elliotgibbons - Tumblr blog

[elliotgibbons]

[elliotgibbons]

(Raven Row)

[elliotgibbons]

Current Idea Notes

Why’d the Dolphin Head Butt Me?

Brief:

Taking the ‘hallucination’ or vision of seeing the dolphin head butt me on the tube and like they way I have personally internalised that as a sign of significant meaning. I will explore the way in which this very simplistic social behaviour has been anthropomorphised through online culture through youtube videos like ‘The Best Headbutt EVER!! (The Dolphin Headbutt from Fast & Furious 6)’ but focusing on or interrogating that in regards to language. Furthermore, I want to explore ideas around the philosophy of language where Nietzsche and Locke talked about how language was based on the principle that there is something in the world and that object almost ‘hits’ you through sense data, you then form an image and a sound (word) is attached to it. So the what I want to do at the moment is to attempt to recreate or perform and then film myself with a dolphin mask on my head, head butting a yet to be decided something I don’t really want it be another person but I need to think it through more. But it will be filmed and maybe have a bar like a BBC news that has a dolphin animation heading butting/ head bopping with text running across but that idea is purely aesthetic based so that may change. I probably going to make the mask and make the dolphins face or eyes asymmetric to kind of situate myself more within it. I will at some point sketch it out more and send it you.  

I feel like it maybe a bit too ambitious in terms of being able to do it New York, as I have barley anytime or space so it maybe simplified or ill try something else. Therefore, it maybe like a photograph etc but part of me doesn’t what to show anything unless its fully formed/explored.

Research:

‘This Is Your Brain on Art’ Article by Sarah L. Kaufman (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/lifestyle/your-brain-on-art/?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.b6561018c6ae)

- Within this article they take the play ‘Swan Lake’ and then apply neurological studies around the way in which our brain articulate works of art. Its quite interesting how it lays down specific elements that appear to activate certain emotions or more powerfully do so. I think it would be interesting to consider this idea’s in relation to performing as a dolphin but also to take this principles as traditional and perhaps twist those within the work.

Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Siobhan Hapaska

Robot (2001), imitation of Pieta by Michelangelo where a ‘robot’ or an “anthropomorphic mass of exposed wires” had passed and the man within the image is mourning its death. I though this was interesting as with some of the works technology its almost being anthropomorphised into something natural, it may be interesting to take this work as a starting point for the curation?

If you google search his work, his other works look really interesting in relation to using natural materials and manmade/technological materials.  

-Jonathas de Andrade ‘O Piexe’[The Fish] (2016), this is a really interesting film blaring the boundary between documentary and fiction where it shows fisherman in Brazil but when the catch a fish they embrace or cuddle the fish and you slowly see as its being cuddled it struggles to breath over time. In the works notes its states its exploring “the emotional tensions at the core of the cycle of life and death”.

[elliotgibbons]

Close to the Knives  by David Wojnarowicz

Notes;

-”A civil war and a national trail for the leaders of this country, as well as certain individuals in organised religions is the soundtrack that plays and plays in the heads of members of that tribe”.

-”[...] and when the person hearing it fails to connect with another member of the same tribe who can acknowledge the sound, that person can one day find themselves at the top of a water tower in suburbia armed with a high powered rifle firing indiscriminately at the ants crawling around below”.

-Upon reading this book which was written about the AIDs crisis when Mapplethrope and Serrano were making work, this has made me realise that the essay that I wrote didn't consider the time at all. I think this was a big mistake that a made for the essay as it made a significant difference to the interpretation of the work. Therefore, my essay was actually somewhat reductionist as it purely focused on what I wanted to see to an extent. 

[elliotgibbons]

Friday 12th May

Today, I have had tutorial with Andrew which was productive in terms of thinking about how to move on from my current work. The notes are below;

-Tragic Theatre -October magazine -Buchlqh -Craig owens allegorical impulses -Theories  

-The form of things

-Jaque Derrida of Grammatology -Saul A.Kripke Private Language 

[elliotgibbons]

Sublime

-The sublime is incompressible beauty, going bound what your body can experience or perceive. 

      - Moderated Terror.

-Emmanuel Kant (1724-18004)

-The sublime is formless, you have to give it order. 

-Barnet Newman Day One 

-Rosenbloom

-Mariele Neudecker

    -Dora Dubdor 

-2001: A Space Odyssey (stargate sequence).

   -Collapse of the fictional and the theatrical. 

[elliotgibbons]

Assorted Paper at The Sunday Painter

I didn't find the show interesting as I felt the individual works were overly similar due to there use of simplistic use of materials. The appropriation of found imagery or objects is something I feel overtook the show and this act in it self dose not have much respect. I think working in this way the artist intention is lost to the act of making something from found objects. 

[elliotgibbons]

Celia Hempton Artist Talk

Paintings as a documentation of a performance in which the artist paints the person that they are ‘chatting to on chat random. Female gaze. Phillip Guston. Digital world as a landscape. Gendered spaces.  Abstract ambient sounds.

[elliotgibbons]

Richard Mosse  Incoming at the Barbican

I enjoyed the main video piece at the end of the curve. The video piece was filmed with an “advanced new thermographic weapons and border imaging technology that can see beyond 30km, registering a heat signature of relative temperature difference”. I particular enjoyed this use of technology as it made it look quite digital due to the metallic black and white filter. I think it was particularly interesting as it was hard to make out a persons race which enables a better discussion of the subject matter of borders. The framed photographs leading to the video piece weren't very necessary to the overall show. 

Source; https://www.barbican.org.uk/artgallery/event-detail.asp?ID=19949

[elliotgibbons]

Erik Van Lieshout: Three Social Works at The South London Gallery

I found the work in the gallery conceptually uninteresting although I was really intrigued by the use of the space and the extensive installation of the work. A large video piece was to be view on large carpeted slope, this made me look at the video for longer despite it being quite boring. There was also smaller video works that were accessed through a tunnel which went under the large slope. On the walk to this smaller video the tunnel is covered in cheap a4 prints that appear as though they have been wall pasted on. 

[elliotgibbons]

Obscene Creatures Resilient Terrains Eva Papamargariti and Theo Triantafyllidis at Assembly Point

The way the work looked, I felt was over used in order to communicate the artists internet in technology and nature. The video works in particular reminded me of artists like Ian Cheng and Cao Fei. I did enjoy however the yellow lamps which were on the floor, I felt this tried to make the exhibition more wholesome. The use of the lights was a ploy to turn to gallery into more of an environment which I think is interesting. 

[elliotgibbons]

Jordan Wolfson  Riverboat song at Sadie Coles HQ

I enjoyed the aesthetics of the show and in particular the sculptural pieces however as I followed the artists work I know that the doll was in fact used in a show last year where it was dragged around the gallery using a series of computer controlled chains. Therefore the sculptures appear like documentation of this piece of work. The video piece was interesting and quite satirical but i felt as thought the beginning screen captures of watching youtube videos wasn't needed. 

The VR piece ‘Real Violence’, was one of the main reasons why i decided to visit the gallery as i have read several articles about how its a controversial piece of work at the Whitney Biennale. Although experiencing it first hand I didn't feel as though it that controversial as it was just the artist beating a mans head with a bat. I feel as though this is due to the amount violent films, video games and simulations that were are exposed to in the present day. Therefore, maybe it was a comment on that fact we as a generation are immunised against displays of violence. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/arts/design/art-goes-political-but-will-that-fly-on-the-london-market.html

http://www.artnews.com/2017/05/02/lets-get-real-tisch-abelow-on-jordan-wolfsons-real-violence-at-the-whitney-biennial/

[elliotgibbons]

Norman Hyams Ethos at Hannah Barry Gallery

I found pleasure in these paintings as they were mostly done on linen and have a murky colour palette in which forms became visible. I think it was because there was an equilibrium between abstraction and form that made it interesting or intriguing to look at.

[elliotgibbons]

Aria Dean & Hamishi Farah White ppl think I’m radical at Acadia Missa

Within this show two artists have collaborated to explore issues of representation and blackness. When within the space there was a clear difference in the uses of medium which I think made a distinction between the two artists work. Although I wasn't impressed by the exhibition I found something interesting in the use of the paintings within the show. These paintings were quite awful although the use of clearly rushed brush strokes and visible underlining sketch was quite powerful. This I believe is because I was aware of how the exhibition was trying to explore representation. The quite simple act is quite powerful and I feel it justifies having the paintings within the show despite them being quite unattractive.

[elliotgibbons]

Ghislaine Leung The Moves at Cell Project Space

The installation of the glass panes suggest that they can slide over the top of one another along the wall. This in conjunction with the half conversations stuck onto the glass is quite interesting. Its as though the audience are given somewhat literal pieces of a puzzle and they are meant to put the pieces together. I think aesthetically the work is very attractive due to its minimalistic nature. I particularly enjoyed the minuscule stickers of flowers which from away appear as dirt marks but as you inspect the mark its actually an illustration of a flower.

[elliotgibbons]