"WALLS" by Oliver Griffin

The Evaluation of Space Part: 1 / Series 1 - 3

‘WALLS’ Caragh Jackson / Camilla Bishti / Amy Bradley Smith Photograph / Text Oliver Griffin

Evaluation of Space Part 1/ Series 1 ‘Walls (2004-2006)’

Evaluation of Space Part1/ Series 2 ‘Walls (2008)’

Or:

“ Once again she (Caragh Jackson) broke my heart. “

“Now she (Camilla Bishti) does not love me anymore.” 2008

2004 – 2006

0001101/032 Bathroom / 29 Claremont Ave. 2004 0001102/033 Living room / 26 Green park manor Rd. 2004 0001103/034 Bathroom / 213 Cornfield St. 2005 0001104/035 Bedroom / 2 Treaswna Terrace. 2005 0001105/036 Bedroom/ 27 Draceana Ave. 2005 0001106/037 Exhibition Space/Fox Building. 2005 0001107/038 Studio / Fox Building. 2005 0001108/039 Room / Falmouth Hotel. 2005 0001109/040 Lounge / Falmouth Hotel. 2005 0001110/041 Bedroom / 39 Marlbough Rd. 2006 0001111/042 Bedroom / 39 Marlbough Rd. 2006 0001112/043 Lounge / 39 “ Sunnyside” Dracanea Ave. 2006 0001113/044 Bedroom / 39 “ Sunnyside” Dracanea Ave. 2006 0001114/045 Kitchen / 39 “ Sunnyside” Dracanea Ave. 2006 0001115/046 Installation Space/ Lamarva House. 2006 0001116/047 wall paper detail. 2004

12”x16” C-type prints Edition of 3 / 1 Artist Proof

001201/048 Bedroom / 53 West Moreland Rd. 2008 001202/049 Bedroom / 53 West Moreland Rd. 2008 001203/050 Lounge / 3 Canning Cross. 2008 001204/051 Lounge / 3 Canning Cross. 2008 001205/052 Storeroom / 4 Canning Cross. 2008 001206/053 Corridor / 74 Vestry Rd. 2008 001207/054 Gallery / 133 Copeland Rd. 2008 001208/055 Gallery / 133 Copeland Rd. 2008 001209/056 Gallery / 133 Copeland Rd. 2008 001210/057 Gallery / 133 Copeland Rd. 2008 001211/058 Gallery / 133 Copeland Rd. 2008 001212/059 Gallery / 133 Copeland Rd. 2008 001213/060 Gallery / 133 Copeland Rd. 2008 001214/061 Main Room / 74 Vestry Rd. 2008 001215/062 Main room / 74 Vestry Rd. 2008 001216/063 Main room / 74 Vestry Rd. 2008 001217/064 Studio / * Copeland Rd. 2008 001218/065 Lounge / 45 Pervialie Crescent. 2008 001219/066 Lounge / 55 Grove lane. 2008 001220/067 Dinning room / 29 Claremont Ave. 2008 001221/068 Bedroom / 3 Popes Rd. 2008 001222/069 Studio / 74 Vestry Rd. 2008 001223/070 Bedroom / 74 Vestry Rd. 2008 001224/071 Studio / 74 Vestry Rd. 2008 001225/072 Lounge / 316 Ivanboe Rd. 2008 001226/073 Lounge / 59 Palmerston St. 2008 001227/074 Unknown / 38 Tregner Rd. 2008 001228/075 Lounge / 38 Tregner Rd. 2008 001239/076 Unknown / 38 Tregner Rd. 2008 001230/077 Studio / Copeland Rd. 2008. 001231/078 Gallery / 133 Copeland Rd. 2008

5x4 Transparencies Edition of 1 /0 Artist Proof

The Evaluation of Space Part: 1/ Series 1 - 3

‘WALLS’ Caragh Jackson / Camilla Bishti / Amy Bradley Smith Photography/ Text Oliver Grif fin

Published /Design/ Typset

Borist Press

Life is boring, why make it interesting?

Within the last couple of years of the completion of this project, I have noticed two major factors that I can only explain through an existentialist practice to be linked together. These two factors that I have been infatuated over and in turn fetishism over are: Girls (well the opposite sex between the ages of 18 to 27, not trying to be sexist, just can’t think of any otherwise of describing this idea I’m trying to screen) and boredom. The problem with this equation is where does the physical object of the wall come into all? Like the ‘Holistic detective’ Dirk Gently, all pieces will fall into place to fill in a larger picture of this is just outside rebate of the 5x4” sheet of film.

As I recollect, the first moment in time when I appreciated staring into a wall as the aesthetics viewing point and my imagination took over, was over my Grandmothers head on the extremely flamboyant wallpaper. Nothing to do with either of the factors in question, just the realization of space and the context that it placed it self in. An epiphany, you might say. The full understanding of what the medium could do, presenting empty space and redefining Walter Benjamin’s ideas of aura within photography. With this being the most thrilling subject matter (please sense the ironic tone) experimenting with the early stages of Borism* within the in this set of images taken over a period of six years, two film stocks and three emotional adventures with the opposite sex. Life is a nothing but a field trip really when you spend your life with a camera (with a few good wars in-between). Well I like to think.

Susan Sontag’s opening lines of the essay ‘Theroism of vision’, declare that nobody has found ugliness within a photograph. But has anyone found boredom within photography? As if the effort in involved in photographing anything automatically makes it discovers it interest to the human eye. Many of these images of objects that are just the same-old-everyday which just pass us by. Treated if they as not deserved to be recognized of the society. So boing

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that they are unnoticed and seen as furniture, beyond function and necessities of modern living to become slaves that don’t need gratification of their existence. But as Lars Svendsen mentions, “In Boredom, our gaze is somewhat similar to the objectivized look…” So with the nature of photography and the subject matter in question, lets’ see them brought back to the forth front of our lives and hold the most humblest of parts that construct our lives. Objectively viewing them in front of a lens and collecting them as specimens of aesthetical function, learning from them our own lives or that might be even too uninteresting for photography to save at times (which is probably the case study we should be looking at within these words, our own social workings).

As we look at the seem less blank spaces, what history and secrets are layed under the layers of paint or wallpaper? The idea of this surface that mades up a major part of elementary architecture has seen every since aspect of you life. Surrounds you every day and watches you at night sleeping. You could see these surfaces as über-slow speed sheets of photographic film, just recording your life. American 50’s Television set that have the word ‘radiation’ abbreviated within the name, burning hole into stud wall. It’s as if has not been sunbathing inches from the sun from here to eternity. The English version of unmoved hardwood furniture not moving until the death of the original owner has dies, leaving these pieces to charity. Once removed by volunteers, from the unnamed organization, the untouched Cole & Sons flora pattern remerges. Making shapes within the bleached out mess of the everyday grim and daylight merged. The mess, is what we have been spying on us and observing us like the Stasi of old East Berlin as dramatized in ‘the lives of others’ directed by Floriam Henckel von Donnersmarck. There declared goal was: “To know everything”. As they hide listening devises through light switches, feeding the cabling through the wallpaper, picture railings and the skirting boards to finally end up to the receiver surrounded by valve amplifiers in a closet, close by. So I end up daydreaming; what’s in side a wall?

What I should really be daydreaming (and probably healthier) is; what’s inside a girl. That’s a little more to the imagination that I can really write or even photograph. As The Cramps song goes ”...there’s some things baby I just can’t swallow. Mama told me that girls are hollow. Uh-uh...What’s inside a girl? Somethin’s tellin’ me there’s a whole nuther world.” As the most dangerous thing I’ve ever experienced in my life is finding out a name of some one I find sexually attractive. The door is unlooked and the adventure begins. Defiantly not a wall, the most overlooked piece of a buildings. Even ceilings and floors are more notice, as you throw your lover on the woolen carpet and she looks up at the Artex ceiling, while your giving her what for. As in the film ends a couple of years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The main actor, Georg Dreyman a play (played by Sebastian Koch), finds out hat he was full surveillance by the Stasi (even though he was one a highly respected figure with the communist movement) goes home and to find the ‘bugs’ that high ranking official had just informed him of. The sequence starts him unscrewing the light switch, exposing the micro-microphone for the first time in new German. He starts pulling the wires through the thick wallpaper and plaster. Destroying its facade of privacy, leaving perfect vertical & horizontal trenches as the wall gives up its secrets of a surface that they had always seen non-threating or bland. As if the un-interesting can really be anything else but.

Ref. Sontag, Susan (1979) On Phography, Penguin. Svendsen, Laz (1999) A Philosophy of Boredom, Reaktion Books The lives of others (2006) Dir. Floriam Henckel von Donnersmarck. The Cramps (1985) ‘What’s inside a Girls’ from the album A date with Elvis. Big Beat records.

* Borism; (bore-ism) the theory that the more boring aesthetics is the more interesting it will become in reflection. While it also works in reverse with the interesting becoming boring, there is an interesting point in time where ever image becomes interesting as an archive document.

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PLATES Series 1

pages 1

Series 2

Pages 37

Series 3

Pages 91

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Evaluation of Space Part 1 / Series 1 ‘ Walls (2004 - 2006) ’ Or: “ Once again she (Caragh Jackson) broke my heart. “

2004 - 2006

Living room / 26 Green Park Manor Rd. 2004

Bathroom / 29 Claremont Ave. 2004

Bathroom / 213 Cornfield St. 2005

Bedroom / 2 Treaswna Terrace. 2005

Bedroom/ 27 Draceana Ave. 2005

Exhibition Space/Fox Building. 2005

Studio / Fox Building. 2005

Room / Falmouth Hotel. 2005

Lounge / Falmouth Hotel. 2005

Bedroom / 39 Marlbough Rd. 2006

Lounge / 39 “ Sunnyside” Dracanea Ave. 2006

Bedroom / 39 “ Sunnyside” Dracanea Ave. 2006

Kitchen / 39 “ Sunnyside” Dracanea Ave. 2006

Installation Space/ Lamarva House. 2006

Evaluation of Space Part1 / Series 2 ‘ Walls (2008) ’ Or: “ Now she (Camilla Bishti) does not love me anymore.”

2008

Bedroom / 53 West Moreland Rd. 2008

Lounge / 3 Canning Cross. 2008

Storeroom / 4 Canning Cross. 2008

Corridor / 74 Vestry Rd. 2008

Gallery / 133 Copeland Rd. 2008

Main Room / 74 Vestry Rd. 2008

Main room / 74 Vestry Rd. 2008

Studio / * Copeland Rd. 2008

Lounge / 45 Pervialie Crescent. 2008

Lounge / 55 Grove lane. 2008

Dinning room / 29 Claremont Ave. 2008

Bedroom / 3 Popes Rd. 2008

Studio / 74 Vestry Rd. 2008

Bedroom / 74 Vestry Rd. 2008

Studio / 74 Vestry Rd. 2008

Lounge / 316 Ivanboe Rd. 2008

Lounge / 59 Palmerston St. 2008

Unknown / 38 Tregner Rd. 2008

Evaluation of Space Part1 / Series 3 ‘ Walls (2009-2010) ’ Or: “ She (Amy Bradley Smith) and her pursuit through me.”

2009 - 2010

Lobby / 34 Belgrade Sq. 2009

Conference room / 34 Belgrade Sq. 2009

Gallery / 133 Copeland Rd. 2009

Gallery / 133 Copland Rd. 2009

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Gallery / 133 Copland Rd. 2009

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Studio / Panda Muse. 2009

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Lounge / 29 Claremont Ave. 2009

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107

Bedroom / 29 Claremont Ave. 2009

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Spare room / 29 Claremont Ave. 2009

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Bedroom / 29 Claremont Ave. 2009

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Lounge / 2 Popes Rd. 2009

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Bedroom / 26 Green Park Rd. 2009

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Spare room / 29 Claremont Ave. 2010

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Gallery /135 Copeland Rd. 2010

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Mulitstory carpark / 95a Peckham Rye Lane. 2010

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I would personal like to thank all indeviduals that let me into their homes/ place

I would like ofto work/ personally thank all individuals that let my into their homes and all institutions. Giving me permission with my very strange request. the institutionsWhithout that gave me permission knidness with my request.thisWithout out your understanding, and strange understanding your understand and kindness this project would of been possible. project would never of beenpossible and in turn finally not completed A specail mention goes to all the relationships that I presonally have been kindly been allowed to be part of with the opposite sex and then in turn destroyed small parts of my soul. These moments have made more nilialitic ithrought the years of this project. Making me focus of the mudain part of everyday exsitance. Although history always repearts itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s self and the ladies do keep talking to me...

Borist Press

Life is boring, why make it interesting?

Borist Press 2012 First edition CopyrightÂŠ Oliver Griffin 2012 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission of the publishers.

http://www.olivergriffin.co.uk

Evaluation of Space Part1/ Series 3 ‘Walls (2009 - 2010)’ Or: “She (Amy Bradley Smith) and her pursuit through me.” 2010

001301/094 Lobby /34 Belgrade Sq. 2009 001302/095 Lobby /34 Belgrade Sq. 2009 001303/096 Conference room / 34 Belgrade Sq. 2009 001304/097 Gallery / 133 Copeland Rd. 2009 001305/098 Gallery / 133 Copland Rd. 2009 001306/099 Gallery / 133 Copland Rd. 2009 001307/100 Studio / Panda Muse. 2009 001308/101 Lounge / 29 Claremont Ave. 2009 001309/102 Bedroom / 29 Claremont Ave. 2009 001310/103 Spare room / 29 Claremont Ave. 2009 001311/104 Bedroom / 29 Claremont Ave. 2009 001312/105 Lounge / 2 Popes Rd. 2009 001313/106 Bedroom / 26 Green Park Rd. 2009 001314/107 Spare room / 29 Claremont Ave. 2010 001315/108 Gallery /135 Copeland Rd. 2010 001316/109 Mulitstory carpark / 95a Peckham Rye Lane. 2010

5x4 Transparencies Edition of 1 / 0 Artist Proof Images not shown:

Completes 001232/079 Gallery/133 Copeland Rd. 2009 001233/080 Gallery/133 Copeland Rd. 2009 001234/090 Gallery/133 Copeland Rd. 2009 Details 001234/091 Garage/ 4 Vestry Rd. 2008 001235/092 Studio/ 133 Copeland Rd. 2008 001236/093 Lounge/ 2 Popes Rd. 2009

Borist Press

Life is boring, why make it interesting?