alwaysawinner

work with SZC continues, working with ideas of connectivity with the pylon as a starting point motif. First light festival was a winner, the curated show in the gardens was eclectic and fun, managed to see a couple of bands, Caswell, LFay and Sebbuku, all good. Ken Worploe was good on landscape and building, and of course Luke Wright was Luke Wright – always a winner. Created our own Snape Festival with a couple of £10:00 tickets alongside the art on display and an afternoon of new music by young people, which was excellent. Meanwhile onto screens, still chugging along with Alpha House which is very funny but Riefenstahl is another thing – did she know or was she innocent or an artist taking an opportunity? Watching her control the lighting when she was being interviewed at around 80 says a lot about her, and so many photographs documenting her existence – fascinating and all too easy to make connections with America at the moment, the rallies were terrifying.

whenisdeath

some notes made over the past 2 weeks…..

Bernard Stiegler – technology writer philosopher

technics - pharmakon – Greek word meaning both 'poison' and 'cure

Obvious – artists groups

Antonio Damasio – the strange order of things

Turk – man in a box fooling people

Data colonialism

Ai Alzheimer’s - data starts to relate to data rather than new information

Baroque grotesque

Territory – chaos - philosophy science art – on the margins

Disposable madness of the internet

Waler Benjamin – art in the world of mechanical reproduction

Origin and destination

Performance of ordinariness

Metatacratic legitimacy

Walking through life based on their origins

Marketing of ordinariness

Inability to function as a whole human being

When is death?

The trowel doesn’t talk

Evidence of human touch – fingerprints and manufacturing process

How is authority defined – how so you build it in the artworld

Opinions positions knowledge

Phase drawings = 3D renders of spaces

The idea of ritual = repetitive actions repetitive spaces

Bending down – genuflect.

The idea of negative archaeology

The science of architecture

Logistics of soil movement

Ministry of presence

This time includes meeting with Bench project, a day on site with the Chaplin at SZC and an open day with archaeological people – some amazing conversations and lots to think about 

ifnothingistrue,thenallisspectacle

 

To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle.Timothy Snyder

A weekend in Tallinn - so much to see in what is a marvelous, clean and organised city – and the weather was great. Zipping around on mini-mopeds has to be the best fun ever and a gloriously child-like way to see a city which has the most fabulous cycle paths ever. Went out along the sea to see the monuments to people killed by the Soviet Union - what to say - it is overbearing - physically changing you in the space - it's really a space, an experience rather than a thing. So much extraordinary food and interesting drinks, especially cakes - some partaken whilst watching a dance and performance art battle - favourite section was where a contestant walked away and didn't come back - awesome.The end of year show at EKA was in a huge abandoned building so it felt like a real old-school art college experience rather than the corporate controlled display available in England. I love a student show – so much potential energy and there was also some good work. There are several small commercial spaces in Tallinn which I managed to check out - each containing professional, thoughtful work. The work of Alexei Gordin "Walled Up" where he breaks into abandoned buildings creates text pieces on the wall, photographs them and then works on them to create the work was challenging but also laugh out loud.The excellent maritime museum had interventions by art students and the museum itself is awesome - the objects the graphics the digital and physical interactive activities - all beautiful and thoughtful and interesting. KUMU the huge art gallery had a solo show by Ragnar Kjartansson: A Boy and a Girl and a Bush and a Bird, which was thoughtful and mesmerising but also a number of interventions into the collection, which is truly challenging in terms of cataloguing the history of Estonia through art. St. Nicholas Church has 7 meters of what was a 30m 'lifesize' painting of the dance of death - truly spectacular, as was a huge, multi-layered alter-piece. Thought about the work I intend to make for the faith room at SZC and the idea of faith and body and belief. A lecture on ai at Tallinn art school was open to all so popped in to listen - it was a good intro to some of the philosophical issues swirling around about ai - liked the thought about the idea of territory and chaos within the context of the internet, the role of art science and philosophy at the margins as outriders bringing ideas into the mainstream.