Bibliography – HYPNOTIC REPETITION

11th Jun 202011th Jun 2020

‘From A Distant New York’ – International Screening and Conference

I have been invited to participate in a fascinating international interactive screening of the film “The World Before Your Feet” and conference event. It was organised by ATÖLYE, Dubai’s Creative Hub, in partnership with Palmwood, American Film Showcase and the US Consulate in Dubai.

There are 8,000 miles of roads and paths in New York City and for the past six years Matt Green has been walking them all—every street, park, cemetery, beach, and bridge.

Executive produced by Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg and directed by Jeremy Workman, “The World Before Your Feet” is a tribute to an endlessly fascinating city and the freedom to be found, wherever you live, in simply taking a walk.

The team of filmmaker experts were presents:

I am very excited to take part in this amazing venture, which was attended by filmmaker Jeremy Workman, executive producer Jesse Eisenberg and the wanderer himself Matt Green. All live conversations were moderated by Emirati filmmaker Amal Al Agroobi.

A screenshot of a thank you email is below:

29th Mar 202029th Mar 2020

Tehching Hsieh – ‘All Art Comes From Life’

Performance 1: Tehching Hsieh | MoMA — https://www.moma.org/calendar/performance/322

https://www.tehchinghsieh.com/artworks

I have recently come across the work of a Taiwanese artist – Tehching Hsieh (1950). He is best known for his five One Year Performances: between 1978 and 1986.

Marina Abramović described him as a “master of performance”., when commenting on his video documenting the whole year of being locked inside a cage and, another one, punching a time clock every hour. His other pieces include an attempt to live solely outdoors for the period of 365 days. In another famous piece he tied himself to another person. Finally, he struggled to avoid any art related activity for another year.

His fascinating pieces shed a completely new light on a new understanding of the emerging concept of self isolation and waiting. This thinking is of significant relevance to my own visual investigation. Although his thinking is very similar to my project, there is one crucial difference – his work is time bound. I have researched people, who are entrapped and suspended in the vacuum of hypnotic repetition in definitively. It is impossible to predict, when their daily struggle will be over. They also do not know, when they will be allowed to return to their former life ‘cages’.

27th Mar 202017th May 2020

Lockdown with The Wheel of Fortune Seller.

Tumbling around with my thoughts – lockdown in a dark and claustrophobic chamber of an expanding pandemic – waiting for the end!

The aim of this post is to present my work in progress in order to methodically review my practice, refine my thinking and creative intentions. It is essential for me to reflect on how my visual investigation has developed, altered and evolved, especially in response to today’s global crisis.

A fragment from The Pianist, Release date: 24 January 2003 (United Kingdom), Director: Roman Polanski

The above video draws a parallel to the current global crisis. Isolation and fear are overwhelming. However, The Pianist had his resource, his instrument. He was afraid to touch it and play music. My situation is contradictory – I have a lot of time in loneliness, but cant access my work and studio. Everything appears to by suspended in waiting for the return to my former hypnotic repetition of daily routines and distractions!

My project continues to change with a degree of unexpected persistency and without unnecessary overreliance on resources. The above video clip reinforces that what really matters is the act of creation; whatever the circumstances.

My role as an artist is to comment on and respond to an ever-changing, dynamic and turbulent environment.

Therefore, my principal function is to observe the world with great sensitivity and translate my research findings into art, which communicates my thinking and reflections.

My work, in turn, acts as a beacon, pointing out at new possibilities of how to understand, digest and embrace the world!

I need to accept that my initial project ideas have been altered, distorted and, perhaps, contradicted in the light of the current, brutal and rapidly progressing events.

9th Mar 202011th Mar 2020

New Face

Following a long period of consideration and reflection, I have restarted work today on the Thai Masseur piece.

The main issue was to complete painting the face. On the one hand, I wanted for the portrait to be recognisable, on the other, I have struggled with solving a number of ethical issues regarding a possible reaction and rejection of my work by the model. I experienced this kind of a situation with one of the former pieces. Subsequently, this unpleasant episode had let to the destruction of my own work and several alterations to other experiments.

My new idea is inspired by deeply glazed and moody flemish paintings. I am especially inspired by Metsu and his self portrait. He positioned himself inside a window arch. This implies a composition within a composition. I am also using a double rectangular. My creative intention is to achieve a sense of ambiguity while drawing all attention to the centre – on the masseur. I want to rely on a visual suggestion of portraiture rather than a descriptive portrayal of a woman. The plan is to leave her facial features undefined, like a ghostly outline of what is really there.

https://www.rct.uk/collection/405943/a-self-portrait

GABRIEL METSU (LEIDEN 1629-AMSTERDAM 1667)

A Self-Portrait c.1655-8 Oil on panel | 37.7 x 31.4 cm (support, canvas/panel/str external) | RCIN 405943

To give the surface more vibrancy, I used water solvable oil pastels. ‘Dancing’ with a crayon on top of the painting allows me to achieve a sense of mystery – secret light, which brings out parts of the skull and the jaw – all in the dusk of the space portrayed.

The next stage of the painting process will be to glaze the overall piece with a variety of transparent layers of an acrylic medium, perhaps combined with some watered down PVA glue. This is to prepare the surface for the overprinting stage using the silk screen technique and enhance a feeling of unity between the different formal elements and parts of the composition.

I have already prepared a new pattern based on decorative elements, which I have isolated from the interior of the massage salon. I will use this design to create a random over-image. This, in turn, will have a dual function. The first is to help to engage the centre in the overall painterly illusion. The second aim is to increase the amount of detail and enhance holistic and expressive qualities of my piece.

At this stage, I am considering using a range of gold and crimson tones. This initial plan might be subsequently altered in favour of a more spontaneous and instinctive decisions and reflections in action.

I am enclosing photographs of the final stages of work today and a close up of the ‘New Face’

7th Oct 201827th Apr 2020

References

Bibliography:

Albert, D. and Loewer, B. (1988), Interpreting the Many Worlds Interpretation, Synthese,

Alonso, M. (1980) “Antonio Machado Poeta en el Exilio”, Antroporos: Ambitios Literarios

Barrett, J. A. (2011) Everett’s Pure Wave Mechanics and the Notion of Worlds, European Journal for Philosophy of Science, 1: 277–302.

Butterﬁeld, J. (2001) The End of Time? All Souls College: Oxford

Cage, J (1961) “Where are we going? And what are we doing?”, in Silence (Wesleyan University Press, 1961), pp. 220–222.

Cassidy, D. (1992), Uncertainty: THe Life and Science of Werner Heisenberg; New York: W.H. Freeman

Choksi, N. and Cummins , A. (2016) “In Memory of the Last Sunset”; 20th Sydney Art Biennale

Conover, E. (2016) Information Is Physical, Even In Quantum Systems, Study Suggests, Science News: Vol. 189

Hansun, K. (1890) “Hunger” Penguin Book, 1988

Hauser, C. and Khan, I. (2016) “‘Afghan Girl’ in 1985 National Geographic Photo Is Arrested in Pakistan”; Asia Pacific: The New York Times

Hutton, W. (2016) Only fundamental social change can defeat the anxiety epidemic; The Guardian: Opinion Mental Health

Insolera, M. (2015) “Surviving Greece”; La Caixa Forum, Madrid, 2015

Jha, A. (2013), What is Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle? The Guardian

Korsgaard, M. C. (2012) Kant: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals; Cambridge: Texts in the History of Philosophy

Nauman, B. (2015) ” Life, Death, Love, Hate, Pleasure, Pain”; La Biennale di Venezia – Biennale Arte 2015

Paul, C. (2003) Digital Art, London: Thomas and Hudsen

Pippin, S. (1999) Laundromat – Locomotion: An Artists’ Book; London: Verlag der Kunst

Sethaseree, T. (2017) “Heads or Tails? Uncertainties and Tensions in Contemporary Thailand”; Sundaram Tagore Gallery: New York, 547 West 27th Street, Oct 12th – Nov 4th 2017

Spiegelhalter, D. et al (2011) “Visualizing Uncertainty About the Future” Science 09 Sep 2011:

Vol. 333, Issue 6048, pp. 1393-1400 DOI: 10.1126/science.1191181

Dorment, R. (2001), A Deconstructed Life; The Daily Telegraph

Wiseman, H. (2012), Explainer: Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle; The Conversation

Websites:

http://justinmortimer.co.uk/2012.html

https://www.artangel.org.uk/break-down/michael-landy-in-conversation-with-julian-stallabrass/

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160713-michael-landy-the-man-who-destroyed-all-his-belongings

http://www.exactlywhatistime.com/physics-of-time/the-arrow-of-time/

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/bruce-nauman-1691/long-read/raw-material

https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/2018/10/07/00h11/magnitude6-HaitiRegion-quake.html

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/unilever-series/unilever-series-miroslaw-balka-how-it