Thursday 25 July 2013

A first visit

A drive out to Coillte land, a Forest plantation near a reservoir called Farran woods in Cork County. A first visit  is unique.  Movement into the unknown. I cannot know what is going to be found. I have ideas, limitations of what I think (and know) is possible, but ultimately every turn around a corner has a newness absent when crossing the ground again.

Both stimulating and perplexing simultaneously because of the expectation of finding something that will add to this project, and the fact that beyond a general approach in the project, overall there is as yet no strategy evolving on this new site.

In essence I have no specific memory of this place, no identity is formed. The only references I have to go on are not spatially specific or temporally fixed, but associations built on responses to stimuli of similar engagements in other places. These are responded to in the making of work, but I am also influenced by the task I have set myself of finding differences in woodlands to the elements I have already encountered and made work about. The idea of difference is what motivated me to go to a forestry plantation, as opposed to the deciduous woodlands  I have already investigated.

Tree-felled #1 Version #1
 Walking into a new site, the first problem is when to start working? I never quite know, sometimes it's an obvious stimuli, some sign of change or a curious ambiguity that is a combination of my state of awareness and the elements in the environment simultaneously, intuitively, cohering. This time there was no sudden decision to make a work. Hence the perplexity I experienced. In this case the environment was so different to what I had encountered before. Harvesting of timber was evident all around, so much so that it was difficult to decide on a specific scene to start with. In the end I just walked off the path and made the work above, with little confidence of it's success. This was the beginning of a few works on the day that I had little confidence in, and was pleasantly surprised with the results;
Tree-felled # 3 Version #1




Tree-felled #6 version #1


 The activity of harvesting provides a new encounter, an obvious sign of the cultural use of woodland that has so far been absent from In flux. The fact that the activity is recent  lends a sense of recentness in the resulting works, even when, after the passage of time, it will no longer be a recent event in the landscape. This new event-ness will  still be, or be stilled, within the works. It will be interesting when I return what the effect of time-lapse of these scenes will have on this newness, will it be diminished (in the context of a body of work) or continue to resonate?

In addition to these tree-felled works (as opposed to the tree-fall series started  earlier) there were two works that I made because of the scenes resonances with earlier work at other sites. In this case it is not difference and newness at work, but similarity that was the motivating factor;

The right angles #1 Version #1
This work resonated with the earlier work;

Blue Land Version # 1

Both of these works offer a sense of ambiguity that leaves open questions for the viewer of a work, I know little of what has or is occurring in both these cases. In this sense the openness allows the viewer to become an interpretive participant in a similar way to my own perplexity on encountering such ambiguity in the field.
Further visits to the above will allow for change, but not resolution of the content of the scene. I see no reason to achieve this resolution. Knowing what is going on or has gone on with everything one encounters in environments is never the case. Understanding is subjective and the lack of understanding, or interpreting is a normal state, thereby it is an intention of mine, in utilising such ambiguities to bring this to the fore in the works, and to achieve some empathy with my audience.




The second work is less ambiguous;


Hut #1 Version #1































This reminded me of the series The cage (see earlier posting below). More obviously a sign of change, as the hut has collapsed. A further visit here is planned.
A strategy is emergent here, there are areas in this wood as yet unvisited or visited and not worked in. Returns to the scenes already encountered will be made for time-lapse work to be undertaken. I noticed two elements worth considering - but with techniques that offer a departure from the present method. Tree stumps and stones. Increasingly I am seeking way of advancing and enhancing this research with new approaches whilst simultaneously keeping within a structure, or strategy that forms In Flux.










Wednesday 3 July 2013

Back to the cage

Quote from Field Notes

Entering the wood and a large mass of buzzing mosquitoes rise from disturbed vegetation extensively to feed on me . Time to get bitten again and very hot. I cover my skin, wearing a hood but have no gloves.
Slightly annoyed with myself for not pre-empting these encounters (I should know, see the beginning of this book) Not, though for most of my time dwelling in the wood, annoyed with the mosquitoes. Occasionally I kill one and blood, my blood, smears out across my skin. The risk and annoyance of the mossies adds a tension I know I must overcome. I am reminded of earlier visits here through the summer last year and know the hostility the environment naturally, haphazardly and un-premeditatedly subjects me to. I have to work at keeping calm - and fast, no time to stand, or sit and contemplate  or engage in a relaxed way.
Here is a different dynamic. The environment pierces my skin. It is the third time I have photographed this now collapsing pheasant cage. I want a different work from my first piece to go with the more successful second piece, hopefully offering suitable difference. It took about half an hour to do the work, punctuated with occasional bites, deaths. they are not fast, distracting me mostly at moments of concentration. Fast work and forced intensity a definite interaction, a different interaction.
Finishing I move on - out of the wood back to the moto-x. I need a rest from predation.

This is the first time I have made a third work at the same site from roughly the same position, each piece relates to a different season;




































The Cage #1 versions 1 to 3

Representing a sequence covering all seasons does not particularly interest me directly, the viewer will make this connection without having to be pointed to it. Tempting though it is.

Temporal shifts and the role of memory


Quote from Field Notebook

I move away up the bank I've moved up and down before away from Shomere toward a tree-fall to do again and a messy tree scene. Vegetation resists me much more and I cannot see the uneven ground for brambles and a sticky plant I cannot remember the name of. I occasionally stumble.
Ist - Tree-fall #8 revisited. Last time I fragmented the image by proximity to the lens of branches, this time leaves.
2nd visit to the messy trees I literally stumbled upon on the way to "blue land". I nearly didn't make a work. This hesitancy is due to the ever present mosquitoes. I stop and they try to bite me. They do bite me. I set up in roughly the same position as before and shoot fast with a single focal point, as I did on the first occasion.

For the moment, I am considering these pieces as diptyches ;


Treefall #8 Versions #1&2




















Untitled (rhizomatic) Versions #1&2


Each of the second versions of these works where made entirely from memory of the first pieces. I never take prints into the environment with me, as I see the role of memory, of remembering the scene itself as I saw it before and the subsequent works made as an important part of the process of making.

The aim is not to make each image as close to the previous version as possible; this is not an analysis of purely observable changes, but also an acknowledgement that memory is not precise, not entirely factual, but partly fictional. Partly by omission, but also because memory is not  location specific, but dependant on stimuli, other places and times are randomly evoked in the process of remembering and therefore connections are made to other places, as well as to the site inhabited at the time of remembering.
Memory is also a vital part of understanding specific environments, of the process of developing a connection to places over time through repeated visits during habitation. An important element in developing connections to environments that we inhabit is the observation of change. Change is constant, those of us who live life rooted for a long time in one environment are those that notice the changes keenly in their (kn)own place. The process of recognising change builds layers of memories specific to that place and forms the individual's understanding of the identity of the place they occupy. This is enforced by memories of other places, remembrances of differences and similarities that build a matrix of understanding that is multi- centred, not fixed to the specific. Knowing one place is therefore enhanced by knowledge of other places, through memory.

The use of Rhizomatic in the title of the second diptych alludes to the concept of the rhizomatic as put forward by Deleuze & Gittari in 1000 plateaus; Capitalism and schizophrenia and is not a reference to the biological meaning of Rhizome. In this case it alludes to sets of relationships between multiple elements that are capable of merging together from seemingly disparate sources. Deleuze & Gittari put this forward as an anti-genealogical, relational stance that is expanded on in the work of Tim Ingold in The perception of the environment; Essays on livelihood, dwelling and skill. Here Ingold uses the rhizomatic to investigate how our perception of the environment around us is strongly linked to our memories of past experiences, that are not necessarily connected to the environment being inhabited directly.

The second version of tree-fall #8 is in need of re-processing. As alluded to earlier, the question of how close I am to elements in the works is something I am working on. In this case the fragmented leaves in the centre of the work are too dominant, interrupting the coherence of the piece excessively. 

A Fox III

A recent return to site of the fox facilitated the opportunity for a time lapse revisit of Oh, a fox I thought. both growth and decay had occurred in the interim;


This work is distanced in comparison with the earlier work, perhaps appropriately leaving the viewer to imagine the extent of decay in the body of the fox. Further passage of time may allow for a return to a closer interpretation of the work. The full set of works, when complete, will probably not be viewed side by side. But paced through the wider body of work, for the viewer to return to the scene, temporally as they move through an exhibition, or turn the pages of a book.




Oh, a fox I thought Version #2