Tuesday, June 28, 2011

3D printing

I got very very excited recently when I stumbled across Makerbot's Thing-o-matic which is, wait for it...... a 3D printer. Strangely no-one that I have shared this news with has been as thrilled by this new technology as me. One friend said "So, what? You pay $1000 for something that can make plastic ornaments. I don't get it, why would you want one?" Becauuuuuse you can print them yourself, because its not about making ornaments - it has a thousand creative possibilities, because this is the most radical piece of creative technology I've seen, because it's so brilliantly genius that a person could invent a machine that can take a jumble of 0's and 1's and make a real physical object. Imagine the thought process to get there - I stand in awe.


Another friend who I was certain would show at least more than a mild interest, had already heard about the technology and then he told me something which completely blew my mind out the top of my head and onto the ceiling - medical researchers are using 3D printing technology to create organs made from your own cells. 





I gave you a long pause there, so you could take a moment to fully absorb this information. Imagine the future possibilities, you could create a new liver on your computer, pop it on a memory stick, wonder across the street to Officeworks and say "I'd like to print this file, my other liver got used up. Also is it cheaper if I get more than one, cause I seem to go through livers quite quickly. Great I'll be back in half an hour."And then you could go off to the pub. 

Flowers on a flowers grave

These lyrics are on constant repeat in my head tapes - For weeks I have heard the distant gravely voice singing "and tell me who will put flowers on a flower's grave". It's being played on a piano far away in an abandoned ballroom down the end of the long corridor of my mind. 

Flowers Grave (Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan)



Monday, June 20, 2011

James Turrell 'Skyspace'

Failure and beginnings

The good thing about this project is that the material is free and there is an abundance of it conveniently located in the lane way beside my studio. But every time I go down to collect more boxes, I imagine my decorative tent/space located next to these dumpsters instead of out in the landscapes for which I am producing the work. It's something to do with a gentleness of simply moving materials around and the transformation of that which is abandoned into something beautiful, it's the contrast and the potential for unexpected discover that makes that space feel right. At the start of a project there are infinite possibilities and this week in particular my mind is like a saucepan full of popcorn ideas bursting and bouncing all over the studio. There is so much popcorn the lids coming off and its a big mess, but this is the nature of beginnings.


Most of the cardboard we have collected is cut down into sheets and patchworked together with tape, to make sections of walls to work with. But an occasional pieces are deemed 'special' and these get put aside for potential poetic functions later.



One of the first things i was curious about was 'how can it stand up?' With no engineering skills to draw on I figured the simple pole structure used in old style tents was a good place to begin, so I set about experimenting with methods to hold walls up. The results were predictably mediocre and clearly a better support structure was needed throughout.


I am planning on using extensive decoration inside, so then played with the possibility that the decoration could form part of the structure. Im thinking something along the lines of Islamic pattern work, with the interwoven latice work of the design being cut out and stuck on to the wall to form a second layer inside.


One of the first attempts ended up looking like this..


I can't decide if this has the potential to be interesting if it covers the whole of the interior or just plan fussymessycrappy looking. Some of the other unresolved efforts have been to use curvilinear patterns instead, or cardboard marquetry, or just the pin pricks, or nothing, or make an earth carpet inside, or a carpet pattern cut out of the ceiling that lets the light cast a carpet pattern on the earth, etc etc. All of this then lead me back to thinking about the structure again. The main thing I want it to avoid is looking like a cubby house.

Although I do like how this cubby house has amazing weeds growing around it - it feels like its been there for years. I started making a model of a tent and it occurred to me that one way I could have the tent feel small outside and large inside would be to create it on a slope. The front would be small and the structure would fan out wider and taller towards the back. Now that I had a space to think around it made a few things clearer, most importantly if i wanted to use light entering through pinpricks or cut out patterns to create patterns inside the space, I couldn't have a gapping open entrance. So i made a mock paper curtain.


It looked much better when I photographed it from the inside. I could see this being interesting.


But at the end of a week of messiness there are a few major things to think about. Is a cardboard tent just a cardboard tent? If the weather is humid will it be suffocating to be inside the space. If its windy can I make it strong enough. Should work at an Environmental Art Biennale deal more directly with the landscape/elements/environment. How can I make something which is more gently integrated into its site. I keep thinking about making a space to view the changing light, but get stuck at James Turrell's skyscapes (more on him later). I want to use elements of light earth and maybe air, how can i do this? Is the decoration getting in the way? 

The state of my studio really reflects the state of my mind and the unstate of the work.


But as Samuel Beckett said "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better"

Friday, June 17, 2011

Lane way paste up


Startlingly new past up in the lane way beside the studio. Anyone know whose work it is? 

Thursday, June 16, 2011

I blame Harry Potter

I'm developing some new work at the moment for 2 outdoor exhibitions. The plan is to create a series of (or maybe just one) cardboard tent/s. From the outside, the work would appear to be an unassuming temporary cardboard structure, the inside however will be filled with decoration, such as marquetry walls, dust carpets, a vaulted ceiling and pin prick patterns in the roof, . As I started making the work today, I realised there was quite a big flaw in my idea, one which defies physics and requires magic to pull it off. See when I imagine looking at the outside of the tent, I see a tiny old triangular tent hugging the ground, pulled taught with guy ropes. Its just big enough for one person to crawl inside and lie down. There is long wild grass partially camouflaging it and it's way off in the distance, small in comparison to the large expanse of sky and field. But, and here is where physics got left out of the plan, when I go inside I have been imaging it to be huge - bigger enough for 4-5 people to stand up in and walk around without bumping into each other. It was only today when I started my first attempt at building the structure that I realised I had been working with the magical scale of imagination.

So I have to put aside working out the actual scale of the piece, and let it simmer in my mind, while I tackle some other details, such as how do you make a tent out of cardboard boxes, how will it stand up, how will I make it weather proof...

Monday, June 13, 2011

New Romantics.

I am please to announce that you can now order online a copy of:

New Romantics: Darkness and Light in Australian Art
by Simon Gregg

Order here at the Australian Scholarly Publishing website




Something is happening in Australian art today. We are witnessing the resurgence of ideas that took root centuries ago – a return to passion in art, and a return to atmosphere and awe.Historians called it Romanticism; a disposition for melancholic yearning, for communion with nature, for the sublime. Australian artists, in countless numbers, are engaging with these themes again today. 

Set against the dazzling backdrop of the Australian sublime, New Romantics charts the dynasties of Romantic art. From its nascent beginnings in European philosophy to a cause championed by Australian colonialists, this compelling survey seeks to understand how it has landed in the hands of a new generation of Australian artists. 
Through the work of 36 contemporary Australian artists who have reinvigorated this movement, New Romantics traces the influences that led them to this unlikely path. This is the first book that seeks to understand a paradigm shift that is shaping the future course of Australian art. 

Lavishly illustrated, New Romantics is a book for lovers of art, atmosphere, and awe. A compendium for the twenty-first century, New Romantics is a defining work on the return to beauty in Australian art. 
Artists include: Rob Bartolo, Hannah Bertram, Magdalena Bors, William Breen, Sheridan Brown, Jane Burton, Jason Cordero, Peter Daverington, Iris Fischer, Dale Frank, Briele Hansen, Louise Hearman, Bill Henson, Petrina Hicks, Annie Hogan, Mark Kimber, Chris Langlois, Richard Lipp, Joanna Logue, Tony Lloyd, Susan Milne, John Morris, Saffron Newey, Sarah Nguyen, Izabela Pluta, Robbie Rowlands, Kathryn Ryan, Natalie Ryan, Sam Shmith, Sophia Szilagyi, Camilla Tadich, Juha Tolonen, Stephen Wickham, Philip Wolfhagen, Greg Wood, and Joel Zika. 

SIMON GREGG has held professional posts at Heide Museum of Modern Art and City Museum at Old Treasury. Simon Gregg has curated over fifty exhibitions at a variety of venues, and has published widely on Australian art. He is currently curator of the Gippsland Art Gallery, Sale. New Romantics is his first full-length book. 

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Thanks to Rockwiz for this quote...

Just because you don't make sense,
Dosent make you an artists.

A list about 3 types of people

1. Those of you who have sent me lists.
You will be interested to hear that after 2 1/2 years of collecting your lists,  I am finally doing something with all the lists that you have sent me. I can't say exactly what it is yet cause I love the grand drama of a great unveiling, but its on the horizon.

2. Those of you who have lists and wonder if you shoudl send them to me
Yes, I am still collecting lists. Here are a couple of ways that you can send them to me:

Post to:
Room 1 Level 3, 329 Little Collins St, Melbourne VIC 3000
You can send original or photocopied lists

Email to:
hannah_bertram@iprimus.com.au
You can send photographed or scanned images or type your list directly into the email.

3. Those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about.
You can read more about it on my website - click here

Friday, June 10, 2011

Carpetry and the satisfaction of precision

I applied my knife cutting skills to making cardboard marquetry this week. This involves cutting patterns out of cardboard to make a negative space, then cutting the exact same pattern out of a different piece of cardboard and inserting it into the first bit of cardboard. I'm discovering that it takes micro-millimetre precision and a whole new world of satisfaction is experienced when you get it exactly perfect.

Initially I thought it was parquetry that I was making but a quick glance at Wikipedia tells me parquetry is the geometric version of inlayed wooden patterns and marquetry uses curved and natural designs. Good to get the lingo right as I had previously thought that parquetry went on the floor and marquetry went on furniture. My wordy confusion was equally matched by Lisa' who throughout the day blended the words 'cardboard' and 'parquetry' which resulted in her referring to it as 'Carpentry' and which i have now morphed into a blend of cardboard/carpet/marquetry and come up with 'Carpetry'.

I want to go to a dress up party

Some days life is more fun than art. B and her friends were invited to a Lady Gaga costume party and the hours spent making costumes and doing ostentatious make-up and hair do's was the most fun I have had since .... when? Maybe since I made a similar silver costume to wear to an Andy Warhol Silver party at the Chelsea Hotel.



Friday, June 3, 2011

In defence of the occasionally brilliant interactive/public artist

Sometimes artists who incorporate interactive elements to their practice get it right.  Rafael Lozano-Hemmer is one of them.

Check out his webiste  http://www.lozano-hemmer.com/projects.php.

The essay I promised to post


Difficulty and the intellect.

The ideology of being a well-meaning anti-elitist is hard to let go of. There is a perceived political correctness in trying to make art that can engage the ‘general public’, a virtuousness of trying not to be high brow but to be on the same level as the ‘average person’. At the same time there is something really admirable about being an expert in your field. We can’t get enough of sporting heroes and we are impressed by those who develop new technology. In art however there seems to be a perception of intellectual elitism that is exclusive and impenetrable. Of the vastly diverse talks within the seminar program, four interrelated moments stand out for me. Each of them were points that stimulated an exploration of this projected elitism and which in turn allowed me to reconsider my approach to intellectualism within art, once I’d addressed the broader issue of arts’ position within the context of our wider society.

In a round table discussion documented as part of the 2004 Australian Art Now exhibition catalogue Pillip Brophy commented on an essay he recently wrote for Callum Morton. He described it as being a

“typically long-winded, lurid, self collapsing attack on architects and has no redeeming value for anyone except Callum…. You either get it or you don’t. If you don’t then that’s the sign that there is space beyond your critical monocle.” [1]

Initially this came across as being deliberately exclusive, to knowingly alienate the reader/viewer by publishing a private joke between the writer and artists and comes across as being boringly high-brow and narcissistically self absorbed. When I’m looking at art, when I read about art or when I hear an artist talking about their work what I am partly hoping for is a sense of connectedness. An ‘aha’ moment, or the kind of mild epiphany of understanding which Alain De Botton refers to as the ‘finger placing ability’[2].

“It stretches an ability to describe these (similarities) far better than we would have been able to, to put a finger on perceptions that we recognize as our own yet could not have formulated on our own”[3].

For the majority of speakers at the seminar program this was most certainly the experience, but what do you do when you’re confronted by someone who says if you don’t get it then it’s your fault. You’re the philistine with the gap in your ‘critical monocle’. Generally speaking this accusation gets read as coming from an elitist position. When we are confronted by something that is hard to understand we call it pretentiousness, impenetrable theory with irrelevant language. There is a reactionary feeling not of connectedness but of alienation and elitism.

Occasionally Public art is put forward as a solution to break down elitism. However in an example sited by Amanda Rodriguez Alveres, art in public places does not necessarily engage the audience any more than art in a gallery. She referred to an incident with MICO in which they realized that one aspect of their presumed audience was illiterate and therefore could not read the banners and posters that MICO had been dispersing around the city. Whilst the deinstitutionalization of their collaborative work was often successful in its engagement with the general public, we might conclude that it’s not always the audience that doesn’t understand art, but that we fail to understand our audience. It also highlights that the argument about elitism isn’t about access but more specifically about accessibility. Just because art is on the street doesn’t mean it is any easier to understand, or that the invisible barriers of exclusive language are broken down just because the physical walls are removed.

Another more dubious response to making art more accessible is the intervention of education officers, and explanatory text panels in larger galleries. Admittedly for some people this does provide an easy entry into the work, but predominantly what these two things do is flatten the work. They dumb it down and simplify it into dictatorial bite size grabs. And the over explaining of the work often does a disservice to subtlety and complexity, and frequently tell you what you should be seeing or experiencing and denies you the opportunity to contemplate the work yourself and consider your own experience of looking the art.

It might be suggested that the argument about elitism in art is not just a matter of choosing one extreme or the other but more about examining this term so you can make a better decision about where you stand in relation to it. A few weeks ago I read an article by John Armstrong that allowed me to come to terms with the accusation of elitism in art. He defined elitism as the artificial barrier of “pretentious talk, prohibitive expense, rituals of etiquette”[4] which results in a fairly small audience of those in the know. Whilst he claims this is true of the arts he identifies that it is only true in as much as it is true of any subculture or micro-culture within society. He sites sport as an example, having its own language, its particular manner of behavior, and its own insular codes. There are rules and a history and value that to an outsider appear foreign. The only reason he claims that we accept this in sport is because of its popularity. As basic as it may sound what this has helped me to identify is that we are making art within a particular context and therefore its language is specifically relevant to that space.

So it would seem that it is not the exclusiveness of art that is the problem, its not that it is elite. Perhaps it is the difficulty that is the problem. In his article Armstrong proposes that it’s easier to falsely project blame onto external barriers such as snobbery and pretentious language than it is to admit that you are too apathetic to rise to engage properly with creations of human imagination[5]. This perhaps is more the issue; that we lack the discipline to pay attention long enough to make sense of the complexities we face in art. Personally I find that it’s not so much apathy but bewilderment that prevents me from embracing intellectualism in art. It is such an awkward struggle to unlock mental complexity, at best I am clumsy and fumbling and at worst I wonder if even English is a second language to me. What is most frustrating though is when you suspect that you don’t have the tools to dissect it.

So what tools are required? In John Nixon’s crowd pleasing talk he said that art is an endurance event, and I suspect that this is the key to getting through difficulty. He spoke with an economic use of language that was refreshingly simple. But his straightforwardness was surprising because it was only a simplicity of oral language not of concept. It certainly wasn’t basic because his practice lacks depth, it was uncluttered and refined by what I can only assume has been a long process of mentally distilling the expansiveness of his practice. I think I’ve heard this process referred to as finding simplicity on the other side of complexity. What this illuminated was a possibility that clarity and confidence will come over time through sheer persistence and dedication.

In Jonathan Franzen’s Essay Mr Difficult  he says that enduring difficulty can make you feel virtuous “as if I’d run three miles…been to the dentists, filed my tax return and gone to church”[6], but realistically it’s not something we do if given the choice. We live in a society were we make all the demands, we are required very infrequently to think abstractly, to probe an issue deeply or to spend time in silent contemplation. We equate complexity with hard work which we begrudgingly do despite knowing that we can sometimes actually benefit from it. What is sometimes overlooked is that philosophical thinking and intellectual wrestling can also be incredibly rewarding. Serious research, deep abstract thinking and rigorous reading can provide a pool of richness that can’t be acquired by skimming the surface of a topic. When I’ve persisted with difficulty I know it has given me a greater capacity to make more precise, appropriate and considered decisions about my work. And if nothing else, has contributed to a greater understanding and fuller appreciation of art.

Perhaps it is time to let go of some of the skepticism I have about intellectualism in art. Having addressed the fact that I have chosen to be part of a serious community that may not be popular but as a result of its demands can be rewarding in its challenges, it makes no sense to be intimidated by difficulty or intellectualism. It’s time to do some polishing of the critical monocle.




[1] Waite. D (ed). Two Thousand and Four. Council of Trustees of the National Gallery of Victoria. 2004


[2] De Botton A How Proust can change your life. Picador. London 1998 p28
[3] ibid p 28

[4] Armstrong John.Elite Elitist’ A3 The Age. Monday, August 16, 2004 p7

[5] ibid
[6] Franzen Jonathan. How to be Alone. Harper Perennial. London 2004 p245

VIVIDiot

Took a stroll around the Circular Quay after deinstalling my exhibition in Sydney and stumbled across 'VIVID festival'. On its website the event is described like this...


Vivid Sydney will colour the city with creativity and inspiration, featuring breathtaking immersive light projections on the iconic Sydney Opera House sails, performances from local and international musicians as part of Vivid LIVE and a free outdoor exhibition of interactive light sculptures.


http://vividsydney.com

In real life however the 'breath taking immersive light projection' on the Opera house and other surrounding buildings resembled nothing more than giant screensavers. Green lines go down, red lines go across, green lines go down, red lines go across, green lines, red lines, green   red   green   red and so on. Yes it was colourful and yes it was big, but really so what. It was pure technique with no content, it was mere decoration. The 'interactive light sculptures' were equally uninteresting and only confirmed my deep scepticism for the word 'interactive' in relation to art. Most of the interaction that audiences had with these sculptures was simply to do a basic action and the art work would change - ride an exercise bike and a light will turn on, wave your arms around and a colour will appear on a wall, stand in front of a glow in the dark screen and your shadow will be cast on a wall. Too often interactive art takes the position of being accessible simple because the audience takes part in the creation of the work, but this accessibility is a dubious pursuit because it assumes that much art is inaccessible, which leads to accusations of elitism.



I was going to have a little rant here about the misplaced pursuit of anti-elitism in art but then I remembered an essay I wrote during a Seminar program at uni which says everything I want to say here, so I'm going to post that instead.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Saturday - survival surrender and success


Solution 1 - Get a tarp!
This sad looking 'marque', was only in slightly better condition, than our spirits. It was dismal. The rain still leaked down the walls, there was no room to move, I stuffed up the pattern in my haste, the mud stank in the claustrophobia of the tent, the slightest breeze tore the tape off the walls and little rivers would trickle over the work. It was pathetic, I was pathetic, the work was disappointingly even more pathetic.



Solution 2. Get help. 
On friday night I sent out an SOS text to friends, family and artists - please help, I can't pay you, and you'll have to work on your hands and knees possibly in the rain with stinky filthy mud. Surprisingly people offered to help and so with the support of friends family students and artists we had an incredibly enjoyable and productive day. 



Solution 3. Get organised.
All the materials were put in labeled containers. Plastic storage cotainers were used to orgaise all the materials. Everyone working knew what the "Rain plan' was - protect the stencils, get the tarp!!! We also had umberella's (what a remarkable invention), knee pads, daylight and good cheer.


Solution 4. Enjoy the day for what it is not what I hoped it would be.
I had said yes to this gig for reasons which sound good solid and rational - good exposure and great pay. But i should've said no a thousand times over for reasons that are irrational and idealistic. Firstly I have been agonisingly bored of the dust stencil work for a while now, secondly the conditions weren't going to allow me to make work to the standard I like to perform at, and lastly the time frame (3weeks) to produce the work meant it was rushed and unresolved. And despite the 'money and fame' more than either of these things I am driven to make the best work I can make. I want to be satisfied with what i produce and present. 

But, its interesting because once I let go of my own disappointment and intentions I had a good day. It was heart warming to have so many friends help out, and it wasn't just the manual labour that they helped me with, it was their enthusiasm for the work that soothed me. It was good to surrender, to hand over my work and let other people enjoy the process of making it, in the same way that I have enjoyed it over the years. I felt like each of them treated the work with the same level of care and respect that I would and it was a humbling experience to be so supported. 




By Sunday evening, after the barricades were cleared away and the materials packed up and the crowds were leaving the area, I had time alone to look at the work. I was more relieved then I have ever been, and quietly pleased with what we had done. 

Feeble friday


Despite a lengthy time traveling around Australia in a bus and a childhood filled with camping holidays in the drizzerling British countryside, I still don’t cope very well in the outdoors. Even in the comparatively tamed outdoors of a city landscape I find myself ill prepared to deal with the elements, I never carry an umbrella and I can get scorched by the sun just crossing a street. Give me a warm dark cafe, bar, gallery or bookshop and I know how to ‘be’, but in the face of weather I am feeble, and yet there I was making a large work from mud and ash underneath a grey Melbourne sky on a late May weekend.

On Friday night I was optimistic, twitching to get going and in reasonably high spirits about the work and the weekend. Lisa and I trundled down Swanston street with our nana trolley’s full of gear and folios full of stencils and the untainted possibility that this might be fun. The plan was to get one layer of stencils finished, so that on Saturday we’d be under less pressure. We had tested out the materials against the rain during the previous few weeks and knew that once the ash and mud were dry they were pretty resilient. What we hadn’t tested was my resilience.

The night sky grew dark and as we worked the street lamps cast our shadows across the damp steps making black pools over the black stencils and black ash. In the blackness, bleakness arose – we couldn’t see, but were compelled to continue trusting instinct and knowing that we really couldn’t afford to stop cause the work wouldn’t get done in time. Then it rained, at first just a little, so we kept going. As it got heavier, we couldn’t see if the ash was getting washed away or not but we kept going - on hands and knees, on cold wet concrete, with hair dripping and hands blackened with ash, the stencils getting soggy and deteriorating quickly and a welling dread swelling in my stomach, rising in my chest, clamping itself in my throat.

Eventually we stopped and took shelter under a near by tree. From the depths of the trolley I managed to locate 3 beers and like sad drunks we stood in the shadows of wet darkness and laughed a mildly hysterical laugh at what a bad situation this was. From our position up on the hill we looked down to the river and watch other artists – prepared outdoorsy artists, installing their work under the shelter of customer made white marquees, beside vans that were smoking pot-bellied stoves.

We needed a better plan.