NOTES 1992-2015
Please note this page constitutes a very small selection of available notes, which otherwise exist in hard copy only (approx 20 box files +)
Further online notes are available at OperationRome (3200 word text) and on the Road For the Future website.
Notes are listed chronologically by year, and will be uploaded sporadically and in no particular order. Please note that within each year / section, notes are not listed chronologically, each paragraph denoting a single sheet of A4 paper or a notebook.
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[...] note added 2014
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Amsterdam 1992-3
- maybe to make work have to be able to make some kind of generalisation/s (even the generalisation that there aren’t any…?). Or specific generalisations (re architectural works). Painted barriers to redundant spaces. Can’t suspend in mid-air without support but can surround mid-air by support. Physically / mentally suspend how something takes place Þ territorial, psychological etc. Þ relation of events (history etc, what’s passed on, why and how… propaganda). Events: temporal, physical. Pillars, structural supports that enclose a space while maintaining access. How much something can be interrupted Þ redundancy - without disturbing function. (J.K. [Julia Kristeva?] – interpretation and epistemology). Function, purpose, goal, desire etc… At what point does something function as and as what?
deviation (from). Þ equal, opp. [opposite / opportunity?] etc. Þ norm. Loss in order to become. Bl. [black / blue?] to red to w. [white], red to pink via purple because of loss of yellow. Beauty: artifice (relief from the real (G.R… [Gerard Richter?]). Norm / neutrality via division / displacement from addition / subtraction. Deference from centre if when centre also edge of places. If real un-representable and can only present (a) real, and real enters the realm of artifice. Decision to stop short of completion. Intersection without destroying ambiguity of object/line Þ intersection of between (the divide) of construction of place, event. Exclusion of the viewer possibility of painting allows denial of object – how corresponds with itself / sight, etc. Asymmetry and how constructed – piece’s relation to site / piece’s relation to self / both.
stretchers and cloth Þ construct pillars to support chipboard Þ chipboard pushing cloth, chipboard supported by support of stretcher (by same support as cloth). Reflection on an internalisation (scene world, subculture, elite) (e.g. art..). Chipboard – brushed oil paint, not on front edges of recesses. MDF recessed Þ varnished Þ shiny. If only the front or the back and the back or the front, we’d know which way round everything went. 4 posts too short and painted frame on ceiling (larger than eluded to by posts?). [Þ archaeological postholes and a building that wasn’t there].
or Þ deny physical but not visual access to centre Þ 4 posts Þ wider. (re: access) Proactive versus reactive, idealist versus realist. (re: no utopia) Reflective Þ possibility of deflection.
Information in front constitutes what’s behind, but is also part of what’s in front / belongs to something else (not completed visually / materially but loses centre?) Can know something without touching, only by seeing (from James Turrell) Þ possibility of denying access to centre – physically – not visually. Difference between square and rectangular section, and floor to ceiling/ not.. / combination of rigid/flexible material (flexible made rigid.. Þ canvas Þ stretcher, paint Þ wood, primer to metal) (context to content) (also mirror(ed) and what reflects). Wide coloured panels? Distance form surface (nothing behind etc..). Divided colour. Exclusion.
Frames that operate outside the frame.
- What could an incomplete frame be? [Peter Struycken]
- A dot.
Façade. Cut orange and blue parts half lengthways. Place chipboard facing out from wall. Intrude with concrete podium. Possibility of double façade that can be entered. Þ result in breaking frame – questions re: constitution if better if could break / question notion of framing rather than assumed frame. Once break frame identity of interior / exterior as isolated/individual destroyed. Is what’s inside the frame framed? What’s outside unframed? Þ perhaps rather the outside is framed from the inside out. Frame on edge / between. Why aren’t black and white part of a colour circle? From the object to what holds it in place…
Works around the akademie building concerned with redundancy, use and access (visual, psychological, physical, etc.). To consider notions of place and position in terms of the frame. Territory – maps – c. [centre?] of place. Works: c. of place – but rely on physicality of (relation to maps which mark territory/place, but conceptually rather than materially) (but in material form) Relation scale of object to scale in object etc. (B. N. [Bruce Nauman?] artistic existence rather than artistic production (Flash Art)). And ideology of alienation that’s now part of existential philosophy (against terrorism of honesty and confession). Correspondence.
Difference between construction of an aesthetic (which would include appropriation / work within something) and appropriation of an aesthetic (which would necessitate the deconstruction of the appropriated anyway). Irrelevant support – excess (and ineffective). Paper shelf for something that then can’t be placed rather than something already placed and not supportable. (W)hole stage centre.
Nothing that can be walked around. Architecture Þ a wall (framed either side by two windows), already framed, already an object. Dividing in half [in two], possibility of entering/ being in one space only at a time. Difference between confrontation of division and object (priority? hierarchy? object versus non-object?). P.t.s [?] taking equivalent and opposite positions in relation to central divide [badminton / conflict?]. Limit, change, displacement (ownership). What constructs what?
Chipboard suspended from ceiling. Painted surface Þ possibility of information extending outside posts with slots. Limits of itself. Sundeala board. Black marble. Parts construct edges of place(s) – what are these (lack) – between possibility of entry to broken frame. On the edge of being (the place of being?). Stage halfway across room/ place – enter stage as enter room. Chipboard floor, concrete pillars. Internal edge versus external edge. Confrontation of subject – place centre stage… (/ clones of itself). Þ intersection – and without physically laying one over the other. And if intrusion extended (?) (phallic…). And if double then… and if completion of extension denied…? Parallel lines (only meet on curved / spherical surface).
Pieces. Either side of a pane of glass / wall / something. Painted frame? Etc. Applied / applicable. Paint onto transparent surface. Historical Þ present. Changing function of the building. Exterior material (of a building/ street etc., tar?) Þ interior (Walter de Maria’s earth)/ vice-versa – interior Þ exterior e.g. relation paint to concrete – possibility of decay (what’s already happening inside?..).
Four (bound) negotiations. Points of exchange. Negotiating the frame. Poly-tychs. Questioning of relationships between parts – re: belonging, ownerships etc. Identities in relation to other as parts or as multiples. How do multiples deny difference / rely on difference in relation to context, position, place… Divided space – between, within, without, equivalence and opposition Þ edge Þ centre. Possibilities of non-material (or at least as little as possible). Minimum construction, maximum effect.
(What’s) The point of that is to question the point of that. How can something keep questioning itself because of what it is. Book (text etc?) on a loop. Ringbinder / computer / sheets (laminated?) in a box file (/1/2 etc. in each file?) - make the page into an object, not just by lamination – woods aren’t the only (therefore main focus of attention) / just a book – each entry numbered ‘1’. One / two statements per page. Sometimes individual, sometimes together – possibility of contradiction, difference / other implications. One page (of a book) with everything on it (very possibly at expense of legibility…and including quotes). ? Difference between identical and multiple.
Podium, walls, glass roofs, ceiling, concrete post, wooden posts, suspended hollow.
Þ Drawings Þ marking out in different ways. Postholes – plans of placing, in position of a set of information on a place (mapping on). Part drawings, part objects in a way like painting some of information of piece Þ wall. Difference between what enter pictorially / visually and what enter spatially / physically. Why is the manufactured unquestionable / acceptable in terms of itself. [Mechanical] reproduction gives an authority of being (B.J.‘s [?] wax pipette). If reproducible, then on what terms? What constructs the identity of the reproduced (so reference to construction maintained). And disallows autonomy of reproduced object. Equivalent Þ difference: surface / place “given” constructed places (clones) equivalent to… What’s equivalent to what? Þ to each other – non-hierarchical and equivalence to lost.
Bridge gap with a gap Þ lack.
Art that’s self-reflexive, that questions its own identity. (versus) Art that reflects outside of itself / combination of the two. Reconstruction / constitution of subject(ive) in terms of object(ive) of the frame. No identifiable singular reality Þ possibility of realities (plurality of..) – and what might be isolated as general – nothing. A generalisation of nothing is possible. Reproducibility versus individuality. What’s desired versus real. ? The ‘reality’ of desire (versus other realities – in terms of share-ability).
/. Þ So many edges that they, and gaps, become the surface / Þ equality of..? (or maybe there is this possibility is enough…). Colour – take neutrality (mid-grey) [no longer neutral] add complementary colours and destroy. Þ take complementary colours, add neutrality – maintain difference. Complementary colours: of or constituting either or a pair of contrasting colours that produce a neutral colour when combined in suitable proportions. Þ so if a pair of complementary colours employed – also employing divided neutrality.
Pared Poly-tychs. (Impaired). (plane polarised light – equal and opposite directions (R.I. lectures)). Types visual production. Minimum necessary for something (other than that minimum) to exist. Þ Installation: relation contemporary to traditional – how approach as viewers, how locate historically, if do? Non-representational re re-presentation / presentation. Relation work to architecture: architecture taken as (a) framework within which work operates. Work refers to implications of context. Is work site-specific, or formulaic site-specific and so adaptable to other situations [see Mel Bochner, Measurement: Room, 1969].
To negotiate the division of the subject between itself and others in terms of the… A negotiation of the frame in terms of the (divided) subject (schizophrenic..?). Materials – reflective, divided, applied, replaced. Equivalence, difference, formulaic, specific. Avoidance of frame Þ framing Þ being framed. A negotiation of the frame in terms of the position / division of the subject. So – what constitutes the frame (pictorial, architectural, sociological, psychological, etc.)? Þ engagement with context (implications of specificity and equivalence for work). Þ working outside studio, within / out building (possibility of beyond? Þ empire??!). Assessment of documentation of works, writing up, books, etc.
Of something missing its own frame. – open surfaces (versus closed) Þ woven versus sealed.
Representation no less a reality than presentation. Reality only known via forms that represent it. It’s not a reality to suggest that one could represent reality. Difference between representing reality and a representation of ( Þ part of) reality… (Modernist): the subject of production includes controlling the self. (Post-Modernist): production of the subject subjects decentring via language. (the unconscious – a sign of the failure of identity). Division of the subject between its self and others (fiction of individualism). Negation of identity of the subject. ( Þ between). Lack Þ instigation of desire (Lacan).
Breaking the frame of the subject. The place of the subject (in terms of the frame). The subject – framing. Framing the subject. The placing of the subject: re framing. i.e affirm (/double) the colour (identity) of a material with painted surface…(e.g red Perspex – double identity and negated identity simultaneously. What’s the colour something’: s’ (Þ Witt [Wittgenstein?]). Is painting free of context (so far, no…). Somethings [sic?] not what you thought it was. Þ questions its self whilst being its self. Clean surface – painted / material etc – but no possibility of neutrality or of purity.
Built up area / stage / podium. Door shortened. Reclining post, colour on / lost side etc…
Painted square projected to surface ceiling – cross section post etc. Context establishes contradictions in / incompleteness of the text. What’s the text? The frame? Þ replaced as. Significance of insignificant architectural support.
Four painted frames, four continuous lines from centre to edge space. Division into four areas. Entry to room Þ entry to space. Re-division of already divided space. Division of neutrality Þ construction of difference. Possibility of entry to another part. Questions re what’s constituting the object, the focus of attention. Internally reflective spaces. Construction of place in terms of frame. Relation supports to frame, question the function frame. If f. s [frame is?] construction of place that’s equivalent (to others) and specific (to its self). To take the work out of the studio space Þ possibility of working in unconfined spaces – possibility of dis-closure.
Triptychs (and diptychs) provide possibility of division of same pictorial space – i.e what is constituting it as same imagery rather [than] physical location / connection, etc. Replacement of the pictorial within its self. Contextualisation of the pictorial within / by its self Þ imagery: political, religious, architectural, landscape etc, domestic. (and relation of frame to the pictorial Þ possibility of working (directly) between architectural frame Þ and the others.. and pictorial space (rather than art frame (as middle man…) / different art frames: packing, movements, glass, baroque, etc, mouldings. Central space (pictorial). Peripheral space (frame) – both placed equivalently within architectural frame. Space outside frame Þ re-place peripheral space ( Þ constructed panels, etc). Þ three spaces Þ fourth blank or pictorial spaces presented twice on opposite walls (either side, slight displacement) or presented twice as doubles / Þ four sided.. same sides painted in each case. Or twice as double sided single sheet – painted on opposite sides (placed on opposite walls) Þ same side in relation to room, opposite in relation to viewers’ orientation(s) to work(s) (mirror effect..reflected across axis central to room..,etc etc.
Instruments of viewing / seeing etc. Þ of power manipulation. Telescope, camera, painting, binoculars, TV, video, film / photo? Image as instrument of viewing tool. Instruments of thinking: books Þ book binding (with double spines) (no centre… In known / associated sense), TV, language etc Þ how objects correspond to function. Emphasis. Manipulation of structural basis of known objects in terms of geometry and function. Possibly re-invent Þ not only poly-tychs. Where are the overlaps? Also frame works… or geometric, systematic, constructive, etc.
Placed objects either side of a frame (referring to architectural frame) across space. Implications of divided space – something can exist as complete either side – reflective surface twice denies completion (if this is a function of the viewer). Reflective surface referring across space – whether into room / between / past one another – same wall. Etc.
Bound: spined. Books info. Access etc.
Instruments of viewing Þ of power / manipulation. Þ manipulable/-ated imagery / p. [painting] space Þ by viewer / etc Þ reflective space / possibility of interfering with the interference (film / video projector..) / both. Equivalence and opposition Þ relation one media to another. Equivalence, contemporary, visual information and traditional Þ in terms function (rather than equivalence and opposition in terms of position etc). Opposition in terms position? Þ how else (switched on versus..) constant image versus reflective and loss. Can say? That equivalence and opposition? Þ in what way. No.
Stake within a space but refer as much to limits of space as to claimed space. Material – potential to be broken down (composites) – doesn’t mean have to do this NEXT (necessarily…?
Position – local confined, individual versus function – mass reproduction, copying, distribution, networking etc.
Perspex inverted, open ended stake-shell over granite stake paint outside of. Identity of the object apparent via what’s not there rather than what is.
Stake painting. Place of painting other than (directly) on the surface of the object. – via a sheet which is slotted in..? Þ others. On the glass which protects the surface of the object. On repeat of object e.g. interior Perspex stake etc. one (plaster) reproducible, sliced, painted (e.g. pink) stake. – text adjacent: not another one (green… Superimposition of information – effect of opp. of division of singular.
Relationship between height and power (battles, castles, defence, attack etc vantage points) and height and vulnerability – precipices, airplanes, housing estates (?...) ETC. What’s / where’s the dividing line between. Book – “The Economics of Crime”…
(relation between illusion and reality). Þ pictorial becomes environmental. Border – to be crossed, marking a place between, divider, segregator. Þ make the painting (floor) Þ maybe divided paint - and then pin it to the ground (i.e. enter in process of production). CONDITIONAL FRAMING. Oil and pigment – never drying purity – nonexistent purity – illusion of pinning down. / pigment on.. destroyed when place stake.
Þ (surface of a reproduction of the object..) – and therefore not the surface of the object. Intrusion with the work (by producer..) which can then itself be intruded (by the viewer).
Ramifications. Extended / complicated consequence. Stone collection.
Photographic emulsion to back (..) of glass Þ exposed to interference. Is it possible to represent the pictorial Þ so what is this. i.e. in some sense approach the pictorial from the outside^^ (the frame?). i.e. rather than the pictorial forming the frame within which ‘x’ [numeric x] is represented. Interest in marking / constructing divisions rather than places. Marking / construction of (incomplete) frame via division of another. Using pictorial as a divisive device. So what – if frame replaced as subject. Þ folded, painted frame? Platform / stage.
Find out actual supports in building… if placed [elements] in a row next to each other – then the objects only constitute the row as a result of their placing.
Lost edge. In some cases allowed off the edge in others, not. How a material might break down in terms of itself. Wood Þ sawdust ETC. and colour and the LOT. (?). Whilst maintaining its self (to some degree…).
Painted elements define own interior space within defined space (i.e. both deconstructed at certain points).
Perhaps the furthest can lose the object while maintaining it is by taking a photograph. Þ i.e. what constitutes this [i.e. maintaining]. What constitutes the object? Construction of context. “Painting’s Model” Yves Alain Bois. Maurice Blanchot “The Space of Literature”. Deleuze and Guattari, “A Thousand Plateaus”. What happens to the frame when its broken – then placed (now..) as an enterable place.
Yellow and turquoise Þ either side of green framing something that’s already and other painting.
Glass – not necessarily across to wall. ( - might become (HERE..) a reflection of loss at ground level (architectural feature). Glass Þ excess Þ allows possibility of double function. Difference between inside edge being recessed and varnished Þ lost colour – reflective of colour outside of itself. Continuity of frame broken by object. - also with event / process Þ especially probably if called con-version…). But different notion of loss. Place without placing.
The role of the subject in terms of the frame. (very different from taking frame as subject). The subject can then be placed in relation to that which does not exist?? (No.. )Þ then the subject can’t be placed. And / or that which only (alone) exists (A.Mc.) [Alan McCullom?]. or in relation to the margin, border and ETC. that which defines edge and excludes..(temp..) [temporarily / temporally]. Desire to do with the space rather than the object – territorial rather than material?
Desire of entry Þ (unification? / completion / fulfilment??) – of the subject (into)…(of other / of self).Works – maintenance of possible entry to a constructed centre – but, entry redundant – centre lack – constructed by edge rather than object – desire re-placed to the edge / as edge. (Ignorance as a passion of being – a way in which being takes shape – Lacan “Ecrits”). (Non-knowledge Þ possibility of Incomprehensible and a dynamic value constituting discovery of unconscious (G.Richter). – via. Works – entry behind the object (?..) (i.e. Þ door..?? / staircase..) – without necessity, of passing through, i.e. functional entry. Þ exterior follies (D.G., L.F…?) [Dan Graham? Lucio Fontana?]. Relation to reality that must be constructed / elaborated. Opening / closing of unconscious, where something always assuming function of closure, erasing, cancellation (re discovery and its compatriate: loss..). The real is unrepresentable – the risk of disappearing (via the work / with each new work).. (all that remains is the usual) / all that becomes is the usual…
Possibility of completion denied by physical division. Relation work to site – imposed, subservient, superficial, dependant. No work can be independent of site. So in what way dependant i.e. in terms of frame and framing? Difference between site-specific Þ restrictive ETC – and installation Þ formulaic. Possible relation to context which isn’t either of the above. Make adjustments to context. E.g. podium to change height of floor / ceiling in places Þ possibility of using equivalent parts but constructing difference through interference. ( Þ adjustments in terms of function of place. Podium would also construct an edge.
Stage – constituent of incomplete Þ at what point? – frame. Motivation to construct (absent) places. Relation redundant space to political / psychological space.
“The Invisible Man” H.G Wells – search for power via loss of self ETC ETC. Maintenance of psychological exclusion and ( / via) physical intrusion Þ important partly because physical exclusion cant become an individual issue (although it ought to be possible to stay outside). Also because physical doesn’t necessarily mean (also) psychological inclusion Þ (versus intrusion?...). so sets up possibility of delusion / incompleteness. Possible lack of colour on redundant supports.
Something not broken down in terms of context but in terms of its self – self-destructive…
Binary opposition. Basic relationships between floor and ceiling, floor and wall, ceiling and wall. Context within college – redundancy in terms of space (and use, and use of used spaces..). and possibility of walking around (in circles) all day ETC ETC. Chipboard – constructed panels, conversion, additions, divisive Þ possibly single coloured line – relation to colour chipboard: - the other half of grey… (and tonally equivalent etc…). Dead ends (construct within spaces. /. Excess of spaces (inaccessible). Wide range different materials: white walls, wooden ceiling, wooden floorboards, brick walls, grey brick walls, wooden skirting, galvanised metal, polystyrene insulation, silver foil type.., corrugated metal. Relation redundancy of space to political space[:] motivation in terms of reconstruction of space.
D. frame disappears. A.M. [Alan McCullom] Þ only frame (plaster casts of…). Þ painting re-placed as frame…but with the loss of the pictorial. (other possibilities of what constitutes frame Þ light (D.F.) [Dan Flavin?]. Pictorial becomes architectural. Re-investment of pictorial in an other place of pictorial also functioning as entrance. Dislocation between painting space and pictorial space. Folded parts destroy the singular. Supports… Þ what’s taken of / from the space. Imposition versus intervention. What happens / what’s left once the frame is broken. Important to be able to enter the broken frame.
Possibility of staking in relation to an already constructed place – place Þ which didn’t exist as such – within a place.
Division and limit in terms of the frame. Possibility of entry, choice of, (where does it lead to) – unclear position – redundancy and access, visual, physical, psychological. Internally reflective space, emphasis on positioning of viewer. Reality of place. Logic (ill).
Positive Þ when frame gap with object – negative space versus negative space. Re lack when intrusion of exterior space into interior gap. Debate between use (functional) and viewing Þ questions re relation viewer to object. Intimacy. Negotiating objects (city, street, building, room, furniture, fittings). Excess of object as well as lack. Object outside of its self. Desire for completion Þ transfer from my self Þ work.
Glass lids recessed into top of stakes / varnished colour – as if dipped. (block – extension / intrusion). i.e. slots in top of stakes. Difference between – construction of place and construction of edge which places place. Þ not what sort of place want to construct (utopian no) but what / where of edges / BOTH. Painting in terms of sculpture in terms of painting. Abstract made concrete. That takes place. Painting: support and paint. Sculpture: object – non-functional. Þ place empty. – in mid air, etc. viewers’ relation to work – possibility of entry. – as what / for what. (D.G. [Dan Graham?] deconstruction of stereotypes (in terms of the conditioned subject…). Construct place on / around which painting occurs – what could this do and to do what.
i.e. enter stage in order to cross the room. Possibility of walking around?
Club foot.
From pillar to post. Þ pilaster – usually ornamental rectangular column embedded in face of a wall and project slightly from it. Post, pillar, column.
Possibility of one object (e.g. stake) and pile of material used to construct (e.g. granito). Put a stake in the ceiling.
Construction of viewpoint. Þ in other direction Þ to what’s not there. / viewing from the outside Þ distance between object and wall – so close that if enter and view, confronted with / by wall. Concrete dust Þ floor, except for info: gap. If cross from one to the other (carelessly) destroy object. Possibility of incompletion via engagement. Possibility of other information below dust (e.g. painted..) / above dust e.g. platforms / supports etc. ( Þ application to given limit of place (architecture). The unfamiliarity of the familiar ( / vice-versa.) Þ and displacement and at what point is anything known?
Remarkable. Marked. Mark. Marker. Remark. i.e. – repeated, again, anew, new or improved version of back, backwards.
Relation religion and power and symbolic and when something’s missing while centre / subject not there. Implications Þ via uses of material. Marble pillars, gravestones, monuments. Status, power, wealth, value, decorative, excessive (superfluous). Stakes – pointed piece of material (e.g. wood) used for driving into the ground as a marker or support. – to lay claim to (a territory) (as if) by staking. – something, especially money, that is staked for gain or loss. – an interest / share in an undertaking. – a post for execution by burning.
Chip off the old block. Statues with missing limbs / features. Amputations. Difference between incompletion that changes / destroys the function of an object and in completion that reduces its effectiveness / comfort. Lawrence Weiner – defining relationships from a specific viewpoint – affirming, negating, distorting. Object apparently arbitrary – placing crucial… inverted stakes? Place that has possibility of multiple entry – more than one way, more than one person. How something refers to the viewer can be via an other rather than the body (/ both).
Material significance. How can critique notions of neutrality (re building), not by reflection (chipboard) – use definitely non-neutral material – marble etc…Þ link to economy, excess: possibly contrast this with chipboard. Grey marble? Colour and material working in opposition – meaning divided by material rather than colour..?..(possibility of both…). Staking claim – event before place exists. Event that places place. References construction (/ demolition sites) and function s [sic]. ETC.
Like a lost catwalk.
COMPUTER? Þ if can have a number of elements, a space and bilateral symmetry command (and other place determinants Þ centres ETC Þ of space and divided space… and could c. [computer?] run through various possibilities of placing the elements.
Creating something via the object in terms of something other than itself. Suspended stake. – destruction of function of object rather than creation of (non)-function of object Þ on what terms do I want it to function. In relation to a large, fragile surface. Psychoanalytical, sociological, philosophical. Þ deconstruction of ownership. Þ Relation to constructed object which isn’t a stake. Granite (valuable) cylinder with tapered end – possibility of reading as a stake, pencil, ETC. Stake/s Þ incomplete frame because nature of this frame is incomplete. The elements which constitute it as a frame are all there. Þ ?? remove function in relation to construction of frame. Þ suspend.
Places before they exist – when they’ve been marked out, staked a claim, construction site and function issues.
Alternately coloured (divided grey..) dots… - size top of stake. Negotiating with frame.
Current issues include what are the implications of an incomplete frame, choice to also include. (G.R. Thomson – placed the frame as painting). Something might become visually incomplete via superimposition. Canvas stretched over frame: incomplete frame – I can’t see it. A frame is incomplete if there’s nothing (apparently) placed within it. Frames – dissatisfaction with what (apparently) constitutes limit of an object, idea, subject, etc – what’s outside / beyond this? - frame becomes the above (object, idea, subject etc) – there’s no escape… /. Diss. [dissatisfaction?] with painting being assigned within the frame, isolated, in an illusionistic, illusive space. Idealistic. Negotiating (the boundaries of) painting. “Painting negotiations”.
Re-presentation – negotiates the past, loss, redemption from memory (fear of. Relation memory to what’s gone, over, forgotten, lost, misinterpreted, reinterpreted – memory of events without ever having been present. Relation memory and territory. What’s presence anyway (present) being there. You had to be there (title / B.N. [Bruce Nauman?] piece??). Stake – still central to room – marked place to one side and of room. Stake pushed into. – resistant materials, but to each other / in terms of itself – not in relation to stake. – something which is resistant to air?! (i.e. the rest of the room..?). Þ a reaction to / with / against.
And if framing is the subject. Where’s the subject in painting? What’s the object of painting? When is painting an object? When is painting the object? When can the subject become the object?
J.W. [Jeff Wall] on D.G. [Dan Graham} – exposes the failure of conceptualism (p. 1 / 2). What happens if conceptualism attempted to make fissures in the effect of totalitarian politics – now that those / implications of political systems are becoming / have been dissolved. The critic can be of accepted ideologies – notions (and propaganda) around democracy.
(J.W. – living). Working within a grid system carries the implication of being enmeshed in an impersonal, automatic schema. …This (social) euphoria derives from a sense of being directly enclosed, supported and positioned by a great social power.” Þ (re. living accommodation in office spaces – especially skyscraper, glass towers etc). ..”The dwelling attempts of cancellation of the implications of the architecture, primarily by means of décor.” Stakes – territory – ownership – place – position. Constr. [construction?] identity. Necessity of hierarchy. A lot of stakes – stacked horizontally in front of wall – mostly same (granito?) Some wood, some painted wood, transparent shell stakes i.e. hollow. Some filled with sand – tipped over etc.
D.G.’s Homes for America. The owner is completely tangential to the product’s completion. His home isn’t really possessible in the old sense. Different subject and subject matter. D.G. – establishes social subject. Matter as the problem to be posed by conceptualism (and Þ the city). 20s, 30s: Pure art versus social machine Þ cultural conflict and reproduction of this in / as the city. Situationism interrupts the induced habit of the urban masses (habits which we all rely on – changed induced habits maintain lapsing economies. P. 31, Paraz [?], “Conceptualism…” Specific social genre – altered to expose way it functioned – historical oppression Þ re: D.G.’s magazine articles (also stakes…?) Þ pillars?
Place and position – given, taken for granted or, necessarily, to be condoned. Construction of own frames / context. Þ construction of place – rather than objects – objects – means to an end – what place? Non-illusionistic, temporary, unstable / fragile. Stake Þ context of its self – inverted, transparent… (filling some gaps in painting?). Stakes painted one colour, floor the other.
Presentation of an incomplete frame. Object: frame. (incomplete, painted) therefore not object. Not non-object Þ how is this subject? Implications of an incomplete frame. Frame which no longer divides, separates, distinguishes. Equivalence between interior and exterior. Relation pictorial to exterior – possibility of entry by the viewer.
/the economics of duplicity, duplicity of difference Þ real artificial object surface. Applied removed. How visual information operates (in relation to verbal / written ETC). Remote control for stake on wheels. This game is called “Crime and Economics”. Your goal is to improve the economy by means of criminal activity. Please don’t steal the remote control.
Þ a board game. Þ smash and grab Þ drugs Þ racketeering Þ bank robbery Þ computer hacking Þ corporate crime Þ governmental crime Þ The Godfather ETC (including Go to Jail ETC).. on remand, probation…). Þ possible to continue activities from jail. (art?) [Þ art].
Displaced frontality – to deflected surface and edge. (what then is up front). Double edge.
- conditional framing. (pinning absence. Resistance in the frame. ETC.
Entry / exit Þ semi-private. Þ public. Þ entry / exit Þ work Þ view outside. Public / private. Work / leisure. framing. Þ territory. Brown. Equivalence of workspace. All in it together. Community destroyed when leave – daily. Desire in relation to work – public – private – to be present, acknowledged, exposed –to lose oneself. Decoration. Mirrors – disturbed reflections. Frustrated entry. – veiled mirrors. Copy. Copying Þ distension via mass production. Information Þ transference of Þ architectural, sociological, economic etc. Chinese whispers.
It’s not necessary to have been there in order to know what happened Þ this information is in relation to intentions of event. (from whose point of view…). Territorial division (camouflage / disguise version) Þ what’s the point of direct experience – re artworks. i.e. architecture p. 25 Zone 1 / 2 Virilio “geodesic capacity of defining a unity of time and place for activities now enters into open conflict with the structural capacities of mass communication.” How can a negative be an image of something? Clock – now then.
Paint extended outside of room. Gap (to centre doorway). Aerial view. Stake. Two colours divided via resistance. At bay. Excess of access but only in terms of already having entered (a system). ( - techno-wise..) physical versus psychological entry. “…the urban wall has given way to an infinity of openings and ruptured enclosures.” Zone 1 / 2 p. 20 Virilio.
Work plan April 1993.
Painting – object. The subject of the painting is on the surface. An object can have a subject unless it’s functional.
Contradictions of closed open space (versus open close space) – illusion of entry – relation to the pictorial (representation). Þ square field with stake should be even more fragile – if enter – destroy object but also illusion… (special shoes provided../ and a blindfold?...).
Suspended platform, Þ instability in relation to possibility of entry. Double suspension Þ on the object / off the object? What happens if / when an object refers back to its self – how? And so becomes subject of its self. (if represents its self…)? Make an object the subject of its self (erasure / decomposition. Reify – to regard something abstract as a material thing.
Territory in terms of painting Þ replaced in / as the pictorial. Frames – incomplete. – illusion of entry into the pictorial.
Stake out painting.
Stake in centre floor painting – unobtainable – object of desire. Þ in the way that entry is unobtainable anyway / superfluous, can’t be grasped.
Resistance – relative power of materials…
Relation to making pictorial environmental.
London 1995-96
Using ready made model elements with fabricated model / real elements – ready made models situated as real – as already real – modelled prior to the event of the work. Different order of realness. – implications of ambiguity? Relations literal and real. Þ difference between etc.
Materials are / are of / make reference to everyday objects, including architecture e.g. pencils, wax crayons, granite, marble, brass.
Slots. Magazines, flower beds, architectural spaces, bodily / sexual, temporal.
Contradictions in terms of identity of material – relation to status of object. Common object. Flash material. Uncommon object – debris of cheap material. Bollard, Rough, Demonstration. Bollard is a replica of a concrete bollard. Bump into, come across, walk around, avoid. Displacement. Engaging in the / a process of displacement – from one thing to another – reminiscent of itself. Something having an identity and being presented as an another, in the place of another / others.
Situate. Situating. (violation and). One thing occupying the space of another – invasion and territory – being. Positioning and being. Being on the outside. Making something special out of the common and the everyday. Investment. Of the everyday / references to the everyday: other than the everyday. Special.
Þ initially – painting in installation, framing, geometry as abstract language, limit, extend, multiple, singular Þ logic to extremes, such that becomes illogical. Þ geometry as situating work between multiple familiar / everyday other (not present) objects. Installations as territorial activity. From emphasis on site-specific (/ painting specific) installation to site-generic works. From predominantly sheet materials (2D, pictorial emphasis) to ‘anything’ and sculptural possibilities. From installations in which viewer orientated themselves in relation to (one side or the other – inside / outside..), to sculptural work which situated viewer simply outside. From – if ok for works to make reference, via geometry, to architectural features / methodologies, why not to other objects. Framing and. From / geometry as purely self-referential. Þ so logical that it becomes illogical.
Original 30s décor – in need of restoration as a 60s minimalist painting. Þ using art / architectural related materials – easily malleable / not at all. Staging thing: “Pure History”. [“]The central thesis of Baudrillard’s essays appears to be directly contradicted by the facts[”] p.1.
Dining / washing up table. Multi-purpose objects – cheap market stuff, gadgets (which make them very difficult to use) Intellectually, culturally, aesthetically multi-purpose – in either [any] way – but not impossible. Þ similar to Of / Roughs – not really about the objects themselves Þ what, then? (DIY series?).
Temporal moments of temporality Þ photographs anyway. B.M. [British Museum] Room 40 – miniature models of tool found as votive (Þ ?) items on some religious sites. Question of focus / emphasis of relationship between place and artefact (Richard Hamilton photos D’Offays). (Teacher, British Museum: “Choose something that you like and draw it”). Strongest connection Þ C.Parker, Serpentine. Recovering, sense of place in relation to (nationalism), and its distinctness and its blurring and its appropriations. – contemporary things that resemble much older things: conflation. Representation of past, continuation of tradition, security.
Keeping things intact – pulling things apart: simultaneously. Unstable stability, stable instability, ETC. Tension between being and not-being – one / itself / another / at all… Þ installations Þ de-installations: taking things out of context (Duchamp). Delusion of representation. – trying to hold on to something (in the past / anything). String of pearls: my mother’s a tennis coach. Territory, claiming, marking, one thing occupying the space of another / of itself.
Was working with ideas around framing in relation to architecture and painting in terms of installation – situating the environmental as pictorial rather than the pictorial as environmental (which might have been a landscape painting, etc). Framing – architecture, painting, installation. Environmental Þ pictorial. Geometry making architectural references Þ other objects. Installation as territorial activity. Single object making multiple references. Own thinking to determine the work, rather than a set of pre-inscribed ideas. Possibility of using geometry to refer to all sorts of object, besides architectural. So shift from sheet material to ‘anything’. Conflation of identities from multiple other objects within a single object[‘s] space Þ ambiguity and instability of identity of an object Þ current thinking of one thing occupying the space of another.
Rather than trying to make one thing look like another (representation) – saying this / these thing/s already look like another – it’s a question of context. If context is determining (so much) how something is perceived, then what’s the nature of its identity in the first place Þ and relation of objects to represented objects… – unstable / insecure. – difference between making one thing out of another ‘artificially’ (e.g. plastic nose pencil sharpener – which is post-Oldenburg…) and making one thing out of another ‘really’… (also post-Oldenburg – ray guns etc)… Orange peeler, strawberry huller, cherry stoner, lemon squeezer, grapefruit segmenter, apple slicer, melon scoop, plaque remover. C.O. “one thing becomes the shadow of another[”]. Fighting against windmills. Jean-Louis Baudry “The Apparatus” connects movie-watching experience with dreaming (darkness of movie theatre, passivity of situation, forced immobility of cine subject) – “more than real impression of reality”, an artificial psychosis[”]. Oldenburg – Ray Gun – is to people the world with hallucinations, make the inanimate animate, create visages everywhere, and thus restore the excitement and meaning of simple experience.
Start the Week 17.6.96. Fiction. Fill gap between what are and what would like to be – (desires). Discontentment with having just one life. Religious society – need less fiction – gap already filled by faith. Fiction and history – rewriting of history to conform to political situation – adaptation of oral tradition – mythology and history mixed.
(sets up a debate – linguistic, potentially; for the viewer). Þ relations between physical reality and conceptual projection. Placing physicality in a position of doubt. Debate about what something is / what’s going on: doubt. Relations between what we know something to be and what something is. Pencil, graphite and wood. Graphite, wood and paint. Paint, wood and graphite. (Þ from the inside out / from the outside in…). Þ [paint] used to frame / contain the object: coloured / white / glossy Þ white gloss paint Þ close to being a ground.
- constituent parts and, making something up. Dislocation – allowing for situation of subject in relation to object. Taking a-part (still..). One thing which is of another. – belonging to, yet removed from. Element of futility in terms of activity / potential of an object. Þ disagree. / Þ importance of futility…? Þ serving no useful purpose – completely ineffective. Þ more in terms of relation to non-art object and heir practicality than as art-object (decidedly not futile..). (dictionary – old interior, new exterior because of removed protective covering.
Þ putting the real into the domain of the abstract.. (sounds like a pictorial event… Þ lose the real). Þ whilst maintaining it – it’s not lost in the process. Þ methodologies which relate to subjects - / inform operation of.. methodologies that are applied to subjects; their applicability becoming part of the work. (about? – control and complexity, tension between being and not being).
If can take references / information / ideas, etc. from different places / people which in other ways are in / might be in opposition / contradiction to each other Þ possibility of subscribing to contradictory ideologies from different (presumably..) places – possibility of both [all] being useful under certain conditions / (contexts)… Þ dialectics: change via thesis, antithesis Þ synthesis (Þ Hegel). Þ system of reasoning, exposition / argument that juxtaposes contradictory ideas and usually seeks to resolve their conflict. (simultaneous presentation of conflicting ideas / ideologies Þ same space). Difference between attempting to resolve conflict and celebrating conflict Þ implications (war / confrontation ETC.)
Projectiles hit at wrong end – damaged at the top – element of farce. Installation for a point. Got to be a flower bed not a flower pot because a flower pot is (also..) transportable. Works which can be seen as kinds of proposals – situating subjects as something related to themselves. Materials are situated as being of something other than, as well as, the object for which have been employed – reference to somewhere outside of itself – similar to principle of installation – and when site doesn’t have to be present.
Veneer – pencil piece.. – grain would be just vertical in contrast to / at odds with image of pencil…ETC. ?. A painting which is as much like a pencil as possible – an art object which is as much like as a non-art object (what’s that?...) as possible. Þ what about meaning the pencil [as an art object], too? – near misses.
London and Rome 2006 – 08
Don Quixote: The moment before writing – dilemma, hesitancy, doubt, being stuck. The making of a work is a fiction, and is factual; simultaneously a construction and a reality – of and as the real. Relations between words and deeds ambiguous (also Hamlet): Rome wasn’t built in a day – ambiguous or just plain wrong? Lying against time and time’s grim “it was” – Nietzsche. Both mad and canny. Cervantes’ irony allows us some hope, Swift’s satire corrodes. D. Q. and Hamlet always seem to know what doing, but baffle us when we try to share knowledge – it doesn’t necessarily make sense, even with such conviction: Rome, etc. p. 21: when his mind…belief in what do as right – “for the sake of his honour and as a service to the nation – egotistical. Has to be mad in Cervantes’ account – similar to madness in making work, and Rome as a grandiose and intrinsically mad project. Looking for the glory of achievement..?
Don Quixote – grandiose. D.Q. lost his mind through trying to understand convoluted language. Through words and the misapplication of his time. “looking for meaning where Aristotle…would not have been able to decipher or understand” – implied nonsense. D.Q. becomes nonsensical in the process – at the same time he’s who were reading about, perhaps trying to decipher and understand – a tautology – no point / don’t bother etc. Madness breeds madness. C. trying to drive us mad? D.Q. strength through conviction, belief, regardless.
1.
About belonging and place. How and part of somewhere and not. In this case Rome: not physically there but legacy in London of Romans. Mini-Colosseum. “London, Roman ruin”. /Maybe its about not being somewhere, about not being anywhere.. I’m not here – invisibility / presence stuff again. Gaps. Absent in representation – place and belonging – the Internet – more emphasis on access (again, too…) – can never have access to everything. Always outside of something, always somewhere else, wherever it is. I suppose it’s about the desire to be present – for it to matter where one is – either (?) internally / externally / both. It always matters. I’m not here – am never where the work is. Etc – was once (perhaps..). Distance - measurements – knots in a tape measure. Different forms of measurement – time (takes by foot, camel etc…). [How far is…? E.g. three days]. Sculpture in the round – Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, Rape of Persephone, Borghese Gallery – rolled up-ish – images still as physical as possible. Pantheon image – whole through.. book – “the object of a prohibition” p. 44 Broodthaers. – photocopy very large e.g. image of pillars. Image with road. Trying to make images more real? Images of ceiling fresco paintings Þ stuck to ceiling? The hopelessness of trying to do anything at all and the necessity of doing so.. Bernini images Þ rotate: sculpture in the round.. Þ how to have sculpture when don’t have it.. cheap Bernini. – function of shelf – what else could it be?.. – prop, altar ish. Page 1 Þ Pantheon, page 2 Þ folded, page 3 Þ Bernini / cheap Bernini etc. Fractions / slivers on the past.. Rome wasn’t built in a day: prototype; Rome wasn’t built in a day: water features; Rome wasn’t built in a day: page 1, the Pantheon.
2.
Everything have is relatively small, so pertains to model very easily – real things becoming models: Ian Kiaer… But this goes against idea of making Rome of Rome – it can be a new thing (like St Peter’s, etc..) [ i.e. built in part with stone from the Colosseum]. An edifice. Doesn’t just have to be what found. Making [plastic] bags take up more space – turning them into possible building elements…is taking up more space important? No. is having elements to build with? No. Nothing is – combination of different things is what might lead to something.. What’s important? Þ that can legitimately (or not!) call whatever work becomes: Rome. Las Vegas Venice equivalent / not – there is still a sense of representation here. There are a million possibilities. Only way to avoid representation is to use presentation, without being of various buildings etc. perhaps Rome is a metaphor for living – the transitions, …ifications etc. building falling down, rebuilding etc. Rubble, string, crumpled image: seem to be able to call that Rome more easily, perhaps because not trying so hard to be it. Trolley keeps becoming a kind of altar – either stop it or exploit it.. as most of Rome isn’t there, need to use very little of what have, otherwise like trying to represent. Rome + Rome = Rome. Rome – failure reminiscent of press releases etc that make untenable assertions.
3.
The moment one tries to build something from a page, can no longer see all of it at onceÞ relationship to the pictorial: that it was giving one viewpoint and making it into something restricts this even further: the restrictive view. Flag 1 – the object being (a model of) what’s in the picture.. – like trying to bring the picture back to life.. or at least and experiencing something real, something where am, alongside where am not.. or at least something trying to be real, also a tautology (and the others…). What is it about tautologies that is interesting? Spanish steps – folded concertina style – upside down focuses on form more than image… From Rome: light, portable things – going by train… Þ lightweight Rome…things obviously roman / at least Italian – things not – earth etc – samples Þ everything that collect or collect with must be from Rome. Things to make things with from Rome – Roman string, tape, glue etc (would be from all over the world) – the kinds of things accumulate when live somewhere Þ DIY shops, stationers etc. something with aerial views Þ look in notebook. Anomalies. Sand paper an image. They’ve all become like models except perhaps the crumpled paper and rubble one. And the sculpture in the round. Back to back standing as curved pages. Again a model. Like pillar images etc Þ although these were general – not of anywhere in particular or rather somewhere on particular made into something general… Þ images associated with what do to them / not / both. p. 5?: ruin – sculpture in the expanded field…
4.
By working with images – already fragments of Rome. – want it to be Rome without trying to represent it. – about not being somewhere else – being here. (Rousseau’s painting of tigers without seeing them: lions in Trafalgar square). In L.D. [?] juxtapositions of real things and works became something because of what are – here have chosen things that resemble Rome not that are of Rome.. (/ both: cannelloni. Have made images resemble Rome twice – image and form (columns / mini-pillars). Þ cover floor with images of Rome from different books in different clusters, .. that overlap. At a distance by being images and being on the floor – relation to the image and to the image in real space. What is this thing about model? Þ Schutte etc – design / function of.. Pasta bows Þ Niele Toroni thing..??
5.
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire [DFRE] (2nd of Christian Era – “the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth and the most civilised portion of mankind”… .. influence of laws and manners. Inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury. Peaceful. Prosperous. (today – war has become / being made economically beneficial etc.).. remote wars became / had become more difficult, doubtful and less beneficial (Augustus – wanted piece. Decline of Rome came with decline of its Empire.. – How beyond Rome relates to it, especially being built in a day (Rome in part built by Britain and rest of empire… built at a distance, without being there, without knowing what contributing to. A remote place – disconnected from… here, with this work, don’t know what am trying to make, don’t know what Rome is. Don’t know what can make it as Þ whatever I want.. Some geometry. Þ project to find out what Rome can be – how literally do I want to take this? If Rome like other western European cities – busy, noisy, polluted, greedy, complex. Rome: a kitten (Mark Wallinger naming a racehorse A Real Work of Art). And an environment for the kitten with 9 lives etc Þ emperor.. [Ranciere’s enigmatic cat]. DFRE – pursuit of pleasure or exercise of tyranny… G.B. – pearl fishery attracted their avarice – (D.Hirst’s skull etc..). / use pasta in a giant bowl. – somewhere between food and model… in lots of different ways. Need some excavations – false floors (catacombs). L.D. [?] – never tried to make L.D. but that’s what it became through an engagement with different aspects of…
6.
The tourists, worn out, exhausted by culture, in need of support. Images Þ object… the fragmented image.. stance of the free-standing stick – poise etc.. oscillate between cheesy, jokey, and serious, high-brow / refined… making things look new when they’re not? Plans chest and Rome in a day… - do it in a day? – in one go / over a period of time Rome (drying time would be useful.. – less time Þ more planning Þ not a good idea.. or just call it Rome and disregard time factor – Rome in 6 months, Rome built in 28 days. Þ make the object disappear through its decoration. Precisely because at a distance Þ in the realm of representation rather than real – everything is / can be seen as representation of one kind or another so no such thing as pure representation. Þ adulterated representation… (Baldessari, Stezaker etc etc.). / the book – (Latham, etc etc.)… Something about wanting rolled-up Rome images to be solid Þ so become object not just 2D Þ 3D. Everything is sellable. Don’t want to try to represent Rome – want work to be Rome.. Þ perhaps has to be Rome in representation. The Waters of Rome – book inside out, back to front etc.. Rome – distillation of information rather than experience at this point. Using books – image as object thing – all I’ve got. / information that becomes an object – take a description of the Colosseum and regardless of what know make it as such. Emma Kay-esque.- images can never be Rome… Þ Roman websites – aren’t Rome either – what is – a paving slab isn’t either Þ nothing is Rome. Something – lots of things all together are Rome… Þ need other things that relate to Rome Þ keep reading…
London 2014
art how to do as much as possible whilst doing as little as possible..
The distinction in the image between the 'un/known' reality of what it's 'of' and the image as object, in / of itself.
So many of the images are retro - the obsolescence of the image itself, let alone its particular contents: shared images are always in the past, even when they pertain to the future. reproductions / images - there's a difference - am making reproductions of digital images.. Not making for the first time - remaking etc.. (two-way table reproduction edwardian dining table..) a reproduction of an image of the interior of a grand piano.
An image that plays a tune - eg newly printed image of interior of a grand piano - could play Chopin's Etudes etc. if think it could. The image is pathetic, after all. We have to make things do things still - I keep forgetting. Open up the computer switch it on find a web page etc. As if that should be over now. As if we should be more redundant than we already are. As if what we can think of should be possible, regardless of reality. Should happen before we've done it. Exaggerate the opposite. Smithson going to the source... (Without the sound of a creaking tree, PLOT, 2006). Google glasses - becoming bionic. Beyond what can do - tools etc. Desire and rationality at odds - tension between etc. Desire only desire when remains unsatiated... (Zizek et al). Desire when want to do what's not. What's more interesting is when we are able to make what don't know we want to do is possible, when can find out what desire without being told this from outside... what this facilitates, including further desires (like these..).. Desire in incompletion, maintains potential, possibility etc..(as the ink runs out the sound gets louder). Undone: darning, washing up, decorating, social injustice, inequality, human rights etc... Undo the undoing...Could go either way - complete collapse or recollation...
The simultaneously full and empty image (a painting).
Each mark a kind of landing and retreat.
London 2015
Story of chair in the land of diminishing returns (etc).
Chair tipped back / on one leg.
Recombinants / Indirect Objects. Micro, macro. Portscapes, landtraits. Things merging together. Hua Gong... Painting... Quantum Physics.
I'm trying to work and someone else is trying to get me to buy a floral crop top with shorts and to feed a hungry child and to log in or register to use bookmarks.
Further online notes are available at OperationRome (3200 word text) and on the Road For the Future website).
Please note this page constitutes a small selection of notes, which are otherwise currently available only as handwritten hard copies.