and a final nod to Sol LeWitt...

So the moment of execution came and tensions were present.
In an attempt to step out of the chaos we had created through our over-complicated attempt to reference every idea we ever had, we had stripped the piece back to virtually nothing, and discontent hovered over the group.
The idea to create a frame on the glass as a commentary on how, in the group process, we looked but maybe did not see, felt insubstantial. Writing a commentary on the process felt inadequate. We wanted more visual impact.
Having tested out drawing some geometric shapes on glass using coloured tape, I showed the group some pictures. Immediately we had a resolution. A nod and a wink to Sol LeWitt, for whom the three of us carried a torch. Our absent member's objections no longer present, this was free to unfold.
We enjoyed how the piece could be viewed from inside and out, the coloured cube extending the work beyond the White Cube, exploiting and enhancing the qualities of the window that had always been our intention.
Our textual summation of the process ties it up. Research, radical editing, spontaneous execution. Feels good.        

   Tracey

I have thought of these words to describe the experience we had working as a group of artists and the outcome that was a result .
We have somewhat proved that if process is backed up by enough research and theory that it will all come out good in the end.
The conclusion is the process and the process is the conclusion.
We developed three simple designs that signify the experience that we had as three artists working as a group.
The result was a simplified version of the research and ideas that we had it also puts the thoughts that we had into practice.
Katy

So friday is the day for setting up the exhibition and i am somewhat exited.
I like the idea of simply framing the experience and the conclusion of the things we have done.
It may be interesting to have information on display that describes our final collaboration as artists in a way that is both engaging and efficient.
 An effective way of describing our work as a group in one final piece .
A type of translation.

Katy

framing our ideas...

Some try outs of the tape/window business.
 

I do like the coloured tape effect on the glass with the light coming through. Sol LeWitt man, keeps penetrating our thoughts!
 
Tracey

group tutorial 30 April

First things first, DB - hope you feeling better mate. Pedro - you OK? Give us a sign.

Feedback from our presentation from David Price was good.We conveyed well how we worked together as a group, and used the presentation as a way of trying to resolve our outcome.
    
Katy and I has useful discussion with DP re. resolving our project outcome:

• We both voiced some unease with where the project is right now. 
• Feels maybe too complex - trying to include too many elements? Outcome could look confused and messy - participation/ performance drawing/ a game/ drawing instructions/use of the window.
• Katy and I asked - is it feasible to liberate ourselves from some of these former ideas? Simplify the project. DP advised yes this is perfectly acceptable, if based on a process of research and testing and elimination. DP suggested e.g. that the participation issue has consistently caused us problems, so it would be fine to drop it.
• We thought about one element of our research that has been consistent from the beginning - the use of the window.
• Is the window a metaphor for our group's process... its qualities are transparency/ nothingness....it is a lens for looking...a frame on the world....a surface for reflecting.   
• Have we been looking but not seeing?
• DP thought a conceptual work using our group process and our final indecision could be simple and effective. Surrender to our indecision as the outcome.   
• We thought of e.g. creating a frame on the window with tape as a means of inviting people to look, really look.  
• DP suggested some simple written text, or random words in paper that makes reference to our group process e.g. printed and left in a pile for visitors to take/ read.    
• ...or some simple text written on the glass by each of us about the indecision being the resolution of this project. 
• I like the idea of freezing the project in this way, freezing our discomfort and inviting others to share this. This feels like a way of resolving the process.  
• Mmmm...the more I think on it the more I like it. .
• Thoughts?

Tracey

pigment marker on window

Testing white pigment marker on window...I have white pens only...gives good strong effect, however it is permanent! I guess white spirit would get it off. For now this text is staying on my window!

Re. use of window and the many different elements in our project - I am feeling a bit itchy about it.

• Are we trying to incorporate too many elements?
• Are we trying to make our ideas all fit in to our idea of  a joint work?
• Could we simplify?

Tracey  

some window action

Testing out marker pens on window....what I found:

• black pen gives good strong mark 
• colour pens give much weaker mark and give translucent effect
• all pens including permanent markers wipe off easily

I am gonna get pigment marker and try out. In our research some really good effects were achieved by using white pigment markers on glass.

Tracey

 

     

between chance and choice

• Chance operations in art emerged in the 1920 with the Dadaists. Duchamp a big fan of using chance possibilities to explore the production of new creative possibilities that challenged ideas of order and reason.

• John Cage used the I Ching (Chinese Book of Changes) to determine pathways for his work. Other artists incorporating chance, relinguishing a degree of control to determine outcomes in their practice, Merce Cunningham, Jackson Pollock, Ellsworth Kelly.

• The work below, 'Providence Diastic' 2008 by Clement Valla, references American poet Jackson Mac Lowe’s systematic, chance-based ”diastic" poetry. Mac Lowe would select a key phrase, then read the text until he found a word whose first letter matched the first letter of the key phrase. He would then keep reading until he found a word whose second letter was the same as the second letter in the key phrase, then a 
word whose third letter matched, and so on. Using the letters in ‘Providence,’ Valla created a diastic poem using words found on billboards and signs around the city. The resulting text is a chance based selection of found words from the city itself.

Tracey

progress from pre-Easter meet...

 Summary of our meeting in which we tried to pin down our intentions:

• Participation - all agree we want to involve visitors. 
• Script of some kind for participants - all agree. 
• Much discussion on Sol LeWitt. Some of group keen on reproducing one of his wall drawings. Others did not feel this was sufficiently 'original', so we dropped this idea.  
• Group process - we agreed we all need to be in favour of an idea to progress it.
• Drawing surface - use window. 
• Create grid using tape on window - masking tape, electrical tape, use of colours? Grid will create boundaries for visitors to draw within. Grid could be asymmetric, does not have to be uniform.
• Design drawing instructions. These are about putting parameters around the drawing  e.g. do your best writing with your other hand, draw with your hand tied together with one other person.   
• Drawing instructions - do they need to be thematically linked? My personal view (TS) is a very strong yes, that there needs to be a link to give the piece coherence e.g. drawing with constraints imposed. Not everyone agreed with this, and thought we should use random instructions.
• A game of chance - we got quite excited about idea of turning this into a game, so visitors would select their drawing instruction by e.g. throwing a dice. In that case there would be 6 instructions. Make a huge dice! 

       Tracey

'A Practical Guide for Temporary Exhibitions'

Found this book (Ed. Andrea P. Stevens, 1991, Smithsonian Institution) on organising temporary exhibitions. It suggests to consider the impact of the exhibition on visitors. Impact on participants?

• Behavioural Objective: how do you want visitors to change from the time they enter to the time they leave the exhibit?
• Content Objective: what questions should visitors be able to answer after visiting the exhibit? 

Tracey

 

throwing a net round the ideas...

These seem to be themes/tensions/interests emerging from our research so far: 

• drawing as performance
• using real time and space (window) in gallery 
• mapping on window; inside/outside?
• drawing as dance/choreography
• imposing constraints/limitations on drawing
• participation of gallery attendees
• how to 'manage' participation? freedom to create versus provide script/instructions?
• recording on the day - film?
• manipulate or re-work the drawing outcome in some way, as performance?

enough already!

Tracey

Write left hand and without looking

Examples of writing with constraints imposed - writing with great difficulty using my other (left) hand....and writing without looking.
The outcomes are like the writing of children - the intense concentration needed to write with my other hand reminded me of child's intense concentration when trying to do best handwriting too.
Tracey

 

Mix Motion debuted a custom built live drawing and animation tool during the Beats, Breaks, and Culture festival at the Harbour Front Centre in Toronto.

 And when it's over we just peel it!!! ta tan!

 And once it's dry we can use markers on top of the painting, maybe we can do the paint and let it dry and in the evening give the public the markers

A

I rolled only one colour  but we can do more as you can see depending on the background light the paint has different hues.

 then i put a bit of ink in a acrilic and i rolled it

this is the way it looks before you blow dry it

this is the way it looks once is ready, it doesn't have to go all the way to the frames of the window

It comes with some sort of celotape with with glue on both sides, first you put the tape and then you stick the plastic with a hair dryer.

Painting on the glass!!!!!!! (An idea with example)

this is the plastic i shown you the other day, i have  like three meters at home. Let me show you how it works

Pedro

Chocolate Topping. Sorry that was chocolate topping not chocolate tapping that was a mistake on my part.

Shadow Dance chocolate drawing students from 2nd year diploma in fine art Nepean College in 2009 Western Sydney Institute working on a large scale coolbrative drawing made from chocolate ice cream and tapping and olive oil on 300sm watercolor paper.The drawing is 3 metres in height x 4 metres and is based on the drypoint etching Shaddow Dance by Martin Lewis who was an Australian born American Artist.The project was devised and facilitated by drawing teacher Di Holdsworth

More Sol LeWitt

I like the idea of using Sol LeWitt as a model, even using some of his drawing instructions?
This seems to manage the question of involving participants in a very structured way i.e. do exactly what I say! Inviting people to participate seems to have no middle ground - either "Here are the materials, express yourself", or the Sol LeWitt School of Stalinism. I am for Stalinism every time!   
I attach pic of instructions for LeWitt’s Wall Drawing #541, a sequence of four isometric cubes. 
After all, contemporary art is sooo much about appropriation. As DB suggested, we could devise our own set of instructions. They could be audio, so example, rather than written?


Tracey

I hope im not going on and on.

I have been looking at Sol Lewitt's wall drawings and although I am unsure on whether they are meant to be performance drawings (I don't think they were performed in front of people but he had other people doing the work normally to quite strict instruction, so in my mind it is). I think they would work very well as performance pieces. We could instruct people and each other to make certain marks, different people making different marks. All drawing over one another and trying to find space. Please stop me if you lot feel I am putting to broad a range or too many ideas up, but at the moment I really feel there are more questions than answers.

DB

Another dance infused piece.

'Pass' is a collaboration between Australian artist Rochelle Haley, Swiss choreographer Marion Ruchti and French dancer Sarath Amarasingam. The art performance involves live drawing that is based on, as well as instructs, the improvisation of two dancers. It is a process whereby movement becomes matter that is passed between dancers and artist through both trace and gesture.

It seems the more I look the more dance/ drawing performanes are popping up. I think if we go down the participatory route then dance will be difficult, but I suppose we dont have to really dance just over exaggerate our movements to make the performance more intersting.

DB

Jane Grisewood

I think this artist also worked on the drawn together project.

Line Dialogues is a series of collaborative live performance drawings exploring movement and process, repetition and obsession. Working with Canadian artist Carali McCall, the performances evolved out of shared concerns in our drawing practice while research students at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Creating large wall drawings of different durations, we record temporality and presence while challenging endurance and responding to the mood, sounds and architecture of the spaces. With total corporeal involvement in the repetitive motion, the body becomes transformed into a sculptural object moving through the space.

DB

Rebeca Horn again, doing her thing...

Rebecca Horn, Pencil Mask, 1972

I lurve Rebecca Horn, a German performance and installation artist. She is very involved with extending her body with prosthetics in her performance work.

Many of the references we have found for performance drawing so far seem very connected with choreography, where the act of drawing itself is a form of dance. A kinetic flow, a kind of conversation between the body and the mark, and sometimes the body's movement itself is the mark.

Rebecca Horn's prosthetics are altering and compromising the flow of the body's movement. I love the idea of the restrictions and alterations that this would impose on drawing. I would love to do something working with prosthetic body parts and drawing! It would be fun, honest! OK, maybe not the gimp mask for a family show!

Check out some of Rebecca's Horn fantabulous creations...

Tracey    

hey guys even though i haven't been over her at all i've been working on What a window can offer, i've been going around with my camera looking for thing on windows,, not so much on what is inside the window but on what is on its surface, the reflections.

On Windows By pedro

HEY

A Participatory Event

Drawn to the Beat is a participatory event, exploring the possibilities and contradictions of negotiating a solitary, internal perception and shared acts of creativity through drawing music. One evening in January 2011, 100 participants arrived at the live music venue Band on the Wall in Manchester to find I had covered the floor in giant rolls of paper. Ultimately left to their own devices, the participants took to the floor, drawing in response to an eclectic mix of music from DJ’s played through silent disco headsets, and from live musicians. This event was funded by Arts Council England.

http://vimeo.com/22116637

DB