BLOCassembly#7: time
Friday 27 June, 7-9.30pm
BLOCassembly#7 featured work by artists from Sheffield, London, Cardiff and Birmingham. Each of the artists selected produced work relating to the theme of Time. As well as artists from Sheffield (Daniel Simpkins), Birmingham (a.a.s.), London (Matt Roberts and Elizabeth Gossling) and Cardiff (Micheal Cousin), Bloc invited three recent graduates from this year’s Sheffield Hallam Fine Art degree: Eve Flanagan, Charlotte Durkin and Matt Thomas.
Click here for the image archive (flickr.com)
a.a.s.
a.a.s. will be sending a description of an artwork to be installed, but won’t actually be available to install it.
Michael Cousin
Anyspace-Whatevers
Projection in gallery
‘The beings within these moments lay in a space in-between the real and the imagined; they have transcended their localised space to become other than themselves. These mundane spaces we inhabit become the repositories of the creators of greatness and beauty. These ‘Anyspace-Whatevers’ are a necessary condition for the emergence of uniqueness, singularities and significance, so that the linkages between different spaces and times can be made in an infinite number of ways. What we think we see and know, the representation and misrepresentation of realities are an endemic failure of our perception, and it is only a matter of opinion as to what is the truth.’
Charlotte Durkin
In stairwell opposite gallery
Over a period of time friends were asked to select and donate a track of their choice and using these tracks an improvised dance performance was established. During this performance the artist recorded her breathing patterns and an archive of ‘breath soundtracks’ began to form.
Each ‘Breath Soundtrack’ holds a personal value to the artist. Individually they represent the relationship between the ‘track selector’ and the artist herself. It is with this underlying commitment to the selector that the artist performs from the heart, turning the ‘Breath Soundtrack’ into a gift in itself.
Eve Flanagan
Work on perspex in gallery
Flanagan’s current work focuses on the artist’s traditional tools. The donkey bench, graphite willow charcoal and chalk; the basic materials of traditional drawing largely associated with life drawing. Flanagan questions the necessity of these tools by
removing the object and deconstructing the medium. For each piece the artist sits on the bench for several hours continually shaving down the tool until there is nothing left. While doing this she the emerging graphite is crushed beneath her feet. What is left behind is a trace of footprints in the remains. One material missing from these drawings is paper. Instead Flanagan uses perspex, a material used in modern day picture framing, thus removing the tendency to pay too much attention to the quality of the paper instead of looking at the quality of the actual drawing. Flanagan also likes the transparency of the surface as then attention can be almost entirely focused on the trace of the tool left behind.
Elizabeth Gossling
Seed Factory 1
Print on heavyweight paper in gallery
“Seed Factory 1 is part of a series of prints that I am currently making and was produced in several stages. At the first stage, only the seed packets within the documentation of the Garden Centre were printed. This incomplete image was then left in a commercial greenhouse alongside plants that were being grown. The incorporation of the greenhouse environment was an introduction of a different process and time scale of production on to the image. The result was a reaction of the pigments to the exposure of sunlight resulting to the distortion of colour. At the final stage the remainder of the image was printed. By combining these two types of production. The completed image represents a modified dialogue of image making where the process and language of production becomes more apparent yet more indecipherable.”
Matt Roberts
St Stephen
Performance (9pm) at bottom of Jessop Lane
near blue containers
“My practice examines the relationship between Artwork and audience, by creating performances in which the level of audience participation constitutes the nature of the work. St Stephen involves the dragging of a punchbag into the Bloc Courtyard, where the audience is invited to stone it. The use of an effigy of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, allows an audience to engage with the original psychic drama of the scene in a way in which 2-D representation might not.”
Daniel Simpkins
The Prophesised Situation is Real in its Consequences:
The Mega Happy Ending
‘If you book them, they will come’ advises Jim Morrison and the weird naked Indian to Wayne as he dreams. Sceptical but with little alternative, upon waking Wayne follows the advice and continues to publicise performances by world renowned rock bands to headline his upcoming festival, Waynestock.
The day of the festival, yet to have any contact with the bands, Wayne is extremely anxious. Crowds turn up in their thousands but in the absence of any performers a riot seems inevitable. As the crowd grows increasingly restless, Wayne calls a final time upon Jim and the Indian for advice; whilst offering little in terms of assistance, Jim congratulates Wayne on giving the festival his best shot, at least he tried… But, just as the situation appears ultimately doomed, Aerosmith appear and play an awesome show to the delight of all present. Whilst Aerosmith perform, Pearl Jam and Van Halen can be seen being escorted from a limousine-length mirthmobile car by the naked Indian as Jim’s prophesy materialises. The closing credits run.
1993 comedy Wayne’s World 2
Matt Thomas
Under cover between courtyard and Jessop Lane
Fruit Machines initiated this idea, their lights flash in often complex and mesmerising patterns and the intermittent sounds they produce draw attention to themselves. This piece explores these factors and is an experiment in timing. It contains copyright expired video and sound licensed under the creative commons agreement.
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