2002 – 2005
(MA Textile Culture 2002 - 2003)
The white shirt is an everyday and ordinary object. Its simplicity on investigation reaches into complex questions concerning production, labour, value and the human-machine relationship. It is a metaphor for wider contextual debates involving distinctions between art, fashion, architecture and cultural issues pertaining to exclusivity, identity and belonging. The white shirt has been re-presented and re-worked within a series of explorations unravelling the intestacies between hand, eye, brain, body and machine.
Installation at Inkpen Downie Architecture Practice and Gallery, Colchester
Left to right:
Collar 2003 computer aided drawing (30cm x 21cm)
Finger Collars 2003 neoprene architectural prototype (7cm x 27cm x 4cm)
Ring 2003 neoprene architectural prototype (30cm diameter x 25cm)
Pagoda 2003 neoprene architectural prototype (10cm diameter x 21cm)
Pagoda on Finger Print 2005 drawing (30cm x 21cm)
Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Western Australia
Visual presentation Video Triptych at Perth Institute of Contemporary Art
The creation of hybrid composites of human and machine labour bridge existing categories of what it means for an object to be hand made. All tools can be classified as prosthetics and as such can be discussed along comparable lines. As an addition to the body the needle is no different to the computer on a basic level. It is perhaps the status that is differently perceived with the needle and thread having a traditional value, with its historical contextual references. New technologies have a contemporary value locating them and their users at the cutting edge of scientific invention. It is the alliance of these differing prosthetics, historical and contemporary that creates a position in art practice which bridges the fields of skill and knowledge. In bringing them together a response to the question: What is it that constitutes something being classed as ‘hand’ made? is presented.
Gray’s School of Art, Aberdeen, Scotland
Research paper 14 Person Minutes
Through theoretical and practical investigations the ordinariness of the white shirt became transformed into extraordinariness, the transformation effected by the crossing of boundaries between art, textiles, sculpture and architecture. The shifting medium of working, between traditional hand skills and technological processes retained the constant of white from the original shirt as an anchor point on which to pivot the expanding concepts. Working through purchasing and unpicking, subverting and documenting, a key question developed: Does being a ‘hand’ maker inhibit practice? This expanded into: What is it that constitutes something being classed as ‘hand’ made? To finally: What is a person minute?
The installation and paper Fourteen Person Minutes is offered as a current outcome to the questions above, a series of experiments which pose questions to the viewer: What is a person minute? : What might be hand made and what might be machine processed? In retaining the hand made and utilising it within a combination of practices, using both traditional and new technological tools, new fields of practice emerge.
Masters Project Installation MA Textile Culture, Norwich School of Art and Design
14 Person Minutes makes references to the time and motion studies undertaken in industrial settings. Here the term is applied to art practice with a view to elucidating the artists interest in the value of technological and hand labour. With 14 workstations presenting a number of works ranging from manufactured components to the artist’s hand made objects and technologically processed works the viewer is asked to consider What is a person minute? and how can the value contained in each example be evaluated.
Left to Right:
14 person minutes 2003 installation view (dimensions variable)
Two Prosthetics 2003 digital image (15cm x 21cm)
Thread Needles 2003 film photography (15 x 21cm)
Finger Collars 2003 composite drawing (21cm x 15cm)
14 Person Minutes 2003 Installation view showing Video Triptych
Featured in the 14 Person Minutes installation
Video Triptych is a series of ambiguous moving images. Is the movement generated by human (traditional) or mechanical (technological) means? A traditional tool performs to camera creating a new position for the needle and thread. Replacing its traditional function, the object has become through technological processes a platform on which to discuss modes of production. The alliance of differing prosthetics creates a position within contemporary art that bridges field of skill and knowledge. This video work is a response to the question: What might be hand made and what might be machine processed?
Video Triptych 2003 video (2 minutes 30 seconds)
The shift of white collars to architectural possibilities was prompted by the notion of clothing being described as architecture for the body. This raised the question: What if clothing were architecture? Collaborating with artist Graham Mack, allowed the work to depart from the textile and emerge in the realms of virtual space. The animations act as an extension and translation of the white collar whilst being separate from it.
Stack 2003 neoprene architectural prototype (65cm x 28cm x 10cm)
Stack 2003 commissioned animation by Graham Mack (30 seconds)
Opera 2003 neoprene architectural prototype (30cm diameter x 10cm)
Opera 2003 commissioned animation by Graham Mack (30 seconds)
The territory between the hand made and the technological is explored in Finger Collars. Does being a hand maker inhibit practice? The video camera occupies a position created by the activity, that is to say encircled by the arms. To create a work that showed an accumulative effect hands movements were pared down to their most basic. Stitch originates in the threading of a needle and the tying of an end knot. This work considers if practice is being confined by being a hand maker. Carrying out the threading action with progressive disablement facilitated by the Finger Collars created a new set of movements. This inhibiting of the making process asks the viewer to consider why someone would put themselves through this awkward and time consuming task. It is indeed this question the maker asks, why retain these hand-making processes within practice? The work also questions what it is that constitutes something being classified as hand made? By carrying out the same task over and over through out the duration of the piece, the identification of repetitive action presents itself.
Finger Collars 2003 video (14 minutes)
MA Textile Culture study was supported by an Arts and Humanities Research Council Studentship 2002 - 2003