After a long pause

I havent left a post in a long time so Ill try to sum up what Ive been researching quickly. I started off looking into traps and from there I was led to fishing. My research revolved mostly around the question 'how do you know if youve been caught?' for quite a while. I wanted to make an autonomous object that would predict a persons actions, warn them against it but still be able to offer something to the viewer when they didnt heed this advice and so showing them they had less control over their actions than they thought. This led to a little research into health and safety, ethics in art and a testing of the responsibilities of the creator of such a trap. This resulted in a small box containing razor blades with a warning on the front viewed by myself, though I was also in a trap being unable to move inside a small wooden box with only a small hole to view and only my voice to stop people from cutting themselves.

After this I realised that control was a major theme of my research and started looking into behavioural control and mind control. I started to look into nitrous oxide gas as a way of controlling peoples happiness. In order to continue this research I have started to look into happiness.

I believe that what I want to create are things that make people happy, though Im aware of how diverse that word can be. Im still not sure if I want to be able to console people, make them laugh, or anything in between or mixed together.

If you dont know if youre happy, perhaps we can begin here: Oxford Happiness Test 

Mazes

Created as maze today and numbered each choice of turn differently so that people could choose which way to turn by being given two numbers to choose from. This way people wont be able to see the maze but will instead have to imagine it or figure it out from memory and elimination. I tested a few people on it and plan to draw up diagrams of their movements through the maze. The other notable thing was that I didnt conduct this as a proper experiment. Some people were effected by hearing other people doing it and some people werent explained the task as well as others.

Ruchill Hospital

Went for a walk with Thom today. It was rainy and about to get dark. We happened upon Ruchill Park which neither of us have been to before and then started to investigate the remains of Ruchill Hospital. We didnt try to get inside the fenced area but we saw enough to be intrigued. So after a little searching I found an excellent flickr site which not only shows details of the decomposing buildings but also contains many photos of hidden parts of Glasgow.

Finding Motivation Out of Hours

Its been a while since Ive done anything. Though my friends have assured me its not only normal but necessary to stop working I feel like I need to get back into things. However Im not entirely sure how to get back. Ive been reading some art theory and Im trying to research relational aesthetics as well as wabi sabi. So far these things have strengthened my understanding of exactly what it is that Ive been trying to do, but havent helped much in helping me know where to go. I have a few ideas left over from the last term which are art the moment a jumble of keys, mazes or journeys, affecting spacial relationships and testing liver or other natural materials to discover specific properties that can be used to manipulate them. The easiest way I can start would be to get hold of some liver and test its weight loss over time before brainstorming about what else I can test it for. Ill hopefully have more to talk about soon.

Bimbos Initiation

Crane Growth

Ive been wondering for ages how cranes are constructed. Now I know.

Point Break on Stage

self immolation

Today I was thinking about materials detriorating. There used to be cement elephants in Carluke Highstreet when I was growing up and I remember thinking that the way such a strong material fell apart was beautiful, and that it could be used to make something even more beautiful. I was thinking about sculptures within sculptures, with the outer sculpture made of a faster deteriorating material than the inner sculpture. I was also thinking about different things that cause a material to deteriorate like sea, air, fire and people. I did some small drawings of something burning as I think thats probably the quickest way to make a material deteriorate and I was reminded of some research I had done previously into self immolation, the process of commiting suicide from burning yourself to death. Im fascinated by what would drive someone to kill themsleves in this kind of way since suicide is usually seen as a quick and easy way of escaping from life (even though many suicide methods can accidentally last days, I believe theyre usually intended to be fast acting). My search eventually brought to my attention a monk who self immolated in Vietnam, caught on camera in an extremely famous photo by Malcolm Browne. For more information click the photo.

Book

These are sections from the book Im making alonside this projects main outcome. Many thanks to Lorraine for letting me use her images for the cover.

Simon Elvins

Thanks to Jamie for bringing this guy to my attention. He told me about it as the map I was putting together of bins in Cumbernauld reminded him of it.

Using a narrative

With my project coming to an end Ive been getting a little disappointed in what I consider to be a fairly shallow resolution. However, after doing a presentation on my research in which I invented a new narrative to explain everything that Ive done I realised that what I have been creating is quite an open platform for creating other narratives. So maybe if what Ive created isnt a very satisfying piece, it could be a successful start in a process in the future.

Cross species Romance/Rape

Click on the photo to get more details.

When Animals go to War

A Happy Coincidence

While helping Lorraine with her project I took some photos of her inside a large fleesed bag she had created. By a strange turn of events there were two instances in which she resembled an animal. In the first she took the form of some kind of caged ape (no offence Loz) and in the second she accidentally created a beak to look like a crouched bird figure.

A Day of Bin Hunting

Having had a limited amount of success finding animal bins in Glasgow I turned my attention to Cumbernauld, knowing that there are a lot of primary schools there where I may find an animal bin or two. My mother was kind enough to give me a lift around town. We waited till the schools were out before going and started with the schools my Mum knows since she is the school chaplain. They were nice enough there to give me a mildly absurd letter of introduction should any later schools doubt our identities or intentions.


A few of the 15 schools we visited didnt have animal bins, but on the whole it was a very successful. I counted 34 bins in total. Staff at the schools were all very friendly and helpful. There was however still a strange sense of stepping over a line. With the children having gone home these should have just seemed like every other building, but I still felt wary and in need of permission on every site. There was even one school where the cleaning ladies didnt want to give their permission so they fetched a teacher. She apologised that she wasnt sure if it was a good idea. It was her first year in the job and she was worried about any implications it might have if she allowed us to. I dont blame her at all but I couldnt help think its a good example of the overbearing security that is in place in schools these days.

As for the hippo bins, the photos should be available on my flickr site which Ive added a link to from this page. However Ive yet to get over a few problems with uploading images before they will be on.

Ned Sculpture?

While taking photos of a wooded area in Cumbernauld I came across these sculpted objects. Im not sure if they were all made by the same person or if its some strange coincidence, but theyre all very close by.

The Fruit Market

After enquiring in a florists about floral foam (the green foam used to make flower arrangements) I was told to visit the fruit market. I plan to use the foam as the second material for the unfinished animal bin Im making. On my first visit to the market I was too late. All the shops were shut so I had to return another day. It was still an interesting place, with lots of packaging and unsold fruit left out to rot. I left and went to another florists who was good enough to give me some floral foam to experiment on. I discovered that it was very easy to carve and it stuck together well with super glue, even being carveable between seams. Also, when I kneaded the off cuts, the started to look like moss. So perhaps I can make it look as if the bin is made from moss and wood chips.


The next day I returned to the fruit market early where I was able to buy large bricks of floral foam from a very helpful guy at a shop called S.F.P.C.

The plan so far

Im afraid this isnt a good image but its an attempt to show what I intend to make. The table Ive been working at will become a workshop to produce animal bins. Im going to try to suggest through map locations and pictures that these crafted bins will either replace or are already in place at the map locations. I wanted it to look like wood had been chewed then compacted to create a bin, bringing into question whether it had been made by an animal or a human. I talked to Cliff, the wood workshop technician about carving the bottom portion of bin from a single piece of wood. He very nicely told me some bad news.


Not only would this be very expensive but it would take me at least 2 months to carve. So I decided to use another material that I could insert wood into to give the effect that the second material is coating built up wood chips.

x-rays

A while ago I was experimenting with making my own x-rays using 3D carved objects and tracing paper. I like the way it looks but I doubt Ill pursue this much further at the moment.

Marcus Coates

And theres also a good interview about a similar work in Liverpool, "Journey to the Lower World"

Eva Meyer-Keller

A friend introduced me to this performance. I wish Id been able to see it. Though just having it described to me has given me ideas for similar work.

A Call To Arms!!!!!

Have you seen a novelty animal bin? These are just a few images, Ive also seen a penguin and there may be many more animal bins out there. I need to know the locations of as many as possible. If you know the whereabouts of any of these bins please leave a note of what animal the bin is and its location in the comments section linked just below this post. Please help!

Animal terrorism

Today started badly. Still recovering from illness I attempted to press on by gnawing at a piece of wood. I amassed a series of wood splinters at the cost of a lot of effort and a little pain. The hopelessness of using such a small pile of splinters to make something became a spiral into a mild kind of despair. So I did what any mildly despairing person does and went to get lunch. After lunch were tutorials in which my tutor Ken and two fellow students (Stephen and Sinead) discussed my ideas and what I had already. Their insights were so invaluable that I have now formed the majority of an idea for a final piece. Ill try to explain more in further posts but for now I hope it will suffice that I plan on creating a kind of animal terrorist cell. There will be gnawed wood, plans on the wall, crudely crafted tools and partially built novelty bins. At this point Im relying pretty heavily on humour and slightly on a more genuine suspicion of malintent created by a less humourous attention to detail. Itll be interesting to see if I can pull it off sucessfully. I also think some suspicion can come from the fact that there wont be an animal at the work station, leaving the possibility that its actually a humans work station. Again, this might be hard to strike a balance with. Images will be following shortly.

Phineas

Before Easter my friend asked me to help him to create a book as part of his coursework. My job was to create a book cover based on the phrase '2568: the repeat of civilization'. I was looking at all sorts of things to do with telling the future and eyes being a distraction to seeing the future since they always see the present. I was looking at the mythological figure of Phineas, who was gifted with being able to see the future. During this time I happened across an image which, I cant explain why, but it seemed to be just what I was looking for. There is a page dedicated to explaining the phenomena that caused this foetus, but I warn you that its not for the faint of heart. Personally though, I think its got a delicate kind of beauty to it, particularly the x-ray. Im including it here because I think it ties together the x-rays and the photos I took at the anatomy museum.

Kiki Smith

"I found this anthropomorphizing of animals interesting: the human attributes we give to animals, and the animal attributes we take on as humans to construct our identity. Im trying to think about this relationship between nature and human nature, their different objects."

Kiki Smith, 1998

Seeing hidden objects

As a way of suggesting something hidden within something Ive been looking at x-rays.

A mysterious parcel

Tony got the most wonderfully wrapped present today. Can you guess what it is?

Disguises and Trojan Objects

Im getting quite caught up in the idea of making something like Pasiphae's wooden cow. I was looking a while back at the possibility of using novelty bins in the shapes of hippos, frogs and birds as a kind of 'costume' which a human form could be fitted into.


This also seems to fit in with the idea of a kind of trojan horse or a wicker man, both of which have very different meanings, so the context of a wooden cow could easily be confused.



Fitting in with my own images of building a wooden cow using nothing but wood and my hands, I found this rather strange object online.

Something from nothing

Ive been thinking about giving myself animalistic challenges (try to make fire from whats in the room, use whats in the room to try to reach the roof). I considered that in past projects I have at times done things the hard way out of laziness for fetching the right tools. I think this could be a good approach to make work, to start with nothing and have to make something using just my hands, though I can use my hands to make tools that make it easier. Also, how would I use the wood? Would I be sticking it together? What would I stick it together with? Maybe spit would work, which is perhaps also very animalistic; Birds and wasps use spit to make nests. This got me thinking of Tenico Lemos Auad, who made creatures using nothing but carpet fluff in the 2004 becks futures show.

Making quills

I made an attempt to recreate some porcupine quills using fur and cocktail sticks. Im not particularly convinced with the results. I also discovered a piece by Janine Antoni called 'Saddle'. It seems very close to my ideas of what I should be creating.

Furries

And as an antithesis of Goofy theres the Furries.

Two-Gun Goofy

A Comic Break from the Mythology

Still on the subject of animals as humans and humans as animals, as my research seems to have developed into, I started looking at the philosophical debate over Goofy and Pluto existing in the same world. There are actually a few compelling answers here. I couldnt help thinking from the examples put forward that it sounds a little like Goofy evolved to be more human so he could court human girls. If only we could see into their hats.

Burning in the Bull

It seems that one possible explanation to the minotaur myth is that the Greeks and Romans were executing people with a 'brazen bull', creating the fear of a deadly bull character. Click here for more information.

Could You Help Me Seduce This Bull Please?

I remembered a sculpture that I found in a park in Sydney. Its a classical sculpture depicting Theseus slaying the Minotaur. The thing that particularly struck me was the hands of the minotaur. They looked so close to human hands that they made me empathise with the plight of the minotaur at its dying moment. Ill need to bear in mind the importance of details like that. I looked at the minotaur legend and found another few images. The first is from a piece of ceramics which depicts Pasiphae cradling a young minotaur. It was only when the minotaur grew to a certain size that he became so dangerous and was imprisoned in the labyrinth. Theres two things about this myth that i find of interest. The first is that Pasiphae (under the influence of an angry Poseidon) fell in love with a bull. She asked Daedalus, the master craftsman, the create her a wooden cow so that she could make love with the bull. I managed to find this painting of her getting into the cow with Daedalus aiding her. I find this absurd not only because she went to such lengths to make a bull want her, but also because Daedalus went along with this request. The second thing of interest is that Minos (The King of Crete and Pasiphaes husband) asked Daedalus to construct the Labyrinth for its imprisonment. So even though he was not responsible for either, he had a strong part in the minotaurs conception and imprisonment. I think I find this so interesting as Daedalus is such a strong example of the proverbial craftsman, instilled with a special knowledge of the way things function. Another strange twist is that Minos infuriated Poseidon which led to his wife being punished in order to punish him.
The minotaur also appears in the famously christian text of Dantes Inferno. Hes described in the following way:

Such was the downward course of that ravine;
And at the brink over the broken chasm
There lay outspread the infamy of Crete

That was conceived within the bogus cow;
And when he saw us, he bit into himself,
Like someone whom wrath tears up from inside.

My clever guide cried out to him, "Perhaps
You believe that this is the Duke of Athens
Who in the upper world contrived your death?

"Go off, you beast! this man does not approach
Instructed by your sister but comes here
In order to observe your punishments."

Just as the bull breaks loose right at that moment
When he has been dealt the fatal blow
And cannot run but jumps this way and that,

So I saw the Minotaur react —
And my quick guide called out, "Run for the pass!
While he's raging is our chance to get down!"…..

The Price of a Body These Days

Started wondering about trying to buy a real animal skin that could be mounted over a human skeleton. I checked ebay and realised that I was comparing the finacial values of animal bodies with human bodies. Although there were many human skeleton models for around £150, making them equivalently priced to the two bits of deer that I found, I was really shocked to find one with a current price of £10. I just wish I had a car to pick it up from Essex so I could bid.

Jo gets in touch with his animal instincts

I compiled a list of animal similies which Jo very kindly agreed to act out for a series of photographs. 1) Strong as an Ox 2) Cunning as a Fox 3) Like a Headless Chicken 4)Slippery as a Snake 5) Playful as a Chimp 6) Greedy as a Pig 7) Happy as a Cheshire Cat 8) Stupid as an Ass I was thinking of ways to combine these images with images of the animals being portrayed which led me to the idea of animal skeletons within human bodies or vice versa.

Vampires Werewolves and Changelings, Oh My!

Found a questionable book in the GSA library describing monsters. It said that it has been claimed that the genetic condition Porphyria may be responsible for the mythologies of werewolves and vampires. Though the symptoms of porphyria do bear a resemblance to vampire folklore, a little investigation seemed to show that its a pretty groundless theory. This did lead me to think about medical conditions and abnormalities being explained through folklore and myth, so I made a visit to the Glasgow University Anatomy Museum to photograph abnormalities. This brought up a very interesting discussion with my tutor on the ethics of photographing dead bodies or body parts. Most of the abnormalities on display there were in specimins of babies and foetuses. From this I started thinking about changelings, since they are a piece of folklore which was used to explain sudden differences in a child, particularly in their personality or temperament. I tried to research changelings at the Mitchell library but only found fictitious references. One of which was from a play called 'The Changeling'. In it insane people were described as having animalistic qualities.

Tanuki and the beginning of the self initiated project

Started my research looking at animals being blamed for human behaviour, mostly mythological. The subject was instigated by an obsession I had of photographing sculptures of a folk character from Japan by the name of Tanuki, a raccoon normally displayed with a bottle and an enormous set of testicles. Im told hes well known for getting drunk on sake and 'meddling' with women. Hes popular as a very cheeky character. I found a proliferation of his sculptures and souvenirs, which I found odd since I presume his existence is partly to explain very real instances of 'meddling' (and consequently exonerate the real guilty party). This page on Tanuki has some good images, though it doesnt mention Tanuki ever being assosciated with rape.

Organising Myself

I didnt want to do this. I wanted to make a fancy book instead. However, I dont have time for book making at the moment and this will let me list everything Ive been doing (or not doing). I hope its of some interest to others too.