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This is the Archive of my Blog Journal for my MFA at Central Saint Martins

[wednesdaysat7]

POST n __ | Feedback sessions

Published on June 2nd 2023

This series of feedback sessions is revealing mainly parts of me I didn’t connect with before. I’ve always struggled to give feedback on my friends works, the fear to mislead them or be rude but the open question it is indeed an empowering tool not only for who receives the feedback but also for who is formulating it. I feel relieved from my fear to be judgemental in the analysis of someone else practice.

On the other hand I feel I’m letting down my colleagues here because I’m not connecting at all with my emotions they are very much sealed in a box. I don’t have the tolls to face what is going on in my life. I can somehow keep myself together by being productive, meditating, having regular sessions with both my therapist and my coach. At the moment to get naked with my emotion is like a mirage in the desert. Yesterday was “the perfect mix” from this point of view: George and Lucci brought openly all their compassion, fragilities and shared with us with incredible honesty. On the other hand, Lauryna and Sophie presented their research, both based on urgent issues on a global scale, using an analytical, almost scientific working methodology. I felt the ensemble was mature like a lecture. 

I also feel very behind with my research, I believe I’d need at least 6 month only to process and develop the information collected between March and May 2023 while I was in Darmstadt. I feel that I could have done much more also with the residency but my availability to work in presence in Darmstadt was limited on the weeks off of chemo, which means every other week I traveled London-Darmstadt & Darmstadt-London with a considerable amount of energy I lost.

[wednesdaysat7]

Post n 69

Back here later :)

[wednesdaysat7]

Post n 67 | A.A.LLES solo exhibition

April 27

Link to the documentation of my solo exhibition at the Atelierhaus L-E-W 1 in Darmstadt for the festival #12 Darmstädter Tage der Fotografie

Link here

[wednesdaysat7]

UNIT 3 | ASSESSMENT

1 Present evidence of a body of work that demonstrates a systematic enhancement of your knowledge and understanding. (AC Realisation)

“New Observations of the History of Bees” is the body of work I have produced across TERM 1, 2 & 3. The series consists of docu-fictional investigations on both organic and inorganic materials as primary sources to understand the impact of pesticides on the cognitive system of wild pollinators.

In these works there is a visible contrast between expressly abstract areas and highly detailed elements that represent some specific anatomical parts of insects (primarily the parts of their bodies affected by the chemicals). The abstract areas have the warmest on the magenta to blue colour scale, including some light degrees of yellow. These zones represent the insects' cognitive system, and are my personal interpretation and representation of the insects' awareness. As can be easily seen, the areas representing the consciousness of these insects cover larger areas than their anatomical elements.

The body of work includes mixed media painting on emulsified canvas and drypoint on paper. They are all wall based and in the last months I started designing three different installations, composed of diptychs of canvases that are mounted on the walls with only one vertical side each.

Link to New Observations on the History of Bees

Works from this series have been included in the following academic and professional exhibitions:

This Is Not a Party - CSM Interim Show 2022 at Trinity Buoy Wharf, London;

Woolwich Contemporary Print Fair 2022 at Woolwich Works in London; Press & Play 2022 at Phoenix Art Space in Brighton; 

CSM MERCH 2022 at Koppel X, London;

E-ART-H / VISION-ARY at The Earth Vision Org in London

A solo show “Andrea Abbatangelo A.A.LLES” at the Atelierhaus Ludwig-Engel-Weg 1 for the festival Darmstädter Tage Der Fotografie in Darmstadt (Germany), where I was the artist in residency for this edition. Link here

Works from the series have also been included in two publications: 99 Future Blue-Chip Artists, published in 2022 by Artsted and #12 Darmstädter Tage Der Fotografie, published in 2023 by the Festival

In parallel with the production of the body of work, I have kept my attention for ten months on the same sample of a hoverfly fossil included in amber, experimenting several techniques of observation and representation. I have used both analog and digital cameras, table lens, hd scan and microscopes to observe direct details of the fossil. I have then developed those images with non chemical photographic processes, mainly cyanotype and a similar method based on vegetable chlorophyll fibres. The final work is a gouache on emulsified canvas. 

Link here

The information collected from microscope observations, the readings of articles and the conversation with biologists helped me to create a series of drypoint on paper with anatomical details of bees.

Link to drypoint series 

I have worked on one specific drypoint on paper consistently since Term 1 where three aspects of my research practice coexisted and influenced each other; pigment-making, drypoint and scientific readings. This work is titled ‘Ongoing Anatomy of Bee” because each time I learnt a specific challenge impacting the body and cognitive or social abilities of bees, I have gone back to work on this drypoint to represent it on the specific part of the body. In fact, gut bacteria, wings, pesticides-tongue. 

Link to Ongoing Anatomy of Bee

2 Synthesise and critically reflect coherently on your process whilst providing evidence of an active, independent and/or collaborative practice. (AC Process)

My individual practice is evidenced by, for example, my ongoing activity, especially during Term 2 and 3, of searching and collecting fossil inclusions in amber, antique victorian microscope slides with bee tongues and pollen and magic lantern glass slides. This material was crucial to inform my practice with details of the anatomy of those insects before intensive agriculture used chemical pesticides.

Link to A2 Archiving Materials

I focused my collaborative practice on the role of art in the social engagement within natural and social sciences. 

The core evidence of a research practice based on scientific resources developed in collaboration with prominent researchers is the series of investigations produced in Darmstadt (March - April 2023); specifically the work “Two Experiments with Pollution” and the microscope observations at the Technische Universität Darmstadt.

The conversation I had with Dr Lentz led me to explore two specific areas of bio-toxicology: gut bacteria (which I already explored during Summer 2022, see Post n 54 Part 3) and the very worrying rapid decline of pollinators in the forests around Darmstadt.

Prof. Boris Schmidt hosted me at his laboratory in the Clemens Schöpf-Institute of Chemistry and Biochemistry - Technische Universität Darmstadt and suggested that I research defects in wing development that indicate disturbed metamorphosis: phenotype "Notch" in the dew fly (Drosophila) is a genetically determined effect.

I undertook this whilst observing the development of mosquito larvae growing in puddles which were highly polluted with rust and residual car oil.

Link to Two experiments with pollution : Russet & Larvae

Link to Microscope Observations

As a result of exploring the information provided by both scientists in parallel, I was able to merge two divergent investigations and produce a personal and experimental research practice in which biology and art inspire and stimulate each other.  

Over the three terms, I have improved my skills at the following and and all these developments have been self-managed:

printmaking (working at the Kew Printmaking Studios);

analog photographic printing (using the darkroom at H_DA - The Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences)

using a ‘state of the art’ scientific lab, experimenting with microscope settings and learning a method of sequential observing and storing the files.

I recently attended a workshop to refresh my knowledge in chemistry to produce soil chromatography with the aim to trace micro-references of chemical pathogens (i.e. forever chemical) and pesticides on the soil.

3 Summarise and evaluate your overall progress and formulate a constructive plan for continuing Personal and Professional Development. (AC Communication)

The most important progress I have made in the last two years has been learning how to reflect on my practice. For example, I have practised on several occasions an exercise based on conscious immersion of hand-writing that Jonathan  demonstrated in two different sessions. I have embraced this self-reflective tool at each step of my research and it was incredibly powerful during my artist residency in Darmstadt.

More practically, I have also improved the quality and quantity of writing and audio recording (for example, the sound-walk at Block Beuys at the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt) - I will investigate further this practice in the future.

Link to Block Beuys Sound-walk

I have found the feedback sessions particularly challenging but also beneficial. I have always found it hard to give feedback on the work of colleagues. This process has been very revealing because I have discovered methods of discussing and evaluating the work of colleagues in both individual and group settings which are effective but which I am also comfortable with.

I am currently archiving the material produced, collected, documented, exhibited and published during the last two years. To do so, I have bought an A1 Portfolio Carry Case and two A3 Portfolio boxes in cardboard. I am using, on a smaller scale, the cataloguing system of the Museum Collection CSM that we experimented with during the session of November 17th 2022. 

I will complete the series of 82 drypoints on the hexagonal crystal of snowflakes [see Post n 58; 61; 63]. This research led me to the pioneering work of Wilson Alwyn Bentley who created a body of work on the subject between XIX and XX centuries . I started this research on hexagonal shapes in nature while investigating the Honeycomb Conjecture [see Post n 52 - Third Fictional Summer Session / July 22nd 2022], which also inspired me to create the work Saknussemm for the online exhibition curated by the Digifest 2022 - Durban University of Technology. I have printed only four hexagonal crystal snowflakes out of 82. 

Link to the drypoint series 

I plan to explore the series “New Observations on the History of Bees” implementing the method I adopted during the residency in Darmstadt, in which both the laboratory making and the interaction with researchers will allow the participation of groups of people or communities to be involved in the process. I intend to continue to work on the topics bridging art and natural sciences with a special focus on the impact of chemicals and pollution in the environment. My goal is to continue these investigations through socially oriented projects, ideally in public spaces to approach polarised topics obliquely in order to heal divisions and help find a way forward.

[wednesdaysat7]

POST n 66 | 2 Experiment with pollution

April 14, 26, 28 2023

Meeting Dr Lentz was a surprise for me.

I was going to ask very techincal , somehow clever, questions about pollination and pollution, while the topic of the conversation sadly moved to an unexpected sphere of my ongoing research. 

He suggested me to look at the gut bacteria of social bees, which reminded me the research I have studied last summer from the University of Geneva (Post n 54 Part 3). In fact, the quality of gut bacteria in individuals has an impact on the relationship and the behaviour of this element in its collaborative community. On the other hand, the aspect that Dr Lentz pointed to me was extraordinary more fascinating. 

This was so far the most revealing experience I have conducted within my research practice. The gut bacteria we were born with come from our mothers, it is an inner legacy that we embraced and we are meant to carry with us. This is actually reminding me of what three different acupuncturists told me over the years. The belly protect our ancestral energy. Then I found out that the amount of bacteria that coexist with us is larger than the amount of cells that compose our body. There is an entire part of us that we don’t have awareness, we even fear and often try to get rid off. These colonies of bacteria create an interregnum that connect us, as individuals, with our ancestors and with all the surfaces we come into contact with.  

Prof. Boris Schmidt hosted me at his laboratory in the Clemens Schöpf-Institute of Chemistry and Biochemistry - Technische Universität Darmstadt and suggested that I research defects in wing development that indicate disturbed metamorphosis: phenotype "Notch" in the dew fly (Drosophila) is a genetically determined effect.

Link to Two experiments with pollution : Russet & Larvae

Link to Microscope Observations

[wednesdaysat7]

POST n 65 | BLOCK BEUYS SOUNDWALK

March 18 2023

Last January, I was invited in Darmstadt (March - May 2023) to complete my research focused on the relationship between chemicals and the loss of memory of wild pollinators and during my weeks of work I have witnessed an unbelievable series of coincidences.

It is an incredible surprise that in Darmstadt there is the most articulated art installation composed and assembled by Joseph Beuys. The work consists of hundreds of elements, was bought by a local art dealer who also commissioned to Beuys to install the collection at the second floor of the Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt.

I was shocked to notice how almost everyone I’ve met in Darmstadt for two months is disengaged by Beuys’s legacy to the city. I have spent few hours in the rooms, going back to the museum several times. One day, remembering the powerful writing exercise we experienced during the session lead by Jonathan, I decided to do it again, by self, initially also for myself only. So I took my notebook with me and started to walk through the rooms while writing without focusing too much on the quality of the writing or its form.

This is what it came out:

Bees as a bunch of little dusty dead bodies, left over a little corner like chamomile flowers.

Engine pipes everywhere. They were meant to connect but that is not possible.

There are very well disconnected, disposed, organised. there is the body of Christ on a plate ready for a meal.

There are places where he set, where he worked and rooms where he walked there is a lot of grey soft dusty uncomfortable itchy, there is also a lot of glass that protect. It protect them from us. we are the time that consumes everything, even things that are already dead.

There are also a lot of drawings as ideas, as memories of experiences that are passing through as passing clouds. There are also a lot of red crosses, they are there to remind us of the emergency we are in.

There are also a lot of female figures on the walls in the drawings. Everywhere and doing anything could means to be there in their presence, in the middle of their actions, of their beings.

Few days later I back again and this time I recorded a sound walk through Block Beuys rooms, using my portable Zoom audio recorder.

This is the Block Beuys Soundwalk

[wednesdaysat7]

POST n 65 | ANATOMY OF BEE / UPDATE at March 2023

Published on Friday March 17th (from Darmstadt)

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Post n 64 | Enhydro

Published on Sunday March 12th 2023

This is one of the three Enhydro with fluid inclusion in fossil amber I'm working at the moment.

The idea is to represent Beuys' concept of chaos / cystalised. In his series of work focused on bees, profoundly inspired by the research of Rudolf Steiner on the same subject, Beuys identified the two status of wax as a metaphor of the collaborative work of individuals in society. In his imaginary work, the bees turn wax liquid, using the muscles of their chests to warm it until it melts. Doing this, the wax is now available to build the hive, which will host new members of the colony. So chaos is referred to the liquid state of wax whilst with crystalysed he meant the solid, shaped and organised use of the material.

[wednesdaysat7]

Post n 63 | W Bentely & Snow Crystals

Published on Saturday March 4rd 2023

Wilson Bentley was a pioneer in the area of photomicrography.

"On January 15, 1885 he became the first person to photograph a single snow crystal. He would go on to photograph well over 5000 snow crystals (never finding two the same), and his documentation of this work advanced the study of meteorology in his time."

From https://snowflakebentley.com/biography

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Post n 62 | water enhydro

Published on Friday March 3rd 2023

Since I was working on the research paper, my aim was to find a natural element able to embrace both the two cateries mentioned by Beuys as caos and crystalized. I believe that water enhydro inclusion in fossil amber is what I have been looking for. I now have three samples and one seems the perfect piece to include in a mechanical machine. I envisage to create a machine that will move or rotate constantly the amber to keep the water bubble moving.

[wednesdaysat7]

POST n 61 | nanoparticles & snow crystals

(originally) Published on March 3rd 2023 at 6 37 am

I’m not sure I understood what I have been reading in the last two hours. Probably early morning isn’t my best time to read chemistry and I’m also very rusty about it. But seems that some submicroscopic silver (kind of nanoparticles) are at the core of some snow crystals. In fact many researchers have grown snow crystals in the laboratory using submicroscopic silver. 

Furthermore, I found that silver nanoparticles is also largely used in wound healing. 

I’m not sure I understand yet what submicroscopic silver nanoparticles are but they seems very interesting matter.

I'm completely fascinated by the idea of formation as a spontaneous action that generates geometric figures. I'm imagining how the crystal grown: it's a progress that happens in a certain amount of time. This process involves at the same time 3D & 4D dimensions. My frustration is that I don't have the tolls to research it or replicate it. I'm having images of this magic in mind but I haven't found yet the way to reproduce it.

i'm also struggling with the drypoint series of snow crystals for few reasons. First of all, each of the 82 snow crystal are incredibly detailed. I'm driving mad and in two month I haven't finished the 2 A3 plates and the 4 A5 plates I've started while I was quarantine with Covid. Second because I have discovered the work of Wilson Alwyn Bentley, who was a pioneer of photomicrography and was the first to research systematically the different shapes of showflakes. Again I feel I'm risking to get stuck in a redundant series of works. Third, and most concerning at the moment, time is running very fast and the final degree show is coming and I don't have any idea of how to start to think about it. I'm getting lost in this neverending process of researching again and again.

I know that i'm deeply fascinated by few elements: the consciousness of wild pollinators threatened by pesticides; the way bees produce the hive/hexagon; the early interpretation of Steiner first and Beuys later of the transformation of bee wax from liquid to solid (chaos/crystalization); the spontaneous formation of hexagon show crystals; the relationship between the bee production of the hive and the formation of snow crystals.

[wednesdaysat7]

Post n 60 | 

Published on Satrurday 18th February 2023 at 10 08 am

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” Henry Miller

Sometimes I feel that loss of "mistery" - as something that motivates people to explore and to shine - is the hardest price we have paid these days. Everything seems to be explained even before we can formulate the question, our profound question. But then, and this is very sad, I realize that what we get is not an explaination of it but merely an advertising.

[wednesdaysat7]

Post n 59 | 4 30 / 5 00 AM

(originally) Published on February 17th 2023

This is my most precious moment of the day or maybe of my life. I woke up with ideas that sometimes I lose because I’m too lazy to get up and fix it on my notebook. Most of the cases the determination is stronger than the colder winter and a warm cozy bed.

I have been working a lot on the last two months on this topic of the inner intelligence that is expressed in nature and by nature itself. I’m moving from the hexagon shaped hive produced by bees to the hexagonal crystal created by the snow. It is so amazing to see how similar are these two natural expression of geometry. It is even more interesting to see the analogies in those two different process, where the first is produced intentionally whilst the second created within some specific circumstances. It doesn’t matter, in both there is expressed a form of intelligence that goes beyond the human capacity and especially the anthropocentric interpretation of what intelligence means: I would call it the inner intention of formation.

[wednesdaysat7]

Post n 58 | Last Month

Published on January 6th 2023

Nearly a month ago, on December 9th, I was tested positive of Covid. Despite the effort I put to avoid to catch it, this virus found its way to get get me.

My main concern was to bring it at home while Raj is having the treatment.

I have been in pain for the first four days but mostly I’ve lived in fear. I have then self-isolated in a spare room that I was using as a study/workspace, and converted as my isolation space. I was constantly worried to spread the virus in the house so I just shut down myself, hibernating my body and my soul to let the immune system to work and eventually heal.

I didn’t had enough energy to do anything else for the first days aside of shaking and fearing to spread the virus. 

Eventually I started to get a bit better and I also get immediately bored.

It is when I realised that I was experiencing the brain fogginess caused by this coronavirus. I have been unable to focus for the first ten days. It was painful even to read and answer an email without taking few pauses. I did’t liked to concentrate in order to watch a movie and reading was just impossible.

The only thing I have been able to do was to sculpt the plates for my drypoint works. It felt right and spontaneous. The opposite or reading, listening or following the screenplay of films or tv series.

I have started about 10 different plates. 5 of them are the hexagon series from the crystals of snow. The rest are different subjects, two of them are not related to this research. 

Interestingly I remember that one of the first days - maybe day 3 - I understood the meaning of something I always say at the beginning of my vipassana meditation. Soon after a short breathing exercises, I reach a state of gratitude for where I am, who I am, what I am able to hear, feel and think. I most of the time take for granted the fact that normally I am able to think, to understand, to intellectualise a new concept or remember something I have just learnt. I know that this might sound obvious, but that day I really realised that it is not obvious and that I could lose that ability. This experience have helped me to look at my abilities from a different perspective: I usually look at them for what I think they are missing but actually just enjoy what I’m capable to do it feels very much enough now that I’m recovering.

I didn't had any fever, I didn’t had much of soar throat but I have felt lost in my brain for good ten days. This is definitely not just a flue as few people are still saying. Flue it doesn’t affect the body and the mind like the Covid did to me.      

[wednesdaysat7]

POST n 57 | RESUME SEPTEMBER - NOVEMBER 2022

Published on Saturday 26th November 2022

This is a resume of the last weeks of learning and research practice.

I am facing a very strong and distressful form of anxiety which is linked to some very personal circumstances and as main effect is that I feel paralysed and stuck in some aspects of my work, such as comunicate with people and especially ask for help.

Despite that I have been able to plan activities and some small projects, attend online courses, have several session at my local printmaking studio (I am now a member of the Kew Studios) and commit to my research practice. 

I will summarise what happened in each of the months. 

September: 

I have visited few exhibitions in person [ Baroness at Mimosa House; after my research on the monumental installation The Hive at Kew Garden I have visited the exhibition Back to Nature at the Serpentine Gallery] and researched online the photographic archive of Monte Verita’, known as ��Il fondo Harald Szeemann” (which is a never-ending series of numbers and codes meant to organise all the photos and references regarding M.V.) and the whole collection of works on paper of Joseph Beuys catalogued by researchers and curators of the MoMa.

I started an ongoing work on a drypoint representing the anatomy of a bee: I was very frustrated to see some of my previous prints as not much more that a copy of old etchings of bees [Post n 52 - 5th session]. I decided to use my home made organic pigments to complete the drypoint. This is basically a replica, but in bigger scale, of the work I have already done during Term 1 [Post n 31 ]. I have mixed a pigment I produced by reducing beetroot juice and mixed with coconut oil to print the drypoint (page 1). Then I have rubbed some petals of different plants to color the different body parts. In other areas I have used some other pigments previously reduced from vegetables, flowers, fruits and local plants. I’m using only materials that I have grown by myself of found during my walks. I don’t want to use materials bought from shops. 

   October:

This month has been incredibly prolific in terms of printmaking production.

I had several sessions, often in the evening / late night, because it was better suited to manage the schedule of the trial.

Departing from new materials I bought [Post n 50 & Post n 53], I have developed the works started at the beginning of the year and presented at the Interim Show at the Trinity Buoy Warf. 

An ongoing hexagon series. This is a collection of images representing different interpretations and representations of the hexagon. I have started it after watching the documentary Gia suggested me during one of the Fictional Summer Sessions. The topic is how mathematic is used and expressed in and by nature - of course the relationship between the hexagon and bees is relevant for me. The series includes also microscope images of Aspergillus star and also hexagon snow crystals from two old etchings (late XIX century) I bought in a shop. I have already produced* a new work “Saknussemm” based on the hexagon and focused on marbles in relationship with the colonialism for the virtual exhibition “Romancing the stone” as part of 2022  exhibited for the DigiFest 2022. I started a new work with bee wax and based on the same principle I have used to produce Saknussemm.

* During the summer break I have also started to collect old pieces of marbled papers, which I have used for Saknussemm and other works which are still in progress (there is a corner of my at-home-studio full of materials and packs of papers. A lot of frustration and discomfort to walk around there).

November:

Three very powerful sessions (break out rooms with very deep connection with my colleagues for which I will publish a dedicated Post soon).

A lot of drypoint sessions and I have finally exhibited the four works produced for the series New Observations of the History of Bees.

Because I’m using all my free time to work on both the research Paper the assessment of the UNIT 2, I’m constantly reflecting of who I am, what I have done before the MA and what I have been doing since I started the MA.

I believe what it will be the next step of my research is to cross my previous works (2007 - 2020) basically focused on community oriented projects, performance and public art with a multidisciplinary research focused on the impact of chemicals on the cognitive system.

[wednesdaysat7]

Post n 56  | Printmaking - 4 Drypoint Plates 

Published on Tuesday August 30

This was my first session at the Printmaking Studio since Covid. I have finally printed few plates I've produced in the last months. The library in Granary Square is still closed so I can't scan the prints.