Touched

The theme of 'Touched' is strong one and is very open to interpretation, it's offered the artist's a loose phrase in which to play around with and has given the Liverpool Biennial a wide scope and range of works. This was the desire effect that Artistic Director Lewis Biggs was after and he states on the 'Touched' website that it was a very simple philosophy behind all the artworks that were displayed throughout this year's Biennial. "Touched presented art with emotional impact. Art that not only gained our attention but that moved us, motivated us, allowed us to find a way to change ourselves. Art without emotional force is art without intellectual power". Biggs' aim with this particular Biennial year was to touch all demographics and cultures, "without meditation, without the intercession of saleroom or celebrity".

There were some pieces that I felt worked well for two different reasons, some I felt "Touched" me in a sentimental way and other's were purely a physical tactile experienced. The sentimental works that I feel conceptually didn't harmonise with the Biennial theme was Andy Holden's "Three short works in time". I felt that this piece, at its core dealt with issues and themes Andy's worked on for a long time and that they had no direct connection to 'Touched' but there was something very sentimental with the sound track that laced his live performance/ sculptural pieces and this aspect touched and moved me in a way that I haven't felt in a art performance live capacity before. The more tactile and interactive pieces such as Nicholas Hlobo's "Ndize" maze of ribbons was a personal highlight and I felt that the very literal interpretation of "Touched" was something to commend. It can sometimes be too easy to become obscure and distant from the original brief but his willingness to embrace it and give the public an experience that they would otherwise never have had. This piece works perfectly with Biggs concept of reaching people "without meditation".

I feel that a piece of work that may have divided people but also gave them thought but without meditation was Tehching Hsieh's "One year performance". Whilst very accessible in that the concept and the delivery I feel the validity of this project would have been questioned by many people. This would alienate and divide some people but on the other hand it could draw people in and that's the very effect it had on me. I feel that this endurance is one of the most impressive realisations of an idea within this years biennial.

A small, almost unnoticeable exhibition space that shared Wrenshaw Street with Rapid was a personal favourite as it housed one of my favourite new artists Richard Proffitt. Not only did it house some very interesting low-fi, DIY styled sculpture and anti-aesthetic work but it had a quick turn over, refreshing it's space every four days. This is something that I'm very interested in as I feel that certain exhibition spaces such as Tate can become stale uninteresting. I understand why they have to do this but it means I treasure the small independent places that can do this as I feel its a more interesting way to get work out there. I feel that this small space was a major success and It ethos is something I will hope to channel within my own practice.

This has been my first Biennial year and it has been an interesting insight into a world I've been admiring from a distance for sometime. I feel that this biennial has seen some exceptional work but has also seen some misguided work which was been lost in translation. Conceptually and aesthetically I have learnt a lot about the possibility within art today, which may over time influence and inform my own practice. As I have a passion to travel as much as possible in the next few years I feel it would be an interesting venture to explore other major cities biennials so as to compare to this, Liverpool 2010 Biennial.

Wallpaper

This is a replica of wallpaper that can be found in one of the bedrooms in Nancy Adams house, I intend on possibly using as part of an instilation idea.

Cana

These are a selection of scene's I want to recreate, some of these are more ambitious than other's and some will have sound too but these are my starting points for my instillation ideas. These pictures were taking over the course of my summer in Cape Cod, Boston and San Fransisco.

The Charles Gershkovich Project

The Charles Gershkovich Project was something that I started in the last few months of the summer. I was building up fictional characters through found images I had collected over a period of time and was then drawing narratives from my American side of my family but also building from scratch. I have such a wealth of materials to work with its started to feel like a burden and a responsibility to these pictures and their lost history that It was becoming more difficult to find a suitable resolution. It was when I started incorporate some of my own images I had taken over the summer that the project felt like a new breath had been taken. I also wanted to move from the photograph's into an instillation direction and pull certain objects, wall paper, lighting and atmosphere from the pictures into an instillation environment. The pictures that had the most potential to do this were my own photograph's. I'm now aiming to recreate certain scene's and memories from that period.

Stranded in Canton

Morrissey foretelling the death of Diana...

When Listening to The Smiths, Lady Diana is not my first thought but it seemed to dominate all of Lars Laumann's. Laumann has three video pieces in the Open Eye Gallery but only one of them held my attention, 'Morrissey foretelling the death of Diana'. It's a intricately spun web of six degrees of separation, linking The Smith's wordsmith and singer to the foretelling of Princes Diana's death in 1997. Through an extensive montage of found footage, video clips and sounds bite’s the deconstruction of song's on the 'The Queen Is Dead" album unfolds before you. He believes that cryptic clues lye in the lyrics, record covers and music videos. "I want to catch something that I might be ashamed off" is a lyric from the song "Frankly Mr. Shankly" which he says explains Diana's secret love with Mohamed Al-Fayed. Since hearing all these connections I've listen to The Smiths seminal album and If you want to make links then links can be made but I don't feel that because you can do this it justifies these theories of his. Allegedly the song's true meaning is about the Rough Trade boss Geoff Travis' feeling of equality with Morrissey and his poetic ability and his ability to be the voice of a generation. "I feel more fulfilled making Christmas cards with the mentally ill" is another great line within the song and can easily be linked with Diana and her many charitable ventures.

He has tried to rethink story structures, mixing narratives with images to create new and challenging narratives. Video collages, used material, found images, and narrative structure all play an important part in my project at the moment but he's taken it in a very different direction to me. It's a more intense exercise in Detourement but it's also an exploration into the cosmic and the impossible. If Laumann is taking this entire concept seriously and that he truly believes that the singer of a popular indie group from the 1980's can prophesied the death of a monarchical figure then I'm overwhelmed by his delusions. On the other hand if it's an extremely well thought out and structured joke then it's slightly better but ultimately feels like a joke that has fallen flat. His big mouth shouldn't strike again as it doesn't get him anywhere particularly interesting or funny.

Three short works in time

Three short works in time is a series of performance pieces by English Artist Andy Holden who has created in collaboration a performance piece that investigates the relationship between sculptural objects and sound. The work incorporates a 16mm film, a live camera feed, spoken word and a string quartet performing music by 'The Grubby Mitts (Holden's band) and Johnny Parry. I watched these pieces at The Victoria Gallery and Museum where the sweeping strings and the atmosphere of the surrounding walls worked perfectly in partnership. It was an interesting way to both tackle sculpture and sound, this pairing is something that I haven't come across often but Holden is a unique Artist who can use many different avenues of his creative mind to join together to create interesting and diverse junctions.

One of the pieces had a small child's play toy which was made of differently coloured columns which had a marble drop from layer to layer. This was fed live and projected onto the wall behind the performance; it was also amplified so there was a continuous circling and gentle dropping sound throughout the track. That piece was particularly hard to separate the sculpture from the sound but I felt like it worked really well and was something me and Andy had spoken about last year when I had a one to one tutorial. I was doing sound and light projections which were more of a type of sound and light sculpture so I found his input very valid.

The sounds which backed up the visuals maybe for me were at points weaker or became stale due to the sounds of violins and cello can grate on me over time. I feel that the overall ideas, sculpture's and spoken words brought it through to a great set of pieces and their entirety was something that I found really interesting and rich.