hellomynameisliam

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http://59.167.245.166:8001/control/userimage.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNFj0PXLsqY

Task 3: Group Event 

By, Liam, Michael, Nic and Bani 

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Glitch Experiment

The (distorted) sound of one’s heartbeat as they view an artwork. 

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The Burial (major project submission)

Humans are built to be human

To choose and decide

To be cast and cured

To crumble and weather away.

I recited these lines as I lowered bitumen figurines into the fractured surface of Sydney. The figurines looked like me. Most still do. They are cast as me, by me, and cured briefly in the air. While they will gradually weather away, exposed to the rain, the wind, passing cars, and people, I too will gradually disappear.

My artwork, The Burial, is a photo/audio documented performance piece (sound-cloud link above). Strewn through the streets surrounding the campus are 70 miniatures of my actual body, moulded and cast from a reduced 3D print. They are made with instant bitumen, a highly viscous man-made petroleum extract, found on roads and purchasable in hardware stores.

The unforgiving material qualities of bitumen interest me. It takes over twelve months to completely cure, in the meantime behaving as a solid with liquid properties; malleable but resistant. It stains one’s hands, sticks to clothes, and reeks of petrol. Nor is it particularly colourful or attractive. A similar variety is used in the famous Pitch Drop Experiment, renowned as the longest running experiment that demonstrates the super-high viscosity of ‘pitch’.

But these deterrents are precisely what drew my attention to bitumen. It is similar to Belgian artist Francis Alÿs’ use of ice or sand; fleeting, transitory material. Which explains the connection I felt between bitumen and my understanding of humans. Like bitumen, we are pliable, bendable beings, in the midst of constant physical and mental change. One day we believe x=y, the next we believe x=z. Our values, our sense of truth, of morality, of justice, are in suspension, poised in a state of perpetual fluctuation. 

I have always seen myself as a bystander, someone afraid to be involved, afraid to be implicated in a situation I do not entirely understand. In formative moments I listen too much to the voice of doubt in my head. What if I am wrong? What will be the consequences? After reading Graham Greene’s The Quiet American (1955), I realised that the passivity I yearn for is unreachable. As everyone, “sooner or later... one must take sides”; it is part of our human experience. One should thus embrace the power to act despite the costs for doing so. 

In a way, The Burial rides on these ideas. I let intuition guide the performance aspect of the piece. ‘Burying’ the figurines in the urban environment just felt like the right thing to do. Saying words - the brief poem above - also felt right. Leaving them there, somewhat abandoned, somewhat freed, felt right too. I was both letting go of a long-held feeling of detachment, of passivity, and developing a sense of involvement.

I messed around with the audio, first isolating the 70 times I say the passage, then layering this backwards on itself. I hope to convey a sense of laboured repetition, change, and the ambiguity of human experience.

Sources:

Alÿs, F. 1997. Sometimes Making Something Leads to Nothing, [performance], Mexico City

Greene, G. 1955. The Quiet American, Penguin: New York

University of Queensland, 2018. Pitch Drop Experiment, accessed at [https://smp.uq.edu.au/pitch-drop-experiment] on the 21.9.18

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Rebellion Experiment

A series of miniatures cast with Instant Bitumen. Just have to wait for them to air dry - which apparently takes 12 months. 

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Rebellion Experiment

From a 3D printed version of myself, I created a silicone mould. I used water to cast several ice figurines which were then rested on a recently worn shirt of mine.

I set up a time lapse to capture their gradual and imminent departure. They decay in stages: from a human form, to a coffin-shaped shard, to a watery mess.

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Rebellion Experiment

Humans are fickle and temperamental beings. We are not everlasting or constant but undergo change every hour. Our beliefs, just as our physical bodies, are shaped - scarred and seared - by the passing of time. 

I moulded and cast a plastic soldier using silicone and candle wax. When I finally pulled the figure from the silicone, he was highly fragile and immediately broke into a dozen thin shards.

Headless, lifeless, the soldier lays in a crumbling battlefield. Given time, he will weather and waste away. Like all of us, the sculpture lacks the permanence or completeness that humans yearn. We want to be integral, incorruptible, principled, relentlessly moral. But the people we become tomorrow may think otherwise.

[hellomynameisliam]

Rebellion Experiment

I wrote a poem about some stuff in my head, about humans and their promises, about how we are so fickle and unreliable and ever-changing. I converted this into a hex colour system, and drew circles with the resulting hues. I then scanned it several times on transparent paper. 

I’m not too sure what this means or what direction I am going. But I think it’s helping expel some ageing thoughts and develop some new ones.

[hellomynameisliam]

Rebellion Experiment

In Graham Greene’s war novel The Quiet American (1955) the protagonist, a journalist named Thomas Fowler, refuses to pick sides. The French, occupying Vietnam at the time, describe him as dégagé - uninvolved, sidelined, a passive observer. But, as Fowler is reminded, “sooner or later... one has to take sides. If one is to remain human.”

Greene shows us the impossibility of being dégagé. In a moment of emotion, a sudden test of character, we must pick a side and become engagé - committed, active, implicated - despite the moral ambiguity of a situation. It is human nature to act. 

My experiment juggles with these ideas. I found an old light switch in the family shed and taped a letter to either side. The switch - broken and stuck upwards - is dysfunctional and annoying. I try to flick it downwards, but it forever bounces back. In this way, it depicts our condition; forever engagé, forever active.

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Body Politics Experiment

Objects normalise our bodies. They command us to act in certain ways, to position ourselves within a framework, to yearn for an ideal. 

Consider the doorway. If one is too tall, they must bend down. If one is too short, they must jump to reach the handle. In this way, some people are punished - repetitively - for existing outside the norm. 

Our experiment responded to the subtle, yet far-reaching, political implications of objects.

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Paper Experiment, Week 5

A whimsical instructional poem inspired by the work of Yoko Ono. 

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THIS IS POLITICS (poster submission)

Every act is now a political act. There is no exception. Everything we eat, drink, drive, read, write, say, has political undertones. If you pick up an object, rotate it in your hand, dozens of these connotations will seep out. This particularly concerns art as, historically, the role of the artist is as a rebel, a maverick who crosses the line.

But what if I don’t want to be a rebel? What if I have nothing to be angry about? What if I am unsure of my beliefs and would rather remain passive, speculative, on-the-sidelines?

My poster, THIS IS POLITICS, tackles these theme of rebellion. Central to the work is the question ‘can art ever be non-political?’ This is because I am beginning to believe political commentary has invaded all subjects, particularly art. Each object has a political history woven into its material, function, and context.

I have produced a 70 frame projection of miscellaneous household images and objects, taken from cupboards and torn from newspapers, magazines, and anything I could get my hands on. I labelled each item with thick black marker, scanned them, and overlaid the collection with audio. The ambient soundtrack was produced by stretching and distorting a snippet of the phrase ‘this is politics’.

I realise my poster is not traditionally rebellious. It is the not the flag of a protest or the shield of some revolution. It does not spark courage in the heart but it is quite unnerving, unsettling. I guess that is my aim, however.

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Poster Experiment

After prolonged deliberation, my rebellion has turned against the concept of rebellion itself. I have swivelled my line of questioning, my suspicions, on art and politics. These institutions define ‘rebellion’. They tell us what is right and what is wrong. They expect everyone to have an opinion and pick a side. But what if I am unsure about my beliefs? What if I have political doubts? What if I want to remain passive and just make art for the sake of art? 

In response to these thoughts, I made digital poster, consisting of the three simple frames above. https://vimeo.com/284707303

The projection claims “I AM POSTER”. But this assertion easily becomes “IMPOSTER”, questioning the truth. This word-play may challenge the definition of a poster as static print, however it also alludes to my personal political stance. Like the poster, I think I know who I am and what I believe in. But as time passes, the world changes and so do I. My views are transitory, alternating, forever contradictory. I no longer know what is right or wrong.

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Paper Experiment, Week 2

I used a folded piece of paper to perform a series of overlapping scans. On day 1, I scanned in one spot five times. On day 2, I scanned it in two spots five times. And so on, printing the results on a single page. This page became increasingly chaotic, cross-hatched with dozens of sprawling lines, like a bustling city forever in construction. 

I sound-recorded the project on day 7, but condensed the ten minutes of audio into one. There is a sense of the great mechanical labour involved, a arduous process of 35 repetitions in which the printer does not falter once. Listen here:

https://soundcloud.com/liam-houlihan-299665437/paper-experiment

Observing the series together, I notice the scanned images move towards total darkness. Eventually, perhaps in a hundred days, no recognisable form will remain, just an flooded surface of black ink. The paper will drown in an information overload. Maybe our fate is similar.

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Poster Experiment

As a straight, white male, I should have little to complain about. I have inherited a position of power and privilege. I should be happy. But weirdly I am not. I feel guilty for saying so because my sufferings won’t ever compare with those of other groups. How can I channel these feelings into art?

In this experiment, I continued to question what defines a ‘poster’. I projected a simple 10 frame loop of coloured pixels on a wall and created a moving, transient poster. I then climbed within the projection and was immersed by the shifting colours. I briefly became the subject of the artwork.

Pixels are fun. But they don’t say much. Instead I might project and step within the ‘faces of masculinity’ i.e. he faces of kings, conquerors, CEOS, athletes, those who have contributed to our conception of man as a battle-hardened action-figure, forbidden to cry, wear dresses, or show affection.

[hellomynameisliam]

Paper Experiment, Week 1

I divided my paper into quarters, hand-wrote the words TALK TO A HUMAN along with a dozen detachable iterations of my mobile number, and pasted them around where I live. If I were to receive any phone calls, I told myself I would not hang up. The caller would have to end the conversation. 

The results: I received only one phone call. This is my documentation of that call.

------

Wednesday. Late afternoon. Laying around.

Phone call. 

Let it buzz. About five, maybe six times.

Answer the call. Hello.

Hello.

Who is this? 

Hey, I was waiting for a bus and saw a sign that said “talk to a human” and I so I called the number. Is this it? What does it mean?

Well yes. You are talking to a human. It is something special to speak to a human. Not everyday you get to do so. 

------

We spoke briefly. He sounded like a school kid. He was just curious as to what would happen if he rang the number. He didn't have any other questions. He hung up as his bus arrived but said he might call back. He never did. 

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Collaborative Rope Experiment 

As a group of three, we were instructed to tie ourselves together, and stay tied together for half an hour. We were forbidden to communicate verbally. This was a test of collaboration. 

After a few moments of discomfort, we attached the rope to a adjustable wheelie chair, who became the loveable dead weight of our already clunky road train. We then pursued a missing frisbee, bringing ourselves to neighbouring street. We made card houses, avoided a parking van, and drew self portraits with a rock on the asphalt. 

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Poster Experiment 

What is creative rebellion? Does it mean bending and breaking the rules of art? Does it mean forgetting what art is altogether? These are the questions I have been asking recently. Should rebellion make people angry or confused or distressed? How far should rebellion go?

As an experiment, I built an A2 sized ‘poster’ out of bricks. The use of untraditional materials immediately disqualifies my work as a ‘poster’. The audience literally ‘stares at a blank wall’ as the artwork does not convey or advertise any obvious message. It is boring, ugly, mundane. 

But in reflection, this ‘poster’ may actually comment on the institution of art. It portrays the establishment as a brick wall. The wall has suffered blows - jagged edges, cracks, cuts and other rebellions - but what remains is standing and unshaken.