Time. Place. Memory.
How do ‘The body’ and ‘The mind’ relate to time, place and memory?
‘Place’ could refer to the Imagined places of the mind. The Mind as a place. A store of memories, feelings, thoughts, fears etc. The mind as a timeline of memories, feelings, thoughts, fears. The mind as a place. As a landscape*. A reliving of an event. A place in time. The mind as a landscape to express a time/ a memory = PLACE *Landscape An arena for visual ideas. A place for thought. A space to explore memories, imaginations, fears, events, time. Memorial imagination. Cyberspace. Immersion of self in another place
Consider the body as a place. Explore the physical space inside the body. Installation. Imogen Stidworthy. Paul Rooney – Memory, sound and the everyday. Memory is a landscape. Time is a landscape. Or time is a line A point in time is a place on the timeline of one’s life. Time and memory define place
A place in the mind mapped out by time Or at least your own understanding of it.
Together, Time and Memory define place. Or at least a place in the past. (A memory of previous time.) THE MIND is a landscape DEFINED by TIME, MEMORY, IMAGINATION, FEAR, EMOTION. The mind as a place. Explore the mind. How do you explore the mind? Dreams. Make a note of any dreams. Need to express what is going on in the mind. How do I know when something is ‘going on’ that I can visualise on paper? It might be easier to explore other people’s minds. Other people ‘doodle’ on the phone, etc. I don’t doodle. The stuff in my mind usually stays in my mind. Learn to ‘doodle’. Unconscious drawing. What do I mean by ‘mind’? Do I mean consciousness?
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No, I suppose not, because I don’t want to exclude the subconscious or unconscious. [Memory+time, emotion, fear, lust, love, pain, the imaginary] I think this is what I want to study. Some of those might be hard to express visually. Perhaps the mind (in terms of feelings and Emotion and the conscious mind) would be easier to study via the written word. Maybe I need another note book for that. A diary. A journal. A record of thoughts. This would naturally run parallel to my visual studies AND POSSIBLY help to catalyse some drawings. I do have old notebooks that might fit this criteria. Could be interesting to see how the time differences play on any resulting visuals. Questions of time and memory would be addressed as I try to remember my thoughts/feelings from old writings. Attempted ‘automatic drawing’ in sketchbook. Hoped this would visualise unconscious things, emotions, memories. A way of looking at the self. ‘Poetics of space’ book Notion of self. For inspiration, look at; Kiki Smith. Jenny Holzer – text Giacometti Primal needs Gormley desires Louise Bourgeois Laura Ford Nicola Hicks Asta Groetings? Magdalena Abakanowicz Rebecca Warren Juan Manoz Cindy Sherman Marc Quinn
Draw from their work. Study the actual work. Read about these artists. Focus on notion of self and emotion. Then start making clay models.
Cindy Sherman ‘History Portraits’ These are fictional self portraits. Sherman uses herself to create “fictive subjects of implied movies” “Conforming herself to innumerable stereotypic personae, Sherman could be everyone in her art and as such she was no one (in her art).” ArtForum May 1990 p.186 Cindy Sherman uses herself as a model for still photographs, but they are not of her. They are of ‘fictive subjects’. She is anonymous and absent in the works despite her presence. I am drawn to the way Sherman uses herself in her work, employing a level of anonymity as a theme. (The idea of creating different personae to explore one’s own mind) PERSONA CREATION How could I do this? Use of self Distortion of Self \ Hiding of self Masking of self /
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Sherman uses these 2
Copying of self? Create a ‘mask’ identical to self... Mould making/casting Use the mask on something completely different? Inanimate objects. Photographs. Photos of self “ in masks “ in masks in everyday scenarios Photos of self superimposed Automatic drawing. See what/who comes out. Creation of characters/alteregos/ personae Nicola Hicks Hicks creates sculptural creatures from the imagination. Creating characters from inside the place which is her own mind. She uses plaster and straw which allows a fluency close to drawing. Themes - Figurative. Humanist. People. Mother and child. Automatic drawing links to the work of Hicks and the sculptural creatures which emerge from her imagination.
Kiki Smith Kiki Smith is interested in the symbolic morphing of animals and humans. However, more of Smith’s work refers to the self in ‘nearly clinical’ ways. She depicts of vital organs/biological parts rather than imagined spaces, creatures etc.. “How I know I’m Here” 1985-2000 Black/white lino print. Body parts, internal organs. About existence and the body as a means of experiencing reality. Seems to try to capture the sensations available to the body. The five senses (in other works)
Took to modelling with plaster. Playing with forms based on human figure. Thinking of Hicks’ imagined creatures. Started to make an imagined horned figure. Toying with plaster and modrock became less about characters/creatures, more about the physical mass of tangible material in my hands. Took away specific concepts and visions, began to work with compressing small masses of plaster. Concerned with the additive process of building something up, completely solid, from inside out which would take up a space. I made a few variations of shapes and sizes just by squeezing the material as tightly as possible and building it up around itself. Back to the notion of self. Can I explore the self in terms of mass? The body as a place. The body as a shell. An outer shell versus an inner core. I didn’t want to refer to the body clinically, like Kiki Smith. I didn’t want to explore the body in terms of biology or biological function. I am more interested in the physical sensation of being inside the body. Contained within its space. You are what you are contained within.
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Key artists to look at who refer to the existence of the body and its relationship with space are - Giacometti/ Abakanowicz/ Gormley ‘Modern Sculpture’- Rosalind Krauss passages How to explore the space inside the body. Casting of the body. Ulrich Ruckrheim. Negative cast Teresa Margolles o
Wanted to make a 360 negative space of where the body could be. A space you could stand inside. A recreation of the experience of being contained within the shell of the body.
Made a plaster makette for my idea using a clay figure.
Idea to make two solid plaster blocks, each with an indentation of half of my body. When pushed together, these would wrap around the precise space of the body. Do this as a left half and a right half. The place of the body would be illustrated through its absence in the solid plaster blocks. Cast body in two halves to form the ‘case’. These were made up from 2 parts each. A top part (top of head to wrist) and bottom part (wrist to floor). Built large, coffin-like wooden mould (large enough to house one half-body mould), into which wet plaster would be poured. Then, the half-body mould would be sunk into the wet plaster. The aim was to be left with a 6ft3 plaster block with the memory of a human form embedded into it. Once the first of the 2 blocks was poured, and the body mould was sunk, I hit problems. The piece was laid horizontally, and took weeks to dry. Since it was wet for a long time, it remained very heavy. It was too heavy to move, meaning that we could not even stand it upright to allow more air to it. Had to raise slightly and rest on wooden slats to allow air movement. *in futue, pack coffin with polyeurethane or something similar. Much lighter. Build ON slats of wood. With time running out, I had to break away some plaster from the smooth block. This was in order to make it lighter, so it could stand up and dry better. The long drying time meant that I could not make the second of the two halves. Being left with just the one piece, I worked on the areas which I had been forced to break. These were carved and smoothed into new shapes.
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With the remaining spare body mould of my left side, I chose to make a positive plaster cast to contrast with the existing negative. This in itself is a memory. The negative space in the plaster block refers to the place that is the body, and the space within it. The positive plaster cast works as a memory of the body in space. It is a direct index of contours and mass of my body. Through the course of the module, I moved away from the concept of the mind as a place and an arena for visual ideas, choosing to focus on the body as a place. I feel that neither of these areas for concern have yet been exhausted, and I am likely to continue along similar themes. I am particularly interested to return to the concepts involved in exploring time and memory in relation to the mind.
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