MAXIMALISM

dusttodust

2007-01-05T20:05:00.000Z

At long last, here's the dance film from the show.

with thanks to Rachel Brooker and FortDax

A Brief Moment of Certainty

2006-12-09T18:33:00.000Z

It was difficult to get a good photograph of this piece in the show, so I took it upstairs. As this was the location for the chair film in the digital installation, Tempting Possibility, it is clearly an ideal place for it.

the artists talk on camera

2006-12-03T23:28:00.000Z

If you've been here before, this should be a better version of the rough cut of the short piece about the show, which still needs work, and a dub.

Well the pictures are better but the sound synchronisation, at the beginning especially, is all to pot for some reason - take it up with YouTube, it's in sync on the original.

not quite over...

2006-11-23T21:17:00.000Z

let's face it, it's never over this art business.

Here's the footprint of the Book of Common Prayer.

If only I could dig up the asphalt floor. This then leads to the idea that I set the whole thing up again but on a big separate panel and ta-rah!

The show's over

2006-11-23T20:42:00.000Z

It took five days to put up and 12 hours to take down.
Thanks to all those who came by, and thanks for all the positive feedback.

The studio here is cluttered with all the chairs and plinths and pictures and tv sets and such, but I'm knackered so it'll have to stay cluttered for awhile. But worst of all I've run out of macaroni. So it's shreddies for tea [again]

There are a few more posts to come here, a few stories a few pictures. But not tonight.

Tempting Possibility

2006-11-22T13:52:00.000Z

An installation involving three digital video sequences with three TV monitors and three DVD players.

They describe the three fundamental states of the universe: CHAOS, POSSIBILITY and CERTAINTY.

here's CHAOS:

the evil cart

2006-11-21T23:21:00.000Z

This was the cart
that lay hard by the surgeon-barber's table on HMS Bellerophon.
This was the cart
that collected the dead at Culloden.
This was the cart
that wheeled the baker, who happened to remark that perhaps the soldiers should pay for their bread, to the guillotine.
This was the cart
that was pulled by young children in the dark of a coal mine.
This was the cart
that carried away the corpses of the plague victims.
This was the cart
that Boudicca's daughters were tied to.

The Book of Common Prayer

2006-11-20T22:41:00.000Z

One of my installation pieces in the show:

We waited in chairs lined up on bare boards, the smell of prayer books, old bibles and furniture polish filling the air.

We waited, in silence. Everything would be alright, so long as our chairs remained in neat lines. It wasn’t easy, but everything would be alright.

At times the expectancy was so great that some girls would piss their pants, adding a pungency to the already heady cocktail of musty paper and beeswax.

The boys sat awkwardly. Like sitting on the sofa watching TV, between your first girlfriend and her sister, with an uncalled-for erection, and being asked by her mother to nip up and make a cup of tea.

everything would be alright - but it wasn't, was it?

opening night images

2006-11-20T12:07:00.000Z

Here are some pictures of the opening night, which was a gas:

photography by Jim Bond

opening night

2006-11-19T22:02:00.000Z

Last night was opening night, which was excellent, fifty or sixty people showed up and the place looked great. Lot of interest in the work and a lot of talking, my chair installation raised a lot of enquiries and also resonated with many people.

Jim took a lot of pictures at the opening but I've left the camera there so won't be able to post any images till tomorrow, instead here are pictures of some of the work in the show:

river crossing, oil on panel 1800mm x 1200mm

evil cart I, gesso, charcoal, oil paint on paper, 600mm x 890mm

evil cart II, gesso, charcoal, acrylic on paper, 600mm x 890mm

In the Dust II, oil on panel, 1200mm x 1800mm

the show opens

2006-11-17T23:44:00.000Z

A hectic run up to opening, as always. lots of things to do not enough time to do them etc... It's all the last minute details that take so long.

The official opening is tomorrow, so we've got a day in hand, tonight was by way of a sort of preview, a dress rehearsal for us. It went well, twenty odd people came through [some more odd than others]. Technically it worked ok, except when I put the dance film dvd in the machine on top of the music cd - they weren't happy.

The Evil Cart - I'll talk more about this later.

Wayne will be working on the big graffiti piece during the course of the week.

Been averaging about 4 hours sleep a night this week, so will be looking forward to some kip now the show is up and running.

arranged in a certain order

2006-11-17T01:40:00.000Z

Usually
having four legs
and a rest for the back.
It holds physical properties
within three dimensions:
of height
of width
of breadth
and
a vertical force
exerted by its mass
as a result of gravity.
And comprises mostly
and often
of the hard fibrous substances
lying beneath the bark
of most tall perennial plants
having a main trunk
and branches,
at a certain distance from the ground,
forming a distinct elevated crown.
Category of the aforementioned:
entity:
object:
living:
thing:
organism:
vascular plant:
ligneous plant.
Held together
by a strong liquid
obtained by boiling collagenous animal parts,
such as bones and hooves,
into hard gelatine
then adding water
and items
whose chemical properties are of such that
when in aqueous solutions
their salts will yield positively charged ions,
namely a certain
ductile
malleable
silver-white
metallic element,
[scarcely known in a pure condition]
but used in its crude
or impure
carbon containing form,
with
an atomic weight of 55.847,
an atomic number of 26
and
at twenty degrees centigrade
a specific gravity of 7.86
and hit in place by a hammer.
Category of the aforementioned:
entity:
object:
artefact:
instrument:
implement:
hand tool.

And
sometimes
there's a cushion.

Day Four

2006-11-16T23:10:00.000Z

Starting to nip an tuck now, the graphics arrived and made things look very Tate Modern. The plinths are white with white and more white, some of the chairs are flying. Though the place is still full of tools. One day to go.

Lot of help today, Martin Smith on plinth duty with Wayne.

Gareth came and soldered those fiddly plugs that connect speakers to amplifiers. Molly stitched drawings to dirty cloth and Tristram drilled holes in the walls. Simon Jones arrived with fancy hardware and proceeded to polish the graphic input. Thanks to everyone.

I had a tech run with all the TVs [3] DVD players [4] projector, amp and speakers [including a big bass thing which shakes the rivets out of the girders] It all worked excellently, and the FortDax music was stunning.

Tomorrow we put lights up so we can lose the grim glare of the fluorscent tubes.

Day Three

2006-11-15T19:03:00.000Z

Halfway through the set up, and are we halfway there?
Almost.

At least Wayne's keeping the place tidy.

A day of tatting, finishing plinths, painting them, numbering chairs - thanks Molly. People passing through seem to think the chairs are for sitting on. Fair enough I suppose. But when they get the dust... Right now I can't decide whether to put them on a plinth. A plinth would make them Art for sure, but I sort of want the ambiguity of them being on the floor so still, technically, just chairs, except fpr the dust, and the sawn off chaotic ones.

Tomorrow I want to crack the lighting, and start getting things in their final positions. Then it'll be signage and such.

Onward and Upward

Day Two

2006-11-14T22:22:00.000Z

As Day One merged almost imperceptibly with Day Two, things got more exciting in the Bates Mill Basement.

I always imagined that if I ever had a forklift truck in my studio then I would know that I'd got somewhere. Well it's not quite my studio, but maybe it means I'm getting somewhere close.

Wayne started his massive 12ft x 16ft graffiti piece today, and we all had to wear breathing apparatus.

It's 8000sq ft this space we've got, yeah, one light bulb should be enough.

The timber arrived first thing so I got stuck straight into making plinths, sawing up MDF - so we all had to wear breathing apparatus. Then Tristram, who pretty well knows one end of a nail from the other, built me a big screen for the film: 2000mm x 3500mm. I did a test projection and it looked good.

It's all coming together.
Mind you I still haven't ordered the graphics.
Damn!
Must get on to that tomorrow.
so much to do...

Day One

2006-11-13T20:07:00.000Z

It felt like we were meeting for a bank job. The shutters rattled up and we drove the vans in. All that was missing was a blackboard with a plan on it, oh, and Michael Caine.

Two trips to each of our studios to get the work and all the stuff needed to turn a basement into a gallery in five days.

Darren who??

2006-11-12T19:38:00.000Z

UPDATE: Just had an e-mail from FortDax, who has kindly let me use his superb music: Horizon Seven-Seven, for one of my film pieces, and he points out that I referred to him as Darren Brown in a previous post, not, as it should have been: Darren Durham. This could of course be a tricky illusion on the part of said Brown, but I suspect it was just a momentary mental aberration on the part of a Narrative Expressionist. Apologies to Darren.

But things don't get any better on the posters it reads Fortdax instead of FortDax ... aaaaarrrrrggghhh! sorry

Sound Engineering

2006-11-12T18:29:00.000Z

Just come back from working with the wonderful Ninon Foiret in Leeds who has been laying down a soundscape for the middle sequence of the Chair in the Air piece. Here's a clip:

There are three sequences that run simultaneously CHAOS POSSIBILITY AND CERTAINTY.

bit like life...

cutting a chair in half

2006-11-12T10:18:00.000Z

A tricky problem. How to cut a chair in half so that it looks like it's sunk into the ground. Marking out a line round the legs so it's all level.

I imagined some huge Goldfinger-death-ray device that I could strap the chair to and wind it closer and closer to the beam before it cuts its way inexorably through the soft wood.

"Do you expect me to talk, Goldfinger?"
"No I expect you to die, Mr Bond."

Meanwhile back in reality, I thought about the sexyly titled, Bond-worthy, Plasma Cutter, that sounded the sort of thing, and Billy has one, but then Jim told me it was just a fancy [very fancy] welding torch, and not the laser beam death-ray I was hoping for.

Apparently making the film they used an oxy-acetylene torch to emulate the laser ray cutting the steel. A man sat under the table with the welding torch [and goggles of course] while a stunt double lay strapped on the table. The only thing between him and a distinct fall off in his night-life was a chalk mark on the underside of the steel, where the welder was to leave off cutting.

Anyway, back to the chairs, Mike, who makes violins for a living and so knows all about cutting chairs in half, suggested a big bath of inky water dip the chair in at the desired angle and the resultant tide-mark is the cutting line. Brilliant! Only thing is I don't have a bath, and it simply didn't work in the shower.

So I reverted to the Schoolboy Woodwork Method of marking things out with a pencil and projecting the lines with a steel ruler and generally setting angles and bisecting azimuths. It seemed to work.

layer on layer

2006-11-11T16:26:00.000Z

The dance film, featuring the music of Darren Durham [aka FortDax] and the dancing of Rachel Brooker, is getting there, layer by layer. But when working in Final Cut Motion Graphics the rendering takes an age.

[so you can write blogs while a particularly complex sequence is getting the treatment]

nearer and nearer

2006-11-09T09:19:00.000Z

The last few days in the studio before we move into the space and start putting the show together.

I'm still editing the films - nothing like working up to the wire.
Also today I need to get all the graphics specified and away to the printers.

location location location

2006-11-07T09:55:00.000Z

This is the place.

This is where the event will take place.
This is 8000 sq ft of empty basement.
Soon to be the first Narrative Expressionist Event
MAXIMALISM

film stills

2006-11-06T14:10:00.000Z

text painted on the dancer,
text projected onto the dancer,
text layered on digitally in the edit.

but what does it all mean?

come and see the show
and find out

fire safety

2006-11-03T17:10:00.000Z

For reasons known only to the quiet voice in my head, I want to set fire to a chair.

Well okay, for the chair film if you must know.

So I rang the Fire Safety Officer at the local Fire Station. Unaccustomed to giving advice about how to set fire to things he wasn't much help. He suggested petroleum jelly, which, after several experiments, I found entirely incombustible. I shall have to try other flammable substances, paraffin would be good I feel though it's a bugger to get hold of these days. The thing is, you see, I don't want a conflagration - a ball of flame - I want a burning chair.

Well I shall venture out into the dark night and play with matches, er, I mean: experiment. All scientific and safe, white coats goggles and welding gloves - and matches mwah hah hah hah...

Here's what it looks like before the inferno:

The Enwhitenment

2006-11-02T12:28:00.000Z

Bit like The Enlightenment, but with more white paint.

when the going gets technical

2006-10-31T20:14:00.000Z

Things are starting to get technical at the studio,

wiring and monitors for the Chair in the Air film sequence.

and some specifications for the metal workers to weld up some stands.

Still a lot to do and a long way to go and not much time to do it, but it'll all come together onthe night.

Markwort and Coombes

2006-10-30T16:01:00.000Z

but not necessarily in that order

a stack of reality

2006-10-28T22:52:00.000Z

With just under three weeks to go before the opening the work load steps up a notch.

As well as editing the films I'm showing, I'm now starting in on the installations.

18 chairs...

just a moment of absolute certainty

2006-10-24T15:23:00.000Z

Not Minimalism

2006-10-23T15:42:00.000Z

This isn't minimalism, nor is it conceptualism.

And it isn't Simon Pope's empty gallery where you have to do all the work yourself by remembering what you may have seen in other galleries. Here's the opening night.

Indeed why bother going to Mr Popes "exhibition" at all? Better to remember other exhibitions in the comfort of your own home, in an arm chair with a cup of tea and a sweet biscuit perhaps, and forget Simon Pope.

Large amounts of money have changed hands for this event, quoting from the Chapter Arts Centre website: "this exhibition has received generous financial support from the arts council of Wales". Large amounts of money for doing nothing else but thinking. [And while we"re on the subject what an awful photograph and appalling type.]

Maximalism has not received any money from the Arts Council, England.
Maximalism will have a lot of things to look at and some things to remember we hope.

a clip of Becoming Unstuck the dance

2006-10-22T21:11:00.000Z

a test transmission using an excerpt of one of the films to be screened at the Maximalism event.

A period of uncertainty

2006-10-21T21:06:00.000Z

A period of uncertainty which itself includes certain fields of possibility:

Narrative Aphorisms

2006-10-21T10:00:00.000Z

Narrative Expressionists actually do stuff, not just talk about it

Narrative Expressionists do stuff for themselves, not for their family, their friends - or for you

Narrative Expressionists are self-centred egotists

Narrative Expressionists are passionate creators

Narrative Expressionists don't know the meaning of the word administration

Narrative Expressionists aren't necessarily nice people

Narrative Expressionists have no formal language

Narrative Expressionists do what the fuck they want, when they want, where they want

in the beginning was the blackboard

2006-10-19T16:56:00.000Z

click the image to see a bigger version

we said we would and we are

2006-10-17T21:31:00.000Z