Tutorial one...

Another good chat with Andrew Sneddon. The gist of the thing was that I just need to nail it... which once written down is incredibly vague again... Being able to say this is what I do/what i am doing with certainty rather than it all being up in the air. Being able say what the point of the work is/what I'm investigating. All of which is kind of there but just needs nailing down... so that's what I need to do, nail it. We agreed that trying to arrange a graphic design crit was a good idea and would open me up to criticism in a way that might help me nail it... By nailing it I find it easier to decide how best to approach making the work and how to best define my role/position within the work. Nailing it is about articulation and clarity. We talked about Daniel Buren and Peter Liversidge and the Simon Starling work currently at Ingleby, which I may write about anon... That's about all I can say for now...

Untitled (black & white dice) 2010. Peter Liversidge

Daniel Buren

When is the same different? and vis-versa...

One man failing to balance on an upended brick for any notable period of time.

The pub/Arno/graphic design...

After a bit of a let down day last week, (involving unwanted walls appearing in my studio and other real estate issues that I thought I'd avoided but always have a way of cropping up at the start of the year), I ended up in the Blazer chatting with Arno Verhoeven from the school of Design about my posters. Why don't I talk to graphic design students about the posters? Don't you love those questions so blindingly obvious that once asked you wonder why never thought of them. I now intend to contact Zoe Patterson, the head of the graphic design department, to discuss the posiblity of arranging some sort of inter-school crit with post grad design students in a way that will hopefully be of mutual benifit. I have also been toying with the idea that this could be some sort of workshop, that is, that if the crit was held in C02 it could be open for spectators who may also benifit from the wisdom of design students... I don't know it's all pie in the sky at the minute but it's an idea and one worth following up!

First Seminar... a quick note.

First seminar of the second year was straight forward I thought. A rough overview of, (at least one definition of), visual cultures with more detailed discussions to follow. Next Seminar we will each, (in small groups of 3 or 4), make 15 presentations on set texts. My text is Notes on Camp by Susan Sontag. There was no real discussion about what the presentation should be exactly but I guess we should be able to figure that out by now. I've had a read through the text and figure we should start by explaining what we gather Sontag is doing, (defining camp), and then have a stab at explaining how we think she's doing it, (in this case mainly giving lists of examples of things that are camp followed by things that you might think are camp but actually aren't). Finally we should point out any problems we have with the text and open this up for discussion with the rest of the group... (camp is purely aesthetic, apolitical and acritical, apparently). I have yet to arrange a meeting with the other three members of my reading group to find out what they think...

Two people stood on a chair for one hour.

Ask your family... (used)

Susie's description of what I do, installed on the back of the door in C02

Ask your family... (unused)

Neil's first project of the year: Ask your family to describe what you do and present it in C02 so everyone else can read it... I asked my Mum, Dad and Sister to do this as well as Susie. On further description of this task, Neil then pointed out that only one persons description was necessary and that the point in a way is that people would get an idea of what you do but not in your words... I appreciated the efforts of family greatly but if this is a task designed to present a description of your work to people who don't know it surely you choose the person who writes about art for a living, so I did. As I have said though, I do greatly appreciate the efforts of my family and so I thought I'd publish their writings here for all to see. It is always an interesting exercise listening to somebody else describe what they think you do and what they think is important...

Andrew is an individual of his art and is not afraid of pushing boundaries. He is always challenging himself to explore his imagination and let his mind take him on an adventure.

What I find especially interesting and exciting is there is no specific genre. He is willing and confident in his thoughts, ideas and ability to put these into practice either alone or by enlisting help, e.g. standing on posts, magic tricks. He does though thrive on interaction and is not fazed by criticism, usually finding an answer to it and taking a positive out of it. (Mum).

I think Andrew creates and develops art that challenges people’s perception of what art is. He explores the concept of visual and performance art and at the minute, for me, borders on creating theatrical performances. His work presents a skill, however simple (standing on an object for a period of time), for an audience to observe. His work is site-specific and always unique – the performance work has the potential to succeed or fail and therefore has a risk factor. His work is not replicable for this reason – if the work was recreated it would always be different, as the elements of the performance can never be exactly the same.  

I think his work is imaginative, visually interesting and expresses an alternative way of thinking about how everyday objects, settings and actions can be placed together to create art. (Sister).

Ever since Andrew branched out to the modern side of art I've never understood what he is creating as his artwork, but I know that it is his work. He has always put his thoughts & beliefs into his practice. (Dad).