Manifesto Piece

Creating a piece for the manifesto was fun, I wanted to do something which I felt would embody the idea of a manifesto. What made me decide to do the piece “Authenticity and Meaning” was a series of ideas that initially based on a lecture from Augustus Casely-Hayford, he said something about people searching for ‘authenticity and meaning’ in the world, and things around them, as though somehow this is an aspect of our lives that we loose through over- exposure to life and it’s objects.

I know that this is something that I experience, kind of loosing the thread. So I thought if I could ‘harness’ the idea of authenticity and meaning, then I would solve the problem, sort of new world order!! The other thing that he talked about was how the with the advent of the internet, our lives have changed and will continue to do so. With people living their lives vicariously through the internet, achieving both good and bad results.

So I had the phrase ‘authenticity and meaning’ and a computer, I wanted to portray this idea of suddenly understanding, which is why in the end I chose to use lights which would only appear when you typed in the keyboard.


Initially I wanted to do a wooden copy of my keyboard, because it’s really cool looking - and of course part of my mac. This would represent ‘good design’, but instead I ended up going for an old keyboard which could be dismantled and rewired (...!?..)

The words A&M link into my interest of language, and semiotics. For example going to the dictionary and looking up the word ‘meaning’, you come back with a definition, and then, putting ‘meaning’ into the thesaurus, you come up with a series of alternatives and of course they are all different, and change the way you can understand something.

And it is interesting because Heidegger said:

Man acts as though he were the shaper and master of language, while in fact language remains the master of man.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/martin_heidegger.html

Which means that when we think, the thoughts don’t magically attach words, the words magically attach thoughts. All very convoluted.

This is a piece by Robert Smithson, called ‘A Heap of Language’


'...it appears not as an objet d¹art but as a piece of "writing," occupying the same page as a text entitled: "Press Release / Language to be Looked at and/or Things to be Read"-a pairing also observed by Jack Flam's more recent edition of Smithson's "Collected Writings". Thus: depending on the frame or context one wants to bring to it, "A Heap of Language" can be viewed either as an artwork or as a wordwork, as an "essay" or an "illustration." Or as both, for Smithson¹s playful chiasma-"Language to be Looked at/Things to be Read"-asks us to engage in a crossover in which reading and looking, language and things dialectically reverse positions.'

‘A Heap of Language: Robert Smithson and American Hieroglyphic by Richard Sieburth, Professor of French and Comparative Literature, New York University ‘ http://www.robertsmithson.com/essays/heap.htm

It is one of my favourite pieces because Robert Smithson has managed to express himself and his beliefs through his art, which must be the aim. As well as that I can really identify with the work because I feel that he has already said a lot of the things which I think and believe.

My sister got an Etch a Sketch for xmas off her husband because it was one of the toys she always remembered as a kid and we played on it, I think it reinforced my idea of using a computer to convey the message ‘A&M’


My final piece was made up of latex canvas, acrylic laser cut letters, metal, wood, light bulbs, keyboard and electricity. Making the words ‘pop out‘ was a big thing and which is why I decided to use the latex. The words were not spelt properly, to illustrate the ‘search‘.... for authenticity and meaning, as well as this although the keys of the keyboard would make the lights work, only a few of them did, and these were the letters which illuminated the piece; WHAT IS.

I especially liked the stretched canvas, and the letters popping out.


With the lights on

It was great fun using the lights in the work, making them key to the piece, so that they were integral in the understanding of it.

Writing the manfesto itself was also fun, but all I had was a scrappy bit of paper with ideas on it, which I couldn't seem to improve. So in the name of art I decided to exploit the fact, and below is the final draft:


Although I spoke about environmentally friendly design in my manifesto, I don't think that my piece necessarily fell into this category because the latex and the letters, are both made from plastic - so, I missed the point there a bit, but next time...

Robert Smithson and non-sites

Non-sites and my own thoughts...


This is a piece by Robert Smithson, a Land Artist who worked in the 1960’s – 70’s, his work was a mixture of gallery based projects and also land sculptures, which were collectively called ‘Earthworks’. This piece is called Spiral Hill, and it is very similar looking to the slag heaps found around 'The Eden Project' and St Austell.

Picture of 'Slag Heap's' near St Austell

Robert Smithson married Nancy Holt, also a land artist who famously produced ‘Sun Tunnels’ (1976) in Utah State, this piece recently featured on Channel 4’s “The Sculpture Diaries” (14th Sept 2008.) The tunnels are concrete tubes of a nine foot diameter and eighteen feet long. The tunnels have small holes drilled into them, which apparently align to star constellations and sunsets in the winter and summer solstices.

www.clui.org
see these photos in context, "Sun Tunnels'

Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt were highly acclaimed artists, they were the forerunners of the land art movement in America, with artists such as Robert Morris, Sol Lewitt and Donald Judd. These artists were generally known as minimalists and conceptual artists, often working with ideas to do with perception, society and philosophy stripping ideas back to the minimum and representing these in their sculptures. Their works reflect aspects of current opinion not dissimilar to today’s artists working with provocative social ideas. At the time of Spiral Jetty and Spiral Hill Robert Smithson was making links between industrialisation and land use, for example in an interview with Moria Roth, he describes his own understanding of Non-Sites.

“Non-Sites are the actualisation of the dialectic between the site and the non-site”

page 92 Robert Smithson

Non-sites can be interpreted as areas of land which have no use, due to the fact that they are a throw back of industry – through using land in an industrial way, for example in mining, the wreckage that is left does not lend itself to any kind of renewal. Huge amounts of money and labour would be needed to regenerate areas such as this. Non-sites can also be understood as areas either physical or mental which do not fall into any description bracket, somehow intangible.

Trying to find the links between my ideas and my history has always been quite confusing, but I just remembered a fact, stupidly because it has been staring me in the face for the last however many years. I was brought up in Warwickshire next to the Grand Union Canal, and my father lived in the nearby village of Long Itchington. En-route between my mum’s home and my father’s home was a village called Stockton, it’s only claim to fame – The Cement Works and Cally Pits. Both of these locations were quarries, The Cement Works, was originally called Nelson Cement Works, then later bought out by Rugby Cement. Cally Pits is in Stockton, and separate from Rugby Cement, but at some point the two could have been connected as they are about 1 mile apart.



Veiw of the lake at Cally Pits, the concrete structure in the middle is part of the old workings of the site - maybe a water tower. Below is a close up image.


These pictures are taken from a photographic website; http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/40380

View of ‘The Cement Works’ from the ‘Blue Lias’ at Stockton. The chimney in the background is part of the Cement Works and can be seen from miles around. The Cement Works are now being redeveloped into a recycling site which will provide energy to power the nearby Rugby Cement. When looking from the road you can see how big the quarries are, and dotted all around the area for miles are similar flooded quarries, obvilousley a relic from the past.
Having grown up with fields, and as a kid played in the area I am not surprised that the landscape has left some kind of imprint. Where I lived was quite remote so I instead of going and messing around in town I would end up in a field or on the canal with my sisters stepping in ditches - kind of annoying at the time because I did want to be in town, but looking back it was fun.