T h e A u s t r a l i a n N a t i o n a l U n i v e r s i t y
Institute of the Arts
Visual Arts Graduate ProgramCanberra School of Art
GRADUATE DIPLOMA of ART 1996
Kevin McMahon
REPORT
Abstract
A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s
1 would like to thank all of the following people for assistance throughout the Post Graduate year
Paul Hay, for his dialogue and encouragement and assistance on the Inert Sounding Bell and Manuka installation.
Glass Workshop: Steven Proctor, Jane Bruce, Giles Bettison, Tom Rowney, Claudia Borella.
Nigel Lendon, (for his editorial and other assistance) Ingo Kleinert, David Watt
Cathy Laudenbach
Shane Breynard
David Martin
Katherine Morant
Matthieu Gallois
Table of Contents
Page number Contents 1. Introduction
2. Studio Practice: The Installation works
2. 1. Hub Cap Freeze and other works: exhibition at the Manuka Canberra Contemporary Art Space in April 1995.
4 2. Hub Cap Freeze.
4 3. The relevance of music and text
6 4. Rim Spills
8 5. Inert Sounding Bell (Floriade Commission 1995)
9 6. Still Life With Water
11 7. Context of the Work: Julian Opie
13 8. Reflections on Visual Sources
14 Methodology
17 Conclusion
18 Addenda
Introduction
1 1. General focus of interest
I have always had an interest in the way certain substances have an effect, which relates to the materiality of its matter. In this year's work the substances of water (ice, fluid, vapour), as well as wax, glass and plaster have all been explored with their material qualities in mind. This approach has acted as a catalyst for ideas over the years, and still forms a part of the working process in my art practice.
1.2. New developments in my art
More recently I have sought to refine these observations and to bring this to new ideas and ways in which a substance like water could be incorporated into the art work.
1.3 My choice of water as medium or 'motif
I decided to work with water it having many attributes that are associated with rich and diverse sociocultural dimensions as well as in everyday situations. It was some of these aspects, that the work began to draw upon.
1.4. The use of other materials as containers
s t u d i o Practice: The Installation works
1. H u b C a p F r e e z e and other works: exhibition at the M a n u k a Canberra Contemporary Art Space in April 1995.
This was an opportunity to show some of the worit I had developed and to make a site specific woric. The work comprised three exhibits, each part being significantly interconnected.
The first work was a series of photographic works. I experimented with the photographic process known as the photogram. In this process an object or material is placed on top of photographic paper and exposed to light, without any use of the enlargement or projection process. I had found a quantity of fibre based photographic paper in the garage of a house I was renting. It had been discarded and was well beyond its expiry date It was also fogged, a photographic term meaning that the paper had been exposed to light.
The negatives which I chose were a recent discovery and were from my father's photographic collection dating back a few decades, which I had just inherited. My father was a meteorological scientist and had taken many photos of various cloud formations and the negatives became a great background for the context of the photograms. The combining of the photographic paper, the old black and white negatives, and three dimensional reproductions from hub caps and half spheres both in wax and ice provided a basis to experiment with and to produce a series of photograms.
Working in the darkroom using light and chemicals to transform my ideas became a kind of alchemy. Each print I made was unpredictable due to the paper being fogged and the deterioration of each negative, so there was no control over the final image: the fogging governed how much light had penetrated the paper and had left its shadow of exposure. These shadows linked with the cloud formations from the aged unexposed negatives and the placement on the paper in the darkroom of the hub cap form, or the half sphere form made in ice.
M y special interest here was the clouds being the carriers of water, the connections to metrological terms and global systems which regulate and form cycles. The literal meaning of hub and cap and the symbol of the circle was used
here as a metaphor for the wheel of time and cycles of life.
The photos also provided a form of documentation for the ephemeral nature of cloud formations and also the melting ice, forming rivulets and droplets on the paper surface. The wax acting as a container for the cast ice cap gave the luminosity in each image, conveying a presence of energy, while the cast half ice spheres caused the light to diffract which in effect gave an appearance of the lenses of eyes. The fogging on each print also had the effect of an xray vision. All of these effects created a series of images which had a metaphysical aspect and integrated with the two other parts of the exhibition.
2. Hub Cap Freeze.
This was a series of various styles of replicated hub caps made in wax which were able to contain water. The water placed inside was frozen for the opening of the exhibition and remained encapsulated in the individual hub cap forms for the duration of the exhibition.
In the centre of each hub cap was a hollow glass pole providing a core and mounting axle so each one could be mounted on the wall. This hollow core was not just a technique to mount the work, but it also created a core and indicator of a fixed point in time.
The reference to time was also made apparent as the hub cap became like a clock displayed on the wall but with no clear indicators except that the hub cap is off a wheel which, in its normal function revolves around and around, reminiscent of the hands on a clock.
The objects were displayed in a linear formation along the wall at eye level and they were individually spotlighted with the protruding glass poles casting a shadow at various positions along the wall, this creating an effect of motion.
3. The relevance of music and text
The music composed by Louis Andriessen called DE TIJD ( time) became a source of inspiration and the text by Elmer Schonberger f r o m the cd booklet provided a source for me to reflect upon in relation to this work, as well as a later commisioned work for Floriade (Inert Sounding Bell).
This reference was significant in relation to my understanding of time and the ephemeral nature of water. Water may be seen as a still mass or as a flowing force, but within this contrast there is a constant visible and invisible action transforming whatever it touches. This action became a part of my working process (see Methodologies)
'Quid est ergo tempus T is the famous question Saint Augustine asked himself. 'What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.'
'..if only their minds could be seized and held steady they would be still for a while and, for that short moment, they would climpse the splendour of eternity which is for ever still. They would contrast it with time, which is never still and see that it is not comparable. They would see that time derives its length only from a great number of movements constantly following one another into the past, because they cannot all continue at once. But in eternity nothing moves into the past: all is present. Time, on the other hand, is never all present at once. The past is always driven on by the future, the future always follows on the heels of the past, and both the past and the future have their beginning and their end in the eternal present. If only men's minds could be seized and held still! They would see how eternity, in which there is neither past nor future, determines both past and future time. Could mine be the hand strong enough to seize the minds of men? Could any words of mine have power to achieve so great a task?'
(Saint Augustine, 1993)
This concept became a metaphor which inspired my own work and formed a context for the encapsulation of the water and strengthening of the reference to time. The water was frozen at the beginning of the exhibition creating a metaphor for its transition and impermanence, water being a part of an invisible cycle. So the hub cap was an icon referring to the water's motion, (as well as its original literal meaning) whereas in this context I have rendered it motionless despite the transformation of its contents, the water, supposedly inert.
4. Rim Spills
The final part of the exhibition utilised the floor of the gallery. Prior to the
exhibition some of my concerns were how to use the whole of the gallery and
make a site specific work, that is a work executed in the space. This presented
many problems at first and, it was only a few days before the opening of the
exhibition that I was able to resolve this . The idea to occupy the central part of
the floor with a work that invited the audience to navigate and encircle it became
apparent on entering the gallery. I again had the idea of using the circle to
emphasise cyclical transformations, and I wanted to make a type of dish and
incorporate the use of water in the form of ice.
The making and scale of the work involved the help of a colleague as the nature of
the materials and process required that we work quickly. A thin ply provided a
shallow circular formwork which was held in place with wet clay that also acted
as a seal. Within this arena the floor was lined with plastic so as to prevent plaster
fixing to the floor surface and facilitating an easy removal of materials. This then
became the base for the splashing and pouring of a few full bins of the plaster
slurry, the starting point being from the centre and then working to the rim. The
circumference of the wall was built up by working in one direction and letting the
flow or splash create a surface that had encountered a liquid mass and left its
mark. This technique created the dish for the next surface.
The next stage involved the pouring of molten wax to form a surface cover for
the curing plaster. This was an interesting point in the development and aesthetic
outcome of this work. Water which was retained within the plaster surface became
a force in the process of cooling the hot liquid substance of wax which reacted to
the wet cold surface of the plaster.
This effect had been a process I used in making my moulds for the wax hub caps
(see Methodologies ). The rapidity of the cooling wax caused a contraction and
great shrinkage. As it solidified there was also sound present in this stage of the
process.
material qualities in the process of completing of the work revealed a number of transitory qualities which were lost in the final form of the work.
The completion of this part of the installation provided me with two different surfaces in the one work, the base surface being the plaster (permeable ) and the top surface the wax ( impermeable). As plaster readily absorbs the water whereas the wax retains the water, by placing my ice cap forms on the surface of the wax and plaster dish, with some of the melting water retained in a puddle and some a b s o r b e d into the plaster dish, I then had two surfaces that could clearly d e m o n s t r a t e this contrast and again reiterate this continuous vision of the hydrologic cycle. The quotation I chose for the exhibition said it all.
Water is H2O Hydrogen two parts Oxygen one
But there is also a third thing That makes it water.
And nobody knows what that is.
D.H. Lawrence (Croutier 1992 , preface)
Overpage: (top) plaster dish
5. I n e r t S o u n d i n g Bell (Floriade C o m m i s s i o n 1995)
O n e of the meanings of the word "inert" is something lying dormant but with a potential to be activated when the conditions prevail. All seeds and bulbs respond to this basic law of nature. Some time ago I envisaged a bulb that was able to float on water. A bubble was an image that came to mind this could also act as a vessel to house an object, the image of a bell being a perfect metaphor for a hidden potential and its f u n c t i o n to transmit sound Sounds evoke m e m o r i e s and associations with a time and place.
For the Floriade Commission a total of five plexi glass spheres were constructed. Each sphere was made up from two halves, the two half spheres being linked together by a coupling ring which has a vertical axis following the circumference of the top sphere. Mounted from this centre axis inside each bubble is a bell,, each of the bells producing a different pitch.
The spheres have reference to cycles, contained within which is the metaphor of global systems, which regulate and provide life, (see Schwenk page 10). My idea of a vessel housing a bell and being anchored in water was a intended as a simple visual reference to the hidden potential in all of life. These objects are also intended to evoke the qualities of seeds which lie dormant, unleashing their potential to transform once the right conditions prevail. The bell therefore has a function when it is activated, transmitting sound, its sound transferred from its time capsule, and completing a cycle.
My proposal for the Floriade Commission also was to place inside each of the spheres a radio receiver, the intention being to transmit the sound from each bell when activated by the water or wind. The sounds produced from the swaying bells by the wind and water would then be simultaneously mixed and amplified through a series of hidden speakers.
Unfortunately this part of the work was unsuccessful due mainly to a lack of expertise in the electronic field, as this was an area I had no knowledge of and was relying on advice from a friend; who had adviced me it would work, with his knowledge of electronics. When the bubbles were launched in the water and after observing them each day in the wind and moving water I realised that an extra coupling ring fixed to the bottom of each sphere would have enabled the spheres to be linked together, to create an extra pulling point on each of the spheres and consequently an easier action for the bells to sound in lighter winds.
6. Still Life With Water
The courtyard of the CSA Gallery provided a setting to establish an artificial landscape a colour field of bins, water and a wax Lotus floating on the surface in each bin.
A certain sense of absurdity had originally provoked me to make this work. Even though in its initial conception it may have seemed absurd, yet on reflection, society is itself full of contradictions, absurdities, and deceptive superficialities. So ironically, absurdity may be a true measure of reality. As the work progressed the process of filling rubbish bins with water and replicating an artificial emblem (lotus flower) on the surface of the water started a process of evaluation concerning the paradoxes of authenticity and artificiality.
We live in an age of modernity where values and truths have paradoxical meanings, so my idea of placing water in the bins establishes a value and a context for the bin's displacement and the water's containment. In this final installation the water evoking no question of what is real in relation to its environment. The imitation green field and sky in my landscaped courtyard are aiding and adding to the superficiality and context of my palette of bins.
The replica or multiple of the Lotus
Floating on the surface in the bin is an oil based substance manufactured by the petro chemical industry, a material I purposely chose as it could signify both purity and contamination in relation to the water. The wax referenced the artificial & synthetic and also, in relation to how in life we perceive beauty, choosing to simulate this beauty of a flower with wax, created a metaphor for the transitory nature of beauty as wax has the ability to melt and fade away. The Lotus therefore symbolises purity and transformation and has many more interpretations when viewed in its spiritual context. It was for this reason I chose to float this emblem on the water's surface. The artificial wax Lotus then acts as a substitute for the authentic lotus and is also a referent for contamination, as the wax is linked to the oil industry and automatically oil is associated with contamination (oil slick) whereas water served as a catalyst for substance and purity.
beauty. But his mind was made up from then on; he would make actual flowers, instead of painting them, flowers that would not fade, but be permanent, like painted flowers. The question of odor did not enter into the project, since on one had ever demanded of painted flowers that they smell. A R T I F I C I A L F L O R I S T became very expert in the making of permanent flowers, so that at a short distance they were easily mistaken for nature's work. One day I came around with my camera and photographed the permanent flowers. I took them against the sky, I added drops of water to simulate the dew, and i even put a bee in the chalice of one of them. However, when I showed the results to FLORIST, his face fell. 'Ah, but you haven't got their souls." Once again, I had failed. Now I ask you, how can we ever get together on this question of beauty?
(Man Ray, "Photography is not art", Man Ray Photographs. London 1982, 31-2.)
O v e r p a g e : studio p h o t o of bin, wax Lotus and water, artificial grass, cleaning cloths.
7. Context of the Work: Julian Opie
Julian Opie, an artist who emerged in the early eighties has appropriated the making of art and styles of design which include images and objects that are part of today's social environments. In the essay from his catalogue titled "Operation Atopia" the critic Michael Newman writes
D i s p l a c e m e n t . In e f f e c t , appropriation is a mode of displacement. Displacement is more extensive than appropriation insofar as, for example, mimesis (imitation) can be understood as another mode of displacement. Thus the works of 1987-88 which resemble vents, refrigerators and display cabinets could be seen both as an imitative appropriation of a certain style of utility objects and of a characteristic cool, fetishistic surface finish, and their displacement into the gallery and into art.
(Newman, 1993: 17)
Some of the titles of his more recent works question the world in which experiences are now being talked about in terms of virtual reality. In the same essay Newman also discusses Opies Imagination;
as Opie recognises in some of the tides of the works of 1992-93 (Imagine you are flying , Imagine you can order these. Imagine it's raining. Imagine you are driving), has become a technology; or perhaps technology has become sublime, exceeding any human capacity to imagine or represent it, with virtual reality providing the 'safe' vantage point from which this monstrous excess may be apprehended.
(Newman, 1993: 86 (Quote from lecture by B.Spence))
I found Opie's work offers a possible vision of the future. His observations are of what surrounds him each day and his art making is of today utilising all new technologies and materials, appropriating old and new styles in art into his own art. The simulated concrete environments, virtual space and video games all reflect a culture alienated from a natural world. His tides have a sense of paradox and humour which engages our intellect and invites us to question the meaning, forcing our imagination to construct a possible reality.
In relation to my own installations I found that Opie's way of interpreting society's icons, roads, buildings, appliances, the regulated systems that we live by, are different to the context that my work addresses. My environment is artificial except that the water is real; it relies on our senses to touch and taste and experience its authenticity.
In Opie's art he relies on the imagination to simulate experience thus conveying a sense of alienation to the viewer. It was for some of these reasons that Opie's art interested me in relation to my installations with bins and hub caps, as I was relying on the reality of the water's presence to convey and evoke a sense of
reverence. I have also drawn on various styles of art and made deliberate reference to specific art movements that I have found relevant to my own art, especially...colour field painting in relation to abstraction, an art movement of the mid-1950s to late 1960s (colour field of bins), and the history of the ready made object and current trends in art today. As I said at the start it was the absurdity that provoked me to make this work and I also see this particular installation establishing an ironic perspective on art making and the labels which identify its authenticity as being art.
Overpage: Still Life with Water, CSA Gallery courtyard
8. R e f l e c t i o n s on Visual Sources
Over the last few years I have documented many urban sites which have associations with the banal and I have found a particular interest in the objects in these environments. Containers have been a recurring theme in these urban landscapes (see images following), and these places became my diary, a source to draw upon. I have already mentioned the bin was an exploratory archetype like the hub cap. These discarded meaningless objects are in one sense relics of the past but are now entering the arena of art and establishing a transformation of its function and literal meaning.
The bins are objects that everyone can identify easily with but by putting the water in the bins with a wax flower floating on the surface the function and associations change. The contained water in each of the bins evokes stillness and a point of reflection for the viewer to be drawn into; perhaps the water's presence also evokes a certain reverence. I witnessed this response during the week or so that the bins where placed in the sculpture workshop gallery, as throughout that time no one rubbished the water.
Overpage: photo diary of various sites
M e t h o d o l o g i e s :
1. The ambiguity of water and wax; fluidity and solidity
The idea of things being frozen, fixing a point in time was a common theme: this was possible to document by using water and wax. With water I could change its liquid state by freezing, and wax was an opposite effect. By heating wax it became a liquid, then on cooling a frozen solid.
2. Effects of manipulation of these contrasts
The cooling and contraction caused by a hot substance like wax coming in contact with a cold surface which was the surface of my plaster mould...
ie the negative forms of various hub caps and spheres which I was experimenting with to caste my wax forms. Prior to the casting of the wax the moulds were submerged in water. This served two purposes: firstly as a way to release the wax form f r o m the mould, and also to create a type of mapping of the fluid's movement, this became an important part of the process I used to make my wax hub caps for the installation at Manuka c.a.s. and also in many other works i developed.
My interest in the sphere and circle was part of a response to Theodore Schwenk writings and obsorbvations on the ways in which water moves
Wherever water occurs it tends to take on a spherical form. It envelops the whole sphere of the earth, enclosing every object in a thin film. Falling as a drop, water oscillates about the form of a sphere; or as dew fallen on a clear and starry night it transforms an inconspicuous field into a star heaven of sparling drops.
(Schwenk, 1965:13)
A sphere is a totality, a whole, and water will always attempt to form an organic whole by joining what is divided and uniting it in circulation. It is not possible to speak of the beginning or end of a circulatory system; everything is inwardly connected and reciprocally related. Water is essentially the element of circulatory systems.
(Schwenk, 1965:13)
These observations and experiments that Schwenk made provided me with a basis to conduct some of my own experiments using the plaster mould form, of the sphere to spin molten wax and obtain various imprints of the shapes of fluids moving and cooling and contracting as they became solids.
Overpage: "Spills", (wax and plaster)
V
I a
3 Glass
This process of freezing the form led me to want to make a sohd form in glass, which being a super-cooled liquid, has similar qualities. S o m e of these are reflection, light, clarity, fragility: depending on how the glass is worked and f o r m e d the illusion can also be created so that the material can be seen as a simulacrum of ice .
I decided to make two solid spheres from the wax spheres which had been formed by the process I had developed (see 1.2.) in cast glass. I also made a model of my ice table in glass which was sand cast (see illustration).
The experience of these projects in glass formed a considerable influence on me and at a latter part of the year's study I started to reproduce a series of glass hub caps, combining the methods I had earlier developed (see 1.2.), to produce a series of slumping moulds to form my glass hub caps and document the transformation on the glass surface of each particular model of hub cap. This reinforced the strong reference to cyclical phenomena and processes to which I have already r e f e r r e d .
Overpage: Glass works
4. Use of materials in the projects
I tried many experiments with wax to find certain qualities I could utilise; Some
of these were impermeable and permeable, and incompatibilty, this was in relation
to where the wax and the water had the ability to repel each other. One could not
effect the other (the wax cannot absorb the water; the water cannot absorb the
wax). This effect was a vital point in the development of my ideas. The wax is the
substitute for the artificial, its abilty to replicate and copy exactly what it
encounters to document results and record what is on the surface, the wax also
formed a referent to contamanation (see multiple wax lotus page 6)
5. Computer Images
Prior to starting my Graduate Diploma I had not used computers in my art
practice. The availability of the computers and individual tuition presented me
with a new mode of inquiry with my projects, as I was able to simulate and
visualise some of the ideas for particular projects one of these being the Ice Table
(summit of non-retainable content). The 3D modelling skills which I have gained
enabled me to present clear working drawings of the site specific projects. The Ice
Table project is at this stage is a project which I would like to develop further
using the computer to plan this event. The Floriade commision proposal and
design was developed with the computer. Some of these early computer drawings
can be seen overpage.
Overpage: Ice Table computer drawings, Floriade commission drawings, "Two Poles Melting"
(installation proposal)
Conclusion
Throughout the year I have sought to integrate the use of water in various ways with objects and materials which were able to form a relationship and context to the water and act as metaphors for certain attributes which are relevant to life. I made choices in relation to the materials Wax, Glass, Plaster, Ice, because all of these substances have characteristics that formed links to water. That is, I could work with them as a fluid and observe the process of transformation into other states. It was these results which provided me with a source of information enabling me to establish connections with each icon's symbology. All of the installations engaged all of these new discoveries with the materials and the use of the ready made object I selected for the context of a particular location. All of these consideration relating to public sites and outside environments presented new challenges within my art making and have opened new possibilities for ongoing projects, which have been made apparent through my study program.
Addenda
Research Proposal 1995
1. Transit Wheelie Bins
I am going to use coloured bins for an installation. The selection of the bins
coming from cities and towns, within a reasonable distance from Canberra.
This will give a colour field needed to set up an interaction with the ready made
objects placement. The bins will serve as a receptacle for water. Immersed on the
water in each bin is a replica of a lotus flower caste in paraffin wax. With the use
of pigments to provide colouration for each flower. The lotus flower colours will
then be arranged accordingly to each wheelie bin. A specific site for the work
will be chosen, this enabling a visual inquiry, and placing the work in a context
relating to the issues that the work addresses.
2. Hub Cap Freeze
The encapsulation of water and the use of hub caps from the automobile provides
an exploratory archetype for the impermeable and permeable. The hub cap is the
icon serving this purpose. The transformation of its function and representation
provide the resource for a series of hermetic and non-hermetic cast objects made
from plaster and paraffin wax. The incorporation of water, electricity and light,
all are elements strengthening the idea of empirical. The interaction of these
elements form a contextual part in the final placement of the work.
3. Ice Table
(summit of non-retainable content)
To develop and model a circular table forming a united nations conference table
The construction of a mould will be made up from a series of segmented
containers which will form a circle. These are receptacles for the forming of ice
and base for the table. Prior to the ice making, each container will have a
paraffin wax lining .This act as an encasement for the water and ice,( and again at
a later stage for the melting ice ).The wax lining will also aid in the releasing of
the mould. By employing a similar method the table tops can also be formed. The
bringing together of all these components complete the encapsulation of the table.
Thus enabling an arena for the installation and further inquiry of the tables
content and context.
AIMS OF THE PROPOSAL
The projects I am engaged in are a recent development, but form a similar
interest to the previous work proposal. The original work proposal has changed.
(See new brief outline of projects). My aim is to incorporate the use of water in each work. This substance acts as a catalyst enabling the exploration of the many ideologies surrounding its presence in a social context. The choice of materials in all the projects sets up a dialogue of incompatibility. The use of paraffin wax, a refined product from the petro-chemical industry, used in this case to encapsulate water and to cast a series of emblematic objects. Each icon I have selected establishes a reference to its original function, and the association with its literal meaning. The interpretation changes with the introduction of certain elements and materials. By combining these substances, I hope to evoke certain aspects
of...emptiness, stillness, tranquillity, tastelessness, silence, non-action : the veneration and invisibility of water, are associated with the present. It is also an aspect of this body of work, which I will seek to investigate.
RESEARCH
(a) All the projects will incorporate the use of computer generated images, using 3D animation to form a working component of a project, this being a new area of study.
(b) I will also use photographic techniques to explore the various relationships as the work develops, this could be in the form of documentation.
(c) Research into materials and construction, experimentation and placement in locations limited to the context of the works, will also be an aim throughout the year.
Ongoing development of computer skills throughout the year.
TIME F R A M E
Oct-Feb
Construction and development of individual projects and site related work.
March-July
Photographic documentation of site related work and compellation of projects.