The Context
Where the work goes:
This Work can go to a variety of places, but of course each place this work goes will change its meaning and its purpose. Work like mine cannot function in a gallery.
The reason for this is because a gallery destroys ambiguity of fact and fiction. For example when you enter a gallery as a viewer you yourself made the conscious decision to do so, and therefore have preconceptions as to what you might encounter when in the gallery. You know for certain you will encounter art in many forms (Sculpture, textile, painting, Audio, video and of course performance).
Most of this art will challenge your perception to various subjects.
Bizarre art and confusion is something IU often think about before I visit a gallery, you open yourself up to be immersed in the works placed in this environment.
My work has to relate through media discussion, photographic or text based narratives.
Why? Well let me break this down for you, my work is going to consist of various photographs of the devices (the video was not right for the piece, ill explain in more detail later) these photographs will reveal just enough about each device.
If I placed this in a newspaper I’d have to base the paper it’s shown in by the paper's integrity.
For example I'd be far more likely to believe something in the FT (Financial times) over something printed in the Daily star, because the FT has more creditability.
When you watch an advert on the TV you don't normally assume that what you see is fact, because most adverts try selling you something, or have unrealistic adverts.
But when you watch the news, you automatically assume what is said to be true, due to the shows credibility and through the basic assumption that what the news tells us is true.
It’s this method that makes my work sounder and realistic, I want the viewer to believe what they see to be real. If they believe the piece is real then my piece has achieved what it's designed to.
AI would ideally like to display my work on a website where, unlike a gallery, it can be viewed by thousands of people from all over the world, different countries, languages etc.
Of course displaying work this way is different from displaying in a gallery, a gallery does in fact have a special environment, and attracts people that will see and analyze your piece.
A gallery makes your work 3D even if it’s a video or 2D medium because the space it’s placed amplifies the locations feel. So just as my work works well in the media, others will blossom in the enhanced environment of the gallery
Who is this work for?
Well I am not entirely sure myself if I am honest, I feel this kind of work would attract conspiracy theorists or people interested in the bizarre and abnormal, the web will be a good medium to focus the wording and layout to capture these viewers.
I could display this work intimately, by making printouts of the photos and leaving them in places where the public will discover them.
Adding more ambiguity as to what the work is, mainly because there would be no clear indication that what they can see is in fact art, and that alone is art.
If web based this work could be for anyone with a passion for curiosity, the images might invoke discussion, or just rebellion to the idea of these fake devices.
It's important to know that when creating this work I focused very little on whom this work was for specified for. I believe that there is an audience for every type of possible art, and that finding out who finds and views the work to be as exciting as the creation of the work itself.
What audience emerges from my chosen context?
Well this is a hard question to answer, because the context of narrative through art has existed since humans could draw on walls.
I would like to guess that anyone who is easily interested by intriguing work would appreciate this art, maybe through the attempt to understand the devices by using all the assumptions we make today, is it green, is that a lens etc.
If the audience could feel the work they would quickly lose all curiosity towards the piece because it would be far too explicit.
Which is the exact reason the video did not fork, too explicit and too factual, nothing was really left up to the imagination, and that’s really a key aspect.
How does the audience engage with the work?
Well the audience will be given the images alone, maybe some text but very little, the devices have been shot in interesting angles to help promote the design of the pieces.
The Actual images are rather amateurish and some are shot in night vision to create a good amount of sensory deprivation. This will aid to confusion and help strengthen the work.
Sensory deprivation will help shade the real colours and give an entirely different impression to the piece.
This will help create a better ambiguity.
A good piece will hopefully, create some sort of blurring between what is fact and fiction.
We look at things very carefully when not presented correctly, so if it were to be displayed on a web site then I'd have word everything very carefully indeed.
Take Phill Reeves (Student on this course) he had an idea to create a place that is not real in our world but have it displayed on Wikipedia by having it cleverly worded and self-referencing, so as to avoid suspicion.
It was a clever and well preformed project and really did fall into the same category as my work, but for Phills work to really exist it has to go undiscovered, strange when compared to mine that has to be discovered but not believed.
My images are obviously going to be more difficult to create ambiguity due to the fact that my images have little if no text explaining narrative, where as Phills relies on it.
What readings do they, the viewers, take?
Well its hard to say, it could be a spectrum of things from bombs to small sculptures with no purpose, But I guess the whole point of this is what the viewer discovers about the items, the theories the viewer might have and how they might be able to relate to the work itself.
I would probably myself, look at the pictures, try and make out some sort of pattern or try and guess what the item is used for.
But the next viewer might think I was building a city from pieces of old machinery.
All conclusions would be as true as they are fake, because the point is that anyone’s opinion would be as valid as the next, my work only exists to challenge what we think we already know about truth, nothing more.
