Making an Inbuilt Installation

During a group seminar about the installation arrangements for the MA unit submission, I realised how truly disinterested I am in being descriptive, and how redundant such arrangements can be anyway.

There are various exhibiting experiences I have had which lead me to this thinking -

The first time I left work in a gallery which someone else was to install, I left a page of specific instructions for the arrangement of everything - it was a video installation of a TV sitting on a chair. When I came along to the exhibition, it was arranged differently to my instructions, but I realised that I quite liked what they had done with it, and that it actually fitted the space better than my original intentions. The new arrangement better worked around the idiosyncrasies of the gallery and the other works in the exhibition, which I had not seen before.

My degree show piece was a video light installation which I had planned for a high wall of the space. When we arrived to set up, we discovered that someone had installed an enormous light fitting there, making it useless for me. I had to find a new space, and fit in around everyone else's work. I found a brilliant high spot, almost at the ceiling, which again, worked better for the piece, allowing it to seem even more naturally generated. This experience especially awoke the possibilities of finding the best space for a work in any place, however unlikely. There are always some variations which will alter and add to the context.

Since then I have a couple of times had the opportunity to choose a space to show work in unusual and irregular spaces. I admit that I tend to choose odd corners which are sometimes missed by viewers, but they have been the best places for the work, and gave the intrepid or observant viewer who did experience it an added pleasure of discovery of both the work and the context of the work.

You would think that, especially with moving image work, certain exhibiting conditions would be taken as read - that it is shown in as dark a space as possible so that it does not have to compete with lighting, that sound pieces are not too near so that they clash, that it would actually be turned on, and so on. These self evident things do not always happen, but that aside, generally people curating or putting up exhibitions will have such common sense, and as with paintings or more static work, will place them with a sympathetic eye.

If I sent a painting of drawing, I would not expect to provide instructions such as this way up, place on the wall, image side showing, etc. I exaggerate of course, but with moving image, I expect the same basic considerations. Beyond that, the point I am gradually getting to, is a wonderful variety of options which depend on the infinite variations of the space, the inventiveness of the curator, and the consideration of good exhibition practice. In other words, apart from if a I have a specific need that the work is projected or in a TV, I am more than happy for my work to be shown in a variety of settings. Surprise me, allow me to surprise myself. Use the room, the walls, the ceiling, the corners. If I get a chance to be there and choose, I will perhaps go for the straight onto the projection screen option, or there may be an interesting nook which suggests itself for projection.

Again, if I sent a painting of sculpture, a curator would feel more free to interpret where it should be placed - it is not always in the central and most obvious place, and there are many legitimate options. All work must by definition be somewhat site specific even if that is to a small degree.

12th August 2013

Another experience which formed this view was the opportunity I had to see the same exhibition in vastly different venues, a touring group show of British Council art which I happened to see both in London and Prague. The settings and context could hardly have been more different. In London they used a large industrial warehouse with white painted walls and raw fitting around - the sort of place really expected to host contemporary art, and probably something the artists were expecting. In Prague, the venue was the most ornate, baroque, flock-wallpapered, gold trimmed and oppressive set of rooms and corridors you could imagine. How incredibly different the work looked. How it changed according to the place. I wrote an essay about that for my degree, and still consider that experience when pondering this issue.

I also have seen my own work in a variety of settings. It's fascinating to see how certain aspects come across differently if it is on a public screen, a cinema screen, projected in a gallery dark space, on a TV monitor, or put into a particular installation or setting. Perhaps the point is that there is not really one definitive setting. If the work is strong enough it really should be able to withstand different ways of showing, because that's what's going to happen anyway, even if it was made with something particular in mind.

With my popup theViewergallery, I have taken license with moving image, and shown it both by adapting it to fit into a venue, and specifically creating setting that can me movable - for example: I choose and edit a playlist of my own and other's work, and have shown that at both ends of the exhibition space, one projected, one on TV, starting at different times. I'd like to explore such multiple screenings more, as I believe it is a great experiment in retaining visual interest while portraying the reality of nonlinear vision. I also have edited two different artists' work to play side by side on the same screen as an exercise in similarity and juxtaposition. When theViewergallery was installed in a shed, I knew I would have to compete with a lot of light, and so made the screening adapt. All these situations show the inherent flexibility required of moving image.

Last year or unit I investigated some of the problems in distributing moving image, and the difficulties artists have in selling work. There is also an increasing difficulty in storage and archiving moving image within art institutions, and in the agreements to exhibit and install being so specific that the work becomes obsolete along with the equipment used for playing it. Added to that are issues about copyright, and there are a whole raft of problems which painters and sculptors easily bypass.

I think the solution to this is partly in the flexibility of the artist, to accept that installation instructions are serving suggestions, and to allow curators to reinterpret work according to settings, even if that is not according to taste. Menus aside, unless the work has clear elements which are intrinsic to it, once it's in a gallery, the artist's control is really lost anyway.

These above are some of the underlying reasons which eventually lead me to my revelation. Other threads are in previous work, and the concepts themselves - I have often made moving image which seeks to play on the illusion of space within. It's all illusion anyway. There is a space within the box, within the screen, which works differently. Even for today's visually sophisticated audience there are some ways of showing film which have sense of wonder that there might be depth within. It's the play between the flatness of surface and the infinite amount of space and depth.

http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/linking-with-previous-work.html

In the light of all this I decided to really examine my thoughts about installation and presenting work for the MA submission, and other settings. All those strains of thought collided in a new idea, that I make this moving image as an inbuilt installation, or an inherent installation - that the moving image itself is an installation and has elements within it that makes it an installation however it may be shown, considering all the variations mentioned above.

I construct an internal installation using moving image, as if I am carving out a space or shape, wherever it is shown or projected. Movable, adaptable, suitable for all weathers. In a way, I retain my artist's control on the work into the gallery, because no matter what exhibiting decisions are made, it is as if placing a sculpture in different locations - it retains its properties, as moving image tends to lose them.

This is a very significant development in my moving image, and one which I feel I will always incorporate in future work - I don't see how I could not do this now. Again, I look back at previous work and I see how I have been moving towards this, and making work like this but from different angles, and less deliberately.

13th August 2013

I feel compelled to construct and destabilise the appearance of the brick structure at the same time. There can't be a static frame, or a feeling of solidity.

As the piece nears completion I will soon be able to try out all sorts of different places to show and project - it can still be projected on screen or on walls, It can be within TVs, and of course they can be placed anywhere. It can also be projected onto floors or corners - I'll see how well it works. In irregular gallery spaces, there will be all sorts of possibilities.

22nd August 2013