like for like Day 3

With the first stage complete i am able to focus on the newer developements for 'like for like'. Another grueling day crawling around the floor for Charles and I. Ben was available for film documentation like a champ. He is probably suffering at work right now. I was tragically underestimating how long the set up would take, however i am more pleased with the fact that this installation is shown growing. The'building' becomes as important as the shufffling about. The pattering used for this piece has been the most arduous task. the rest is a more organic approach in it's developement. All the planning in the image,the tediom of creating the image. Now the card will move. I hope that other viewers will participate without instruction to move the card about the sculpture court. It's important to have this piece move. i will be taking photos of this as well as be active in the growth. I think the project means more with showing the construction because ...it is a behind the scenes set up. Like most things we buy, or places we go. I mean, to promote a product. It has to be made. It has to be test marketed. It gets shipped. There is a time investment in this that rarely gets noticed on the whole. This side of the industry is just as important an influence as it is influenced by the second half of the work. I mean that in the way that a public responds to the product. The demand. The supply chain in action. The procuring of the products. It is cyclical. This process is a mirror unto itself. This contemporary ritual of shopping is a mirro of the research and development side of sifting through ideas looking for the next thing to generate a profit. The services to produce are just that other products. Under the same scrutiny to catch teh eye of the next client. i feel that paying more attention to this chain can open the eyes to the larger pictue. Reflection on the micro can open doors to the understanding to the macro. There is more supporting material to be developed in this explanation, stay tuned.
g'night.

economically viable

"the 'everyday' needs and 'everyone' to live it or it makesno sense at all. more or less the only widespread common experience in the west these days is, for obvious reasons, shopping. But, as a communal pursuit, shopping is hopeless because our commodity selection defines us only by our individuality." Will bradley states in the article, ' The decline of the circus and the marching band is permanent and final' and he goes on further to state that 'Contemporary art never features in these representations because it is not a mass market commodity. By this i don't mean that it is not represented because it is not a part of most people's day to daylife(which it isn't), but that there is not the same kind of economic advantage to be gained by showing it that there is with c onservatories, WAP- enabled mobile phones, inflatable travel cushions or ready mixed pasta sauce." This is a dated article and is guilty of adhereing to the guilty comment of greenberg on the economic viability of minimalist sculpture in the face of trends of the current art flavor changing. The article was written in 2001 and since then we as a public who attend galleries or malls find contemporary works portrayed on ties, more and more postcards, the regular poster repro and can now even by stencils of the 'banksy' design allowing the buyer to make art like him DIY style. In the article Mr. Bradley describes a time where contemporary art doesn't challenge the 'everyday' adn describes the situations era as a blip in history. I reckon this is true because at the time the current market trends were unable to bring this ideology into their fold. With today's advances one can purchase artist designs as 'wallpaper' for their mobile phones. Graffitti, the last avante- garde, is now a common tool in marketing schemes. Anti- marketing film shorts are just as much a marketing tool as the traditional forms of commodity myth making. The pigs on the animal farm are in control. The accessibility of a contemporary art trend is based on teh economic return yeilded by a public subdued by the marketing schemes of the culture industry and the (once) high culture art world. Public monies, which had been for community service oriented programs and ones for art programs have consolidated to kill two birds with one stone. A way of saving face and saving money. It is the innate nature of the corporation to do something only if it is for the good of the company( ie the bottom line..their profits). Our contemporary art bradley suggests, ' Currently, teh 'problem of the everyday' is a very different one. Instead, of fighting the institutions of high culture in the name of revolution, it remains a struggle ( noy in the Bolshevik sense, just in the sense that it is difficult) to define sufficient, meaningful, common experiences to qualify."
Why is the current state fo affairs dealing with the culture industry not sufficient enough to come under scrutiny? The way corporations garner products for their own gain. The way trends dictate markets only because major holdings of companines sway these. The idea of the individual is becoming lost. our shopping patterns are monitored too closely adn our sense of style is contemporray or nostalgic. in the west it is not out of necessity. Our climate controlled lifestyles are suffocating this notion of the individual as we walk along under our mp3 players avoiding any newness or difference we cannot control the influence upon us. I just had to rant. this idea keeps coming back up. as a contemporary artist i feel that one has to challenge. not just art for art, but the community. it should not be any different than the average following a sitcom or a local team. We are all in this together and if we let trends dictate to us what to do( like forgetting the revolution) then we are doomed to repeat the same oppression until it results into the untelevised revolution. Un televised because 'they ' don't want others to identify with it or realise that others feel the saem way.
signing off.
g'night

like for like Day 2

Wow....today was a little more exhausting. being short two in the labour dept. in conjunction with my tiredness from the previous days workout. Ben and charles were on again today and we also got help from Zeynep. Ben was filming adn Zeynep took lots of photos for me. I have asked a few others to help me in the documentation process b/c i cannot see it all. i think to get an appropriate archive of photo documentation that i need a few more eyes than just mine. We all were diligent workers. i made a few important decisions concerning the display of the piece versus the original plan. I also made a few changes in the aesthetics of the piece given the limited nature of corrugated card available to me at this time. For the pictorial plane of the installation, a pinnacle moment in its presentation, the tape aesthetic i discuss in an earlier paper that i will post here was installed. Certain hues of card are used to create an image in the mapping of the piece. In reference to one section of the map i had to adjust an area to use packaging tape to help in the colouring so that the piece will continue to work in a positive way. After this first goal is acheived the work will evolve in an epic manner. Negative spaces will be carved through areas and new designs will emerge. card will get shifted, sifted, stacked, and moved around the arena. from opposite corners.... or from teh same quadrants.The first goa; will be completed by 1 tomorrow. then the next phase will begin at 2. an hour break will be taken to document and reflect on the piece at this stage. thanks for all those who helped today.
now off to give to charity and support the randan discotheque at the johnny cash tribute night.

like for like day 1

Day 1 went really well. I had guessed right in timing for today's schedule. If i had been granted acces yesterday i would have been able to get the surveying and the card sorting done ahead of time. With that delay we spent the first half of today taping off the install area and separating the corrugated cardboard tiles into their different hues. The separation of hues is for the replication of a pictorial reference from an older newspaper advertisement. That being graph one to follow is then complicated by a graph number two where my assistants and i were to install a padding layer giving the piece a more prevalent three dimensional aspect. Charles, Steve and most of all Ben were a huge help.The piece developed smoothly. I am at about the halfway mark for the initial install. the piece after this will develope further towards the 2nd graph adn then will develop further into distribution hubs, cityscapes, a macrocosm of consumerism mapping the microcosm levels of exchange( that can/are mirrored in the macrocosm). Tomorrow morning first thing will be to address the fulfillment of the intial installation. We were unable to have film documentation of today's events, but hope this will be sorted out tomorrow. Lots of photo documentation was acheived with our project photographer out of town on personal business. We wish her all the best on her travels and hope conchetta had a great birthday celebration in spite of the conditions for her return trip to the states. I was thinking that another approach to such a piec may be....... what if i didn't adhere so strictly to an image initially? I could have had a picture to reference, but created on the spot as if i were drawing it. Only using other people as an extension of myself in the application of tiles of course. 9 meters by 20 meters isa a large piece. I feel as confident in the execution in this piece as i do with smaller works acheiveed in the past. As commented on today, i t seems totally at home for me to work at this larger scale. This installation iss great practice for the upcoming degree show. For all of you that helped today it was much appreciated.
cheeeeeeerrrssss!

eve of like for like

The graphs are complete. tomorrow's set up has me a little anxious. It will consist of a labour cast of ben and myself. I will arrive at 8:30. Ben should be arriving at 9:30. After the survey of the site is in place we will run around the sculpture court like an inkjet printer back and forth laying tiles as described in the graphs. two graphs...two layers. may be a lil tricky as well. the ratio for the graphs is off. instead of an esy one to one they are the lovely one to one point six. I set this up and a desk and everything will be fine. Tons of ideas have piled up on how this can executed in the future with a more professional systemic documentation and performance. I like the off the cuff approach as well leaving room for adjustment. The documentation will be key. Documentation of labour. A shipping record. And lots and lots of photographs. The cameras will be rolling. Let's see what tomorrow brings.
g'night

spring......

The sun finally stays up past 7. The clocks were moved forward though. the temp is getting cosier. and soon we will be on the west coast basking in oban whisky rivers and tourists foot paths....mostly (i hope) will be the burden of peace and quiet. a heavy heavy thing calmness is. It has been too long. A figitty afternoon because there is nothing to do is going to be a nice change. Wednesday is the first day of the installation" like for like on last years margin". tonight i will be finalizing certain aspects of the production team's itinerary. Look for future posts on the developments of this continual project that evolves daily from 29 mar. thru 5 apr.
as always, i am
greggory