Gallery Interaction Saturday 23rd April with Irene Mensah

Today was a very warm and sunny Saturday during the Easter Weekend and the public's minds were possibly not going to be inspired by the thought of engaging with the taxing activity of a creative writing exercise. This was born out by my first endeavours to invite members of the viewing audience to help me with this experiment. So I took a firm approach and the journey commenced.

The idea today was to draw upon the text in the titles John Cage had given to his different works and then by an instinctive and random decision to choose 3 to 5 words from 2 titles.

These words would then become the basis for a exploring a playful journey with creative writing by using them in any sequence or manner which seemed to suggest itself to the individual. With the addition of pencils being on long canes and the writing to take place from standing, the slightly disconcerting nature of this action gave a extra focus to the action and hopefully would promote a greater freedom in writing.

My first two participants, Ruth and Julia immediately took a different approach by preferring to create visual images rather than text, but once coerced into the activity they had fun and also were drawn into their own dialogue with interpreting the titles chosen which was part of the objective. I was quite moved by the writing which was created by Nick and Stephen, as they each had a piece of prose which had a wonderfully profound depth to it. This is there work which I would like to share with their agreement to a wider public:

Nick's selected words: River Rocks And Smoke

With a violent lurch

The boat was swept downstream

The thick heavy ash filling my mouth

And my cheeks raw with the heat

And rising adrenalin

Stephen's selected words: Wanting Variations Disappearances

Wanting variations in disappearance

We want to go down to the water

Every day we are discussing this

Some days we are describing it so clear that it has become in

Our imaginations. Once there

was an argument about when

we should go but we realised

that is beside the point. We

are going going going going going

An extremely mature young boy called Scott Griffiths, engaged so beautifully with the exhibition, that his comments as well as his consequent contribution were equally insightful. I think John Cage would have been pleased by Scott's comment in relation to his favourite print which he perceived to resemble a drawing by someone who has never drawn before. By this he elaborated that he meant that it wasn't like anything else he'd seen, but seemed fresh and new. I admired his clarity at the age of 8. He then drew in inspiration by this piece which you can see below.

Jeff Newnham was a humourous and playful participant who was fascinated by the fact; "that you never know how you will get from double six to double five", relating to the transition from one point in the game of dominoes to another. and his comment; " It is the gaps in between places which other people will fill in" both related to this but also seemed like a metaphor for understanding the random and uncontrollable aspects of our collective lives.

I would like to thank my last participant who concluded the afternoon's explorations, and was a charming older gentleman called Raj who was drawn to the word River in no 72 New River Watercolours. His was a lovely loose response which combined both text and imagery.

I really appreciated the efforts of all who participated on such a hot afternoon and the variety of creative pieces which were generated by this experiment. Many of those individuals found that from this freedom to take their own path starting with something as simple as a few words, that they found a different level on which to connect with John Cage's work.

They were at times surprised to find themselves stimulated by their own ability to be creative and to also enjoy the process. Such is the power of personal random journeys, and the special way in which the the thinking behind the work of John Cage can open doors to unforeseen ways of stimulating artistic expression in an ever continuing response back and forth between self and the outside world.

John Cage: Every Day is a Good Day. Gallery Interaction 16th April

This was the first interaction in the gallery for the John Cage season and we were lucky enough to have beautiful weather, a packed gallery and a designated space for the interaction session. The area  - in which you could also watch videos on John Cage - proved to be invaluable and along with my two wonderful volunteers, Josef Konczak and Will Richards we created a real hub of creativity, inventiveness and discussion.  Those that interacted were asked to  take photographs of parts of their own bodies or something close to them, randomly pressing the shutter at a time when an utterance was heard within the gallery space, that stood out above all others.  The photographs were meant to be immediate and taken without traditional aesthetic framing. The images were then converted into black and white files and printed. The utterance or sound was then added to the image with pencil.

The idea was to produce images inspired by Cage’s idea of chance and forced artistic limitations.  Specifically inspired by Seven Day Diary (Not Knowing), 1978, the artworks produced reflected a particular time and place, the juxtaposition between text and imagery engaging with the relationship between the self and chance encounters. For the duration of the Saturday interaction the prints were shown on the windows of the workroom. 

The exercise instigated much dialogue about how easy it was to follow a specific brief and relinquish the desire for creative autonomy.  Many found this challenging and liberating when they achieved a work of art created entirely by chance.  Those with a more prescriptive notion of producing artworks had two or three attempts before producing something that appeared to be just chance encounters.  Some discussions developed into philosophical ideas of  'autonomy' in art and whether it was still 'you' producing the artwork as they seemed so determined by chance. Each print produced was unique and represented personal artistic integrity, despite being produced from an outside brief.  Interesting dialogues were instigated about the 'value' of the art object in relation to the amount of 'work' put in to the final piece.  I shall be doing the exercise again on the 7th May and will be very much looking forward to the afternoon.

Lift the Lid 3 Moving Insect Portraits Sunday April 3rd

Moving Bug Portaits......

For this third session the theme was to identify a favourite insect, and then create a portrait of yourself as this insect which would be able to move: a moving bug portrait!

Here is Angelica holding her selection of bees and butterflies

Whilst her brother Vinnie shows off his caterpillar...

The above caterpillar is clearly in full motion and a lively collaboration between mother and daughter.

The afternoon was less busy than usual as it was Mother's day and in between exhibitions, but everyone who came to the session quickly identified with their favourite insect, such as the multi-dimensional butterfly by Caoimhe seen below, and went straight into action.

Ladybirds and bees were very popular and some very focused concentration on making them move was inspiring to witness in participants of all ages. Below are companion dragonflies created by a sister and brother:

This last image was of a wonderful insect created by a gentleman called David who deftly used pipe-cleaners to make his 3-D artwork and sums up the imaginative approach towards the final selection of Moving Portraits...

Lift the Lid 2: Shoe Portraits March 5th

It could be said that a shoe give all kinds of insights into the unique personality of any individual, the tiny detail of a type of stitching, colour, traditional style, eccentric etc all indicate sometimes unconscious facets of the wearer. By creating a shoe as a portrait, what kind of information would be passed on to a viewer?

With a lovely group of intrepid workshop participants much activity was spent creating shoes in widely varying forms from 2 dimensional as below:

To these sculptural creations... So what does a shoe portray about its owner?

The workshop drew upon the work from the preceding Lift the Lid, where portraits were created in the form of a story, drawing and or collage as reinterpretations of a selection of the Moving Portraits exhibition. From 5 instructions family groups could identify key aspects of a portrait and then eventually create their own which may or may not correspond to the way that others would perceive the same portrait.

The choice was then offered to the participants of this session to either create a shoe which they thought that the person in one of the portraits might wear, or one for themselves, taking into consideration the exhibition and own likes and dislikes.

So a fabulously colourful range of footwear emerged, and one pair of friends taking up the invitation to create a dance with their shoes, which turned one corner of the space into a dance area, see below.

The result was to create a new version of moving portraits, as the shoe portraits became alive and were danced and moved around the space before being taken home. Thank you to all those who participated so imaginatively.

Gallery Interaction 19th March

Thank you to all who wanted to take part in the interaction with Guy Sherwin's short film, "Portrait of Parents" 1975.  As per my previous post, this is a 3 and a half minute film looking at the idea of portraiture through the moving image.  The participants were asked to engage with the film, which features Guy Sherwin -seen in as a reflection in the mirror- filming his parents.   We discussed the relationships between the son and his parents and their 'performance' for the camera.  We discovered that the viewers relationship with the film is substantially changed when also filmed and this added an additional dimension, becoming part of or extending the performance and the narrative.

There were many students visiting this week as next weekend will be the last chance to see the exhibition!  If you haven't already seen this brilliant show, "Moving Portraits", I highly recommend that you do.  Well worth the effort, especially to catch the film "Bernadette" by Duncan Campbell....a must see!

HOWL (15) screening at the Pavilion

HOWL (15)
Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Freidman

with James Franco, John Hamm, David Strathairn and Jeff Daniels

Howl is the fictionalized account of the 1957 obscenity trial surrounding the publication of Allen Ginsberg's poem of the same name, composed from court records and interviews with Ginsberg, and animation inspired by Illustrated Poems by Allen Ginsberg and Eric Drooker.

James Franco starts as the young Allen Ginsberg - counter-culture poet and chronicler of the Beat Generation. In his famously confessional, leave-nothing-out style, Ginsberg recounts the road trips, love affairs and search for personal liberation that led to the most timeless and electrifying work of his career: the poem Howl. Meanwhile in a San Franscisco courtroom Howl is on trail. Prosecutor Ralph McIntosh (David Strathairn) sets out to prove that the book should be banned, while suave defence attorney Jake Ehrlich (John Hamm) argues fervently for freedom of speech and creative expression. The proceedings veer from the comically absurd to the passionate as the host of unuual witnesses (Jeff Daniles, Mary-Louise Parker, Treat Williams, Alessandro Nivola) pit generation against generation and art against fear in front of conservative Judge Clayton Horn (Bob Balaban).

Howl is simultaneously a portriat of a renegade artist breaking down barriers to find love and redemption, and a romantic ride through a prophetic masterpiece that rocked a generation and was heard around the world.

22, 22, 27 March (2pm) - £3

Saturday 26 March (7.30pm) - £6 including a glass of wine, half a Peroni or a fruit juice

Bookings: 01424 229 111 http://www.dlwp.com/

Chinese Whispers part 2 Moving Portraits Sat 12th March

The two responses above were offered for the same original set of words:

Perspective, alien, unsettling, interesting, pleasing... The one on the left identified the portrait, the one on the right chose a different one, who do you think the description is about?

The second episode of my Chinese Whispers style of experiment with transmission of information was an interesting development from the first session. As I considered the original responses to specific portraits, what was interesting to me was how words can be so subjective as to potentially offer a description which could represent a number of other pieces. In which case, could a random recipient of such a response be able to relocate the original source?

So this was my quest, to engage the Saturday audience with 2 tasks: take one description from an unknown person and see if they could locate the original portrait and then once they had made their decision, to find their own response to this portrait.

Who was this?

...the same person as the above two responses?... in fact the same as the previous two.... Duncan Alexander Goodhew portrayed through 5 pairs of eyes.

Two things were important to identify:

1. That it was a less a case of being right or wrong to identify the portrait from the description.

2. It was of greater importance to consider why a decision was made and what this brought to the gallery experience.

A particularly wide range of people took part, and all concluded that this extra focus encouraged their interaction and consideration of what a particular portrait was communicating. It also heightened their awareness of the very subjective assumptions which we make, when looking at such an image as filmed portrait, and how this influences our subsequent memory and what we might pass on to others about our experience.

The above response was to what was actually a response to one of Peter Gidal's portraits in Heads, but encouraged some amused dialogue between a mother and son about the nature of the Cactasia!, and certainly wouldn't have been a choice of focus without my request.

I enjoyed responding myself to different conversations and by making my own decisions on who to give which kind of a trigger set of words. More subtle and less specific for some, more playful for others, sometimes giving people a portrait which was different to one they identified most with, at other times doing the opposite to see if they could recognise it through a different perception.

The above response on the right was a great visual portrait and also accurate in tracing Wearing's 2 into 1, from a first description which was relatively straightforward.

In most cases I had added my own 'noise' to the transmission process, by removing words from the original response which could make it too obvious which of the portraits was being referred to. It was something of a revelation to me to see how many people tuned in to the correct choice. Many people were torn between a correct choice and a different one, so were instinctively able to track the path back.

These were responses to Non-specific Threat, from a quite poetic original set of words by an artist and writer from the previous session, whose style in itself then encouraged an interaction of depth and creative expression.

This therefore became an opportunity to move through the perceptions of others towards the essence of a portrait, seeing through their eyes then again through the camera lens and finally with a different view both objective and responsive to a charming elderly lady smoking and laughing, or a young woman crying etc.

.

These words described Portrait of Ga, but were also thought to portray the subject of the Bee Fever, and who could argue with that. Thank you to all who took time to contribute, such as the art teacher Chris Mansell from Lewes, and for a great deal of intense concentration and interesting responses.