an exoteric aporia, the brilliant formulation of a vulgar paradox’. (1993; p. 14) 10 Published with the consent of the late artist’s estate.

This story can be summed up by one particular event, although anyone would at the very least hesitate to equate a life lived to a single story.11 But in this particular case, in this particular story, it is this particular event that resounds the loudest.12 Suzanne van der Lingen was in her final year of her studies. Growing increasingly frustrated at the realisation that a good student does not necessarily make a good artist, she became disillusioned and depressed at the prospect that her dedication to her course offered no guarantee; indeed, she began to realise that her canon of student work, both written and practical, resembled nothing more than the standard fare one would expect to be produced at a course such as the one she was enrolled in. At least in her eyes, she was failing to go beyond the expected, and she gave up on her pretences of aspiration. Her research blog turned into a confessional journal, her resentment and downward emotional spiral well documented in sporadic but telling updates.13 And in her final act of creative impotence, she hurled herself from a ground floor, castle facing studio

On the complexities faced when attempting to translate reality into a natural narrative, making reference to Roland Barthes’ term ‘texte lisible’ and our natural tendency to interpret real life as such, Umberto Eco writes: ‘If fictional worlds are so comfortable, why not try to read the actual world as if it were a work of fiction? Or, if fictional worlds are so small and deceptively comfortable, why not try to devise fictional worlds that are as complex, contradictory, and provocative as the actual one?’ (1998; p. 117)

In a parallel point, Jeremy Tambling argues that ‘in Nietzche, narrative and metanarrative run side by side; especially in considering Ecce Homo, the text of the posthumous man, where autobiography and critique turn into each other.’ (2001; p. 89) In both these arguments, the crossovers (and especially borders)

between real life and fiction, autobiography and critique, are central. On markers of fictionality, Eco writes: ‘We usually recognize artificial narratives thanks to the paratext – that is, the external messages that surround the text.’ He then recollects how his friend Giorgio Celli - a writer and professor of entomology submitted a story to the local newspaper entitled ‘How I murdered Umberto Eco’, in which Celli tricked Eco into using toothpaste injected with a chemical which sexually aroused wasps. To his surprise, and the

editors of the local newspaper, many people were fooled by the story despite it appearing in the ‘elziviro’ section usually reserved for reviews, short essays and fiction. He concludes: ‘an incontrovertible signal of fictionality does not exist. But […] elements of paratext can supervene.’ (1998; p. 125)

The last of these blog posts simply presented a quotation from Nietzche’s The Gay Science, taken from the section ‘The Hermit Speaks Once More’:

But there are also other ways and tricks when it comes to associating with or passing among men – for example, as a ghost, which is altogether advisable if one wants to get rid of them quickly and make them afraid. Example: One reaches out for us but gets no hold of us. That is frightening. Or we enter through a closed door. Or after all lights have been extinguished. Or after we have died. The last is the trick of posthumous people par excellence. (‘What did you think?’ one of them asked impatiently; ‘would we feel like enduring the estrangement, the cold and quiet of the grave around us – this whole subterranean, concealed, mute, undiscovered solitude that among us is called life but might just as well be called

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death – if we did not know what will become of us, and that it is only after death that we shall enter our life and become alive, oh very much alive, we posthumous people! (Tambling, 2001; p. 89)

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window, screaming ‘Francesca!’14 at the top of her lungs. Her body was never recovered.15 Given that this act of self-inflicted violence had occurred in the final week of the last semester, and that the last piece of writing she had left - arguably her death note - was scribbled on an assessment cover sheet, her apparent suicide was submitted as a performative work for the scrutiny of the academic committee. The results were divisive. According to the assessment transcripts the staff members animately debated the merits of the work after an initial period of hesitation. One tutor exclaimed that the work submitted was ‘morbidly derivative’, citing well-known examples of artists whose careers were marked by mysterious circumstances. Direct references were made to Bas Jan Ader, David Foster Wallace16 and the more questionable examples of Andy Kaufman’s supposedly faked death17 and Omer Fast’s alleged demise18.

Opinions remain divided on the significance of this name, given that van der Lingen was personally acquainted with at least three Francescas at the time of her disappearance. However, given the fact that she was enrolled in a photography course, and her well documented familiarity with the history of photography, some have speculated that this was an allusion to the late (or premature?) Francesca Woodman, who died in similar circumstances. This is seen as a final wry, parodical reference by the former artist; a play, if you will, on the phrase ‘late’ and the clichés riddling the portfolios of the art academy.

The local police force soon closed the case, much to the dismay of some of van der Lingen’s closest relations. They

enlisted the help of a certain P.I. Paddy P McPatrick, who to this day has noted several supposed reappearances of the artist. Each citing was punctuated by another

leap by the artist upon recognition, mirroring that supposedly final act in each subsequent appearance (or apparition). Writing about David Foster Wallace and the implications of his death, Gideon Lewis-Kraus suggests that the time of his writing this particular article, ‘Infinite Jetzt’, is ‘the last moment where Wallace’s story has yet to settle,’ given that he was writing within a week of Wallace’s death. He writes:

We are in an interim period. We can still think about Wallace and his writing without immediately thinking of him as a writer who hanged himself, and his work as the work of a writer who hanged himself. We have moments where the not-quite reality of his suicide allows us a flexibility in engaging with his work that will soon harden. We prepare for restrictions in our reading. But for now there is a slightly remaining luxury. We read the work and we don’t

immediately remember that our reading is from now on necessarily shot through with the knowledge of his suicide. […] I would like to prolong the interval in which an event becomes a story; I would like to allow it to remain an event a little longer. (2010; p. 29) Responding to Lewis-Kraus’ account of his experience of Wallace’s death, Omer Fast writes from his own grave through a footnote (his own ‘death’ having been announced in a footnote at the start of the book, In Memory, in which Lewis-Kraus’ article appears): I’d very much like to say something short and significant here. Gideon has chosen the suicide of a writer dear to us both as the framing device. I’d like to say something about death and footnotes actually, but the image of the hanging man – writhing wormlike, feet kicking – won’t leave me alone. […] Like Gideon, I

was shocked by the news of David Foster Wallace’s suicide. Unlike Gideon, I immediately searched the press for an explanation, a motive, and above all an image. I don’t think this is vulgar. Death is just something that demands further comment. It’s a totally private and final act that nevertheless leaves the living with open questions, nagging ones, lots of them. This is why the departed produce epilogues. They write a note or make a recording of themselves before putting an end to their lives. In the case of a great writer, a suicide also points back to the work, to the words, almost like a circular text in which death is a footnote. [own italics] (ibid.) http://www.bbc.co.uk/ news/ entertainment-arts-24939133

See footnote 16.

Another tutor turned this criticism into the work’s strong point, arguing that ‘to plagiarize is the sole remaining act of political resistance and creativity’, whilst someone else bordered on sycophantic praise of the student now presumed deceased. This was arguably more out of an obligation to adhere to the age old saying ‘de mortuis nihil nisi bonum’19 rather than bearing any critical reflection on the work at hand. The story quickly spread outside of the confines of the academy, despite utter care being taken in how this matter was publicly addressed in order not to glorify or morally condone the desperate act at its core. Van der Lingen’s work started to gain more currency, as curators began to contemplate the messages in her earlier pieces in greater detail20. Rumours started to spread of a travelling retrospective exhibition21, with the pièce de résistance being a holographic, rotating representation of the artist herself, proposed during her first year of her studies, to be sponsored by AV Concepts22. A representative of John Calcutt’s estate23 24, when asked to comment on how this event reflected on the

‘Of the dead, nothing unless good.’

On the plurality of posthumous interpretations - in this case specifically in reference to Nietzche’s oeuvre -

Tambling argues: ‘What [Nietzche] is now and what he will be when he is known through his writings are different, plural. That ‘Nietzche’ – who is not single, but the subject of endless interpretations - is to be born posthumously.’ (2001; p. 92) The retrospective would be the first solo exhibition in a major arts institution for van der Lingen, and would mark a moment of transcendence into the mainstream. Dieter Roelstraete points out the differences between the mainstream and the peripheral, and the former’s fear of (the idea of) death:

Art, sadly [...] is no longer content living this non-life in the margin or periphery (not that this is

necessarily where it has always lived, or has thrived before): it is torn asunder by a raging hunger for this aforementioned maelstrom – which of course is nothing other than the mainstream, where the main power currents flow and stream: the natural destination, now the various autonomous spaces of art (say, the museum) have either succumbed or happily joined the mainstream itself, of all artistic activity – especially of the social kind (in the dissemination of which the ‘controversial’ or ‘discursive’ turn plays a crucial role – in turn). […] … in longing and paining for its mainstreamlining – and in thus turning away from both poetry and the simple ethics of an under-attended poetry reading – it mistakenly thinks this ‘middle ground is where life lives, and the margins and peripheries, clotted with inscrutable language games,

where a certain (idea of) death holds sway. (Art has long been frightened by writing’s promise of death in any case, but that is another story [footnote: if art and life desperately want each other’s body heat, a certain idea of language or writing feels called upon to stand in their way – and thus represent both art and life’s opposites: say, a sepulchral site of thinking]). (2009; p. 20) Perhaps here there is a parallel to be found in this idea of the mainstream and the peripheral: a text and its footnotes, the life of an artist and the posthumous interpretations of their legacy. How poignant, then, that it is in supposed death that van der Lingen may be absorbed into the realm of life within the art world? To be a posthumous person par excellence, to die no more. This same company also notoriously produced the holographic resurrection of

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Tupac Shakur at Coachella 2012. (Kaufman, 2012) 23

See: Calcutt, 2007

Eco writes: ‘Taking fictional characters seriously can also produce an unusual type of intertextuality: a character from a particular fictional work may appear in another fictional work and thus act as a signal of truthfulness.’ (1998; p. 125) He goes on to say that, ‘when fictional characters begin migrating from text to text, they have acquired citizenship in the real world and have freed themselves from the story that created them.’ (ibid, p. 126)

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contemporary art scene, stated that her final work required a ‘leap of faith’; the representative appeared quite dismissive of the rumoured retrospective, quoting Andrea Bonomi: ‘In order for us to grasp the content of an account describing a certain state of affairs, we do not need to apply the categories of true or false to that content.’ 25 To this day, the retrospective exhibition has yet to occur, but the myth of Suzanne van der Lingen’s final leap continues to grow in intrigue. The inconclusive nature of the case, and reports of possible sightings, has led some to speculate that the final act was in fact just that: a ploy to physically remove herself from the art world and to reinvent her identity. Some put it down to a simple tragedy that does not warrant any further investigation past the evident mental health problems that led to her demise. Others point to the fact that a copy of Infinite Jest was found below the window – not far from where one would have expected to encounter her body – as an allusion to the endless potential repercussions of that paradoxically interminal action. Whatever the case may be, the accrued footnotes of this story have taken on a life of their own.26

(Eco, 1998; p. 119)

On the possibility of immortality through the act of collective memory, Eco writes:

We rely upon a previous tale when, in saying ‘I,’ we do not question that we are the natural continuation of an individual who (according to our parents or the registry office) was born at that precise time, on that precise day, in that precise year, and in that precise place. Living with two memories [...] we often tend to confuse them, […] This tangle of individual and collective memory prolongs our life, by extending it back through time, and appears to us as a promise of immortality. When we partake of this collective memory (through the tales of our elders or through books), we are like Borges gazing at magical Aleph – the point that contains the entire universe... [own italics] (1998; p. 131)

Illustrations Figure 1. Klein, Yves. (1960) Leap Into the Void [Photograph] At http://deathjump.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/yves-klein-leap-intothe-void-1960/ (Accessed on: 12/12/2013) Filmography The Third Man (1949) Directed by Carol Reed. Carol Reed Productions & A London Film Production. Bibliography ‘Comedian Andy Kaufman “faked his death”, brother claims’ in bbc.co.uk 14/11/2013 [online] At: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ entertainment-arts-24939133 (Accessed on: 03/12/2013) Calcutt, John, (2007). ‘Blue Eyed’ in You Do Voodoo. Dunbar: Polarcap. At: http://www.polarcap.org.uk/01_youdovoodoo/ voodoo.pdf (Accessed on: 08/11/2013) Derrida, Jacques, (1993). Aporias. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Eco, Umberto, (1998). Six Walks in the Fictional Woods. London: Harvard University Press.

Lewis-Kraus, Gideon, (2010). ‘Infinite Jetzt’ in In Memory: Omer Fast. Basel: Kunsthaus Baselland. Martis, John. ‘Awaiting Faith: Jacques Derrida and the Impossible Encounter with Death’ in Pacifica 18 (November 2005)At: http://www. google.co.uk/urlsa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ca d = r j a & ve d = 0 C DAQ F j A A & u r l = h tt p : / / w w w. p a c i f i c a . o r g . au/volumes/volume18/issue01/waiting-faith-jacquesderri daand/at_downloapdf&ei=khSqUoGwCZCUhQfZiI GoCg&usg=AFQjCNGUDc3ZA_Wr8BuNLQfX c j F 7 I v I Q & s i g 2 = W o C E F Z 4 h G 9 K 2 K Y i w K J k N 8 Q & b v m = b v . 5 7 9 6 7 2 4 7, d . Z G 4 (Accessed on: 19/11/2013) Penguinwarrior et al. (eds.) ‘How to Fake Your Own Death: 7 Steps (With Pictures)’ on wikihow.com [online] Available at: http://www. wikihow.com/Fake-Your-Own-Death. (Accessed on: 08/11/2013) Roelstraete, Dieter, (2009). F.R. David: The Iditorial Issue, Winter 2009. Amsterdam: De Appel. Tambling, Jeremy, (2001). Becoming Posthumous: Life and Death in Literary and Cultural Studies. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd. Wallace, David Foster (2013). Infinite Jest. London: Abacus. 

Kaufman, Gil ‘Exclusive: Tupac Coachella Hologram Source Explains How Rapper Resurrected’ in mtv.com 16/04/2012 [online] At: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1683173/tupac-hologramcoachella.jhtml (Accessed on: 03/12/2013)

Suzanne van der Lingen is an artist and writer working mainly with a combination of video installation, found footage and art writing. Her work often examines issues such as cultural memory and microhistories, focusing on the use of the archive in photography and film as

well as the crossovers between cinema and art. She recently graduated from MFA Contemporary Art Photography at Edinburgh College of Art. www.suzannevanderlingen.com

ISSUE NINE EVIDENCE OF THE FOOTNOTE AS AN UNRELIABLE SUPPORT

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WO NDERW IL D These images show the juxtaposition of the significance of the presence of the football supporter, with the emptiness of a football ground when that important presence is absent. The most obvious way of showing dedication to a football club is through attendance at games and participating in the songs, chants, and other rituals that are characteristic of a

football supporter. They see themselves as playing an essential and active role to the game, and that the football stadium is hallowed ground. When the supporters and all their high emotions and rituals are removed from the ground, they seem to become empty meaningless spaces.”

Wonderwild is an artist based in Glasgow. A graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, her work covers many mediums including illustration, graphic design, print making and photography. Her work encapsulates inspiration from her childlike imagination and everyday life. www.behance.net/wonderwildcreations

Top: Vacuity 1 Center: The Follower Bottom: Vacuity 2

RA CHEL TH OM SO N “ I WANT TO R E L A T E I T T O H O W T HE EARTH AT T I M E S S E E M S L IKE I T CAN BE FA L L I N G T O B I T S AND H OW PEOPLE F E E L L I K E T H A T TOO B UT NATURE A L W A Y S F I N D S A WAY T O MAKE THIN G S R I G H T A N D T HAT W ITH THE RIG H T S U P P O R T Y O U C AN TOO. I W O U L D E X P L O R E B OTH T HE NEGATIVI T Y O F F E E L I N G L IKE EVERYTH I N G I S G O I N G W RONG AND TH E T R A N S I T I O N T O R EALISING TH A T S U P P O R T I S E VERYWHERE I F Y O U K N O W H O W TO S EE IT.”

Hi I’m Rachel and everything inspires me. I believe in being honest with my art and hope to start a revolution to boost teenage self-esteem through motivational designs and sharing my story. creativesenseofself.wordpress.com