Under The Floor

One of the ideas we explored was 'The Under The Floor show', but it has not yet been fully developed. The idea initially was to use only the space under the floor in which to exhibit, as The exhibition space at Asylum Studios has a suspended floor over the top of an older existing floor; it is quite unique. But could be explored elsewhere to challenge audience expectations to art exhibition. I worked with Emma on a few ideas and these are my results. We worked in the Asylum studio exhibition space for the day and worked with the grid of the floor tiles, and also opened up the floor to interact with the space underneath as well as above. The materials are golf tees and other pieces from a similar source. I exploited the grid, the positive and negative of the top and underneath, formed 'uncanny' through selection processes, and configured the containing box and discs into a potentially animate form.

Steve

More contradictory stuff

Here is some more of the work produced over the past year for the Play project. We had been working on the theme of 'Upside down' and 'Contradiction' for some time and found ways to create new works that take on this strategy. We thought of it more as a strategy to produce work than a theme in the strictest sense, as there was a restriction or point of compliance that allowed any form, object, subject to be explored but not to define it or limit the work. Initial pieces were perhaps fairly straight forward but the term 'contradiction' is very open and enables a conceptual approach to emerge, both in terms of function and implication and not just in terms of appearance. Such strategies are very much in line with our creative approaches and will become more and more I think a part of my practice.

Steve

These are some of the pieces that I created:

Back At PLAY . . . believe it or not . . .

During 2008 we have been working on the project without updating the blog. We now have produced new work that explored ideas based on strategies such as 'contradiction' and 'upsidedown'. These are some images of the work produced in sessions together.

Steve produced these:

Alex produced these:

Emma produced these:

Do Not Use

Do Not Use - Forensic Evidence

Ship

nonfunctioning machine for making a dead fly circle the light

Do Not Use

An open invitation. Make new work here, change what you find, publish results. Rules welcome. (Alex)

"It's this purposefully made box"

Adventures in New Media

The empty display case that perplexed and haunted me for a while was finally finished following ideas to investigate new media. I changed the idea from a video piece within the object to a sound piece within the box. This seems to have effectively pushed the references back to the object without creating another representation of it, and emphasizing its banal presence as a disfunctional display case. When we met and talked to Roger Ackling, he said to be radical. For me, I guess that has happened, at least to some extent, though I followed ideas and solutions to problems rather than seek to produce work that specifically meet what I thought radical meant.

Visitors went up close, as they had to, to hear the spoken loop to find it refering back to the undisplayed presentation. I found it difficult at first to work with an object that did not inherently provoke a response for me. I think that through the encouragement from the others to persevere on this one, I may work again in the future in a similar way, and definately expore new media more.

Completion of the first exhibition

So we have finished the second phase of the project. After working together we have spent some time preparing and further experimenting with pieces for the first exhibition. The process has been successful and we have had good feedback about the work and display.

EXHIBITION NOW OPEN