Unit X Reflection

 

During my completion of Unit X I have learnt a few things that have made me flourish as an artist. I have learnt how to work collaboratively to put on an exhibition. I have also discovered a taste for using performance art as a medium to portray my ideas. I feel that I can now take these skills on into my practices in the future to become a successful artist.

Unit X has had many aspects to take on, and I feel that I have varied in engagement with each of these tasks, yet succeeded in them all. I threw myself into my primary research by promptly choosing the theme of 'Appropriation' and finding out the definition of this word, and artists to which it may refer. I also visited a lot of galleries such as the Manchester Art Gallery and the newly opened Whitworth Gallery, to small 2nd year openings. I engaged in a performance workshop with the artist Angela Bartram, which encouraged me a lot to go for the medium of performance for this project. I also fully engaged myself in working with a group of people who all chose 'Appropriation' as their subject to work towards for Unit X. I created a Facebook group for us all to communicate with ease upon and regularly posted about the meetings we held and what we discussed during. I do however think that if I'd of had more time with my group we could have come up with more creative pieces together.

I have taken a few choices during Unit X that have informed my idea development. In the beginning I conducted deep research into past biblical imagery and existing performance art that I felt I could take ideas from and link to the theme of 'Appropriation'. From this I learnt about the 'Fallen Woman' and chose to experiment with my response to this by using performance and my original practice of film and photography.

As I have mentioned, I have learnt some skills for performance art during Unit X, but if I could improve my final piece, I'd have practiced it a lot more before performing it to an audience. From watching back the recording I had my friend make I saw a lot of flaws that I could sort out and repair in the future.

There have been some key motives during Unit X that have drove me to engage fully and press on successfully. The performance workshop I did gave me confidence to actually go through with performing my piece to an audience. Working with others with the aim of putting on an interesting show was also a motivating exercise as we all had one goal. From this I now would love to take the opportunity of working collaboratively in the future with other artists.

Unit X has had it's ups and downs, but I feel that I have gained skills as an artist that I will take on into the future and have fun with.

I revisited the Unit X exhibition at Federation House with my relatives today to show my piece. As I approached the remnants of my 'Fallen Woman' performance piece I found that a really interesting thing had occurred over the past day or so.

The red food colouring had started to bleed more colours onto the shirts and left bruise like marks that looked really intriguing. People had also started to interact and take their own view of the piece into by consideration by throwing coins into the bucket as if it were a well.

Lines of Enquiry for Unit X

 

Unit X has been a collaborative project that has extended the aims that I have had to carry out. Some aspects of collaboration have been meeting up with a group of artists from different courses to all create an exhibition towards a chosen theme. I have chosen the theme of 'Appropriation' throughout this project and in the beginning created a Facebook group for I and the people I worked with to discuss ideas and post about group meetings we attended in. The collaborative work and development has been affected by attendance to the meetings. The same people would show up week after week, but after a while we pulled the fragments of each meeting together and created a publication together. It started off as an idea we could work together on, and when it was finally produced , it felt relieving that we made a collaborative piece that combined all of our takes upon 'Appropriation'.

Throughout Unit X there were key developments within our group that I noticed. As we all got to know each other a bit better, we grew more confident in organising meetings. The key meeting I remember was when we went around each individuals studio to see he work they had produced for Unit X and held our own group crit without the guidance of a tutor.

I developed myself as an artist from these group crits as the perspective of another on the pieces I was making, and the ideas I had, pushed me on to re-work the pieces so that they worked better from suggestion of others.

I also was inspired to want to collaborate in the future with other artists on my course. I found that talking to a group of people I don't know very well helped my confidence and I even helped out a 3rd year with her piece. Unit X has allowed me to meet new people, which leads to new links and opportunities.

The creative responses I took to this project have all been under the context of 'Appropriation'. I looked at performance artists that I felt linked back to this idea, and engaged myself in a workshop with a performance artist to develop my own skills within this medium. It was I who came up with the idea for a collaborative publication with the group of people I have worked with for this project which turned out successful. I did use my original practice of work of film and photography to experiment with appropriation of the body with my 'Statue of David' video.

If I had more time with this project I would have organised time better, as I felt that the setup of the exhibition could've taken lesser time if we had better attendance and a readymade layout of the exhibition. I personally could have experimented with different mediums in which to display my work. I'd of liked to show my 'Statue of David' video as a projection, but due to lack of equipment, I was unable.

Overall I hope that after the exhibition I can continue to use the skills of collaboration I have created during Unit X to make work with others. 

Opening Night

 

So we made it as a group to the opening night of our exhibition successfully. It didn't end there for me however as I proposed to do a performance piece spontaneously.

My piece started off as a sculptural piece that I observed people walking around questioning what it was.

 

 

As more and more people arrived to the exhibition, I thought that organising a crowd for my piece would be necessary, so I wrote around the bucket that there would be a performance at 7pm. As time grew closer I headed to get ready for my piece. At a few minutes past 7pm, I wandered through the galleries and arrived to a crowd around my bucket. Dressed in my red dress I performed my piece.

 

 

 

My friend filmed the piece for me to display and look at. I am very happy with the response to my piece. I found the experience made me more positive to carry on with performance as a medium in my work.

As I wandered through the crowd to my piece I kept the same frame of mind, I focused on the bucket and shirts and began to dip the shirts into the bucket of water. I did however struggle to find the blood capsules I had made to pierce, but as I broke the first and released the food colouring on my hand there was a gasp from the audience as I held my 'blood' stained hand up . I continued to erratically slosh water about and cover the shirts. As the performance came to a close I became aware of the audience and wiped my blood stained hands down my face to imitate the tears of blood the Virgin Mary was alleged to of cried and stood up. I gathered the shirts together and kicked them into the crowd which provoked yet more gasps and walked out.

Overall I am aware the piece had its flaws, but it received a fair applause and I hope the underlying messages stay with people.

 

A few people managed to capture my performance and kindly shared their photos with me:

 

Katie Jane Hamill

 

 

Amalie Wilhelmsen

 

 

I also am particularly proud of the remnants of my piece as the blood stained shirts fit in well with the colour scheme of our exhibition, and the water splashes from tonight will slowly dry up.

 

 

Unit X has been a challenge but in the end proved rewarding for me as an artist. I will carry on the themes I have used within this project on into my future work.

 



The exhibition setup started to develop even more today as we began to hang our own work.
My film still pieces began by a window, but as more work was put up we made a decision to take all the work down as it was starting to look like a jumble sale.

 

We laid out all the pieces on the ground and tried to come up with a general theme running throughout the pieces. The colours Red, Black and White were repetitious within the work.

 

 

We placed out the sculptural work first, then the larger paintings, and then tried to fit the rest around. Smaller pieces in fact needed more wall space than the large, and we varied the placement height of each piece, by leaning some paintings on the floor.

 

 

I had a bit of a disaster with my film stills piece. I had placed each photo in a glass frame and as I was hanging them from the roof, one slipped and smashed. I decided to display the pieces without frames and in a different layout to the original way I had hung them. I used bulldog clips to link each piece and the ending result actually looked a lot more effective than in the beginning.

 

 

I laid out my bucket and shirts for my performance so that it looked like a sculptural piece you could walk around and view

 

 

 

 In the end we devised our space well I feel and after the finishing touches where applied, it felt rewarding. All our weeks of work had come together well in time for opening night tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Research for Unit X

My research for Unit X has been somewhat ongoing. I have engaged myself in online research, but also physical research and development. So far I have:

• Been inspired by existing performances by artist's and how I could link them to the theme of appropriation. Furthermore this has lead me to be inspired by biblical imagery and the definition of 'The Fallen Woman'
• I have been to a few exhibitions at different galleries and picked out key pieces I have noticed that I feel link to appropriation, and then written about them.
• After thinking about mediums in which I could translate my work the best in, I discovered that performance could be the better way. I'd considered this briefly earlier on in the development of my work, but took the idea on fully after attending a workshop with the performance artist Angela Bartram
• I have also tried to engage myself with other students during Unit X. I have the collaborative aspect of working with other students to put on an exhibition, but I have also helped out a 3rd year with her work, and attended a few 2nd year exhibitions, which has inspired me with brief ideas that I could explore further. It has also made me aware of what tasks I need to carry out in order to work together with my group to put on a successful exhibition.

Several aspects of my research have influenced my ideas and their development. Earlier on in my blog posts I talked about how I took a camera around with me in the early stages of Unit X to photograph anything that might inspire. I also had a brief idea to look into biblical and classical imagery, this now being a main focus in my work.
This is the blog post in which I wrote about these initial ideas: http://ellenmoss.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/last-week-i-tore-down-all-past-work-in.html

I began by looking into the definition of 'The Fallen Woman' and how it links to figures of the past such as Mary Magdalene. I also had a look into how I could take the idea and apply it to modern day, by referring it to 'slut shaming'.

 

From looking into these ideas I discovered the Magdalene Laundries' of the past and this has been a strong influence of my work. I have since then come up with a performance piece inspired by this, that involves me washing clothes like the women put in these institutions where made to, but I slowly stain them with blood. This piece is very symbolic and reflects all aspects of my earlier research as I have chosen to wear red whilst doing this as it represents 'sexuality, lust and sin', and also is the colour Mary Magdalene was seen to commonly wear.

My piece has also strongly reflected my research into performance art, one particular piece it reflects is Marina Abramovic's 'Balkan Baroque' where the artist sits and scrubs cow bones for hours on end and gets slowly more emotional as she tells stories of her homeland.

 



 

Another strong piece that stood out to me was when I saw Riike Enna's 'Future of Venus' at The Manchester Art Gallery. I had never seen a live piece of performance art before and it stuck with me and urged me to create my own piece.
I feel that I have done well with research during Unit X, you can see how each piece I have written about in my blog has influenced me and I have taken time to visit places to extend my research. I have also researched into a new medium that I can express my ideas with, and I feel like I can carry on with performance art after Unit X.

Our exhibition came together today as we all met to setup the cardboard partitions we had been given to shape and display our exhibition.
We had been given large sheets of cardboard and hooks to work with so it was difficult to find a way to put the exhibition up without it looking shabby. We chose to suspend the card from the ceiling and have them hanging down.

 

We also put together card to make cubed plinths to place some of the more sculptural pieces on

 

 

After hanging all the foundations for our work up we marked where we may put our work tomorrow and put tape to scale up the size of our pieces. Tomorrow we will hang the work, and perhaps adjust where everything may go.

 

 

 

We finally made our publication today, in time for display at the exhibition. We selected the people in our group who had been inducted to book bind to create the piece. In the end we came up with the title 'Pre-existing' as the title of our publication.

I'm happy that we all managed to put together a collaborative piece for the exhibition. I do however wish we had more time to create duplicates of this piece to distribute at the exhibition as I feel that it is such a simple piece.
Another task we have completed as a group today is the labels we will be putting next to our pieces in the exhibition. We all messaged Ed from our group the title of our work, the medium and our names. Mine will read:

'Fallen Woman'
Performance
Ellen Moss

'Untitled'
Film Stills
Ellen Moss

In addition to the title of my pieces, today I had stills from my 'Statue of David' video printed so that I can display them at our exhibition. I decided to not give the piece the name I refer to it as in the exhibition as I am not completely happy with a title yet.

I chose to print in A4 due to costs, but I feel that if I was to display the piece in the future I'd use A1 for each still as it would give a life like feel to the pieces.
It was the first time I have properly printed my artwork out onto professional glossy paper so it felt rewarding, and I can't wait to display them and perhaps get more of my work printed properly in the future.

Free-For-All

 

As mentioned I have been writing about the 2nd year exhibitions I have been visiting as I feel that it ties in with Unit X as it gives me an insight of what it's like to collaboratively set up an exhibition. Free-For-All was outstanding to me as it was set up in a rather unconventional setting at Rogue studios in Manchester. The artists had used their small setting well, none of the art clashed. Everyone was well greeted with drinks and food, and even encouraged to take part in a ballot to choose who should be the head artist.

 

 

 

The main focus of the night was a blank canvas and an orange pot of paint. The first person dared to pick up the paintbrush and hell broke loose from then on.

 

 

People carefully painted whimsical objects onto the canvas, but as the night progressed (And alcohol was consumed) the painting became more anarchic. I provided my own response by erratically charging at the canvas and swiped my body across it, which provided a humorous response. People began to use the walls as the canvas and eventually an onlooker slashed the original canvas with a knife.

 

 

 

The piece had energy and to me reflected the human nature of Marina Abramovic's Rhythm 0 where people would start off scared to make a dint upon Abramovic, but eventually became more aggressive.

Overall the exhibiton proved fun and successful, and I came out with a positive attitude for my own in a few days.

Today we booked out a room in the art school known as G01 to practice the setup of our exhibition as a compulsory part of Unit X. As a group however we all agreed that although half of G01 is the size of space we will be given at Federation House to set up our exhibition, it is not completely the same so it would be pointless to set up a mock exhibition today as it wont really give us an idea as a whole. Instead we laid out the work we had brought with us to get an idea of what peoples work is or is based around.

We also laid out our entry images for our collaborative publication. If people had not brought work, we suggested measuring out the average size of work. Considering the amount of work we had, I asked if I could include some stills from my 'Statue of David' video. It was a spare of the moment idea I had as I'd quite like that piece to be featured as I feel that it would be a shame to be shown as it had strong connections to appropriation.
Our tutor came along to our meeting and suggested alternative ideas of showing our exhibition that would mean it wasn't your average show. We sat and discussed these ideas, some suggested we set up the exhibition, take a photo, then just display the photo. Others suggested we laid all of the pieces upon the floor for the audience to walk around

 

Although these were innovative ideas, we all felt that considering the time we have left before the exhibition, we wont have enough time to organise and practice these suggested ideas. Towards the end of this meeting we came up with a list of things we needed to do before the exhibition. On Monday the 11th we will meet and produce the publication and labels to display next to our work.

 

Later on today I visited yet more 2nd year exhibitions.

 

The Road Not Taken

 

This exhibition was very useful to attend as it was at Federation House, the space we will be using next week. Federation House is an old office space so the ceilings were low, there were many pillars and the floor had been ripped up to reveal wooden flooring.

 

 

The girls who produced this exhibition had spread their work out, and used the space well in my opinion. The work was based upon a poem by Robert Frost, which suggests ideas of process, journey, doubt and memory.

After visiting the exhibition I began to panic as I realised we would not receive as much space as the artists here had been given, as there are 6 groups in our Unit X project to fit into half of the room. I notified my group via our Facebook page and we agreed that we would meet up everyday before opening night next week.