Worktable - IBT

I have been meaning to write this post for an AGE. In February we went to the IBT/13 interactive, live installation that was Worktable (http://ibt13.co.uk/worktable-8/). It all took part in portacabins outside the Arnolfini, each portacabin is a different stage in the installation and its something you mostly do on your own. I don't think you were supposed to know what you were going to be asked to do, but a friend had enthusiastically told us everything the evening before we went.

You pick an object and walk through to a room where you are given your worktable (pic above) and are asked to destroy/take apart your object. We went last thing on the last day and so just got in before the whole thing closed. Consequently there weren't many objects to pick from. There were lots of pieces of pottery but I didn't want to just smash something, so I picked string.

I then spent the rest of the time unpicking and unravelling the ball of string thinking. MEGAN! WHY did you pick STRING! This is just going to be like a piece of work now and you spend AGES unpicking STRING! YOU CAN'T HELP YOURSELF!

Nevertheless it was satisfying and it wasn't canvas threads so it was sort of not the same, and I didn't have to be so regimented as I am when I'm making a work so I unravelled and unpicked and cut and pulled at random. Magnus picked a little brooch, pulling apart and cutting the cheap metal, and he (after a couple of goes) managed to pulverise the stone, I think using a nutcracker.

You then put the remnants of your objects in a cardboard tray and take it to the next room, where you swap your tray for another. There are loads sitting on shelves and you look through and pick what you want. Its a good chance to see what other people have done, lots of smashed up pottery - to the point where you can't even hazard a guess at what it used to be.

I picked a box of shards of pottery (like the one above but that's not the one, got carried away and forgot to take a picture..). 

This bit was the fun bit. I covered everything with glue, scrunched it all into a ball (smelled brilliant but didn't stick all that well..) and then covered it with tape. I wanted to do lots of wrapping but have the pieces of pottery visible so loads of tape and some rubber bands. 

Magnus made a 'necklace' out of a little dish that we had seen at the pre-smashing stage. 

Once you had put your second-hand object back together you took it to another room where there were shelves crammed with all sorts of objects which had been unmade and remade. This was fascinating and I think we spent longer in here than in any other part.  

This (above) was my favourite of all the objects remade, someone has been so restrained at the smashing stage! 

My object's siblings.

Magnus' necklace adorning a taped-dog.

There were some really gorgeous and really creative objects there, some you had no idea what they were or how-on-earth they had been put back together.

It was such a good project. I obviously find it satisfying, and think there is something in taking things apart and remaking them. To have the chance to do it just to enjoy the process and not think, and for anyone off the street to experience taking apart and remaking is a brilliant idea, and it makes for some fantastic objects!

Unmade/Remade I

Work in progress- A stretcher 1m x 1m has been built and stretched with canvas, the canvas has been pulled from the stretcher and is in the process of being unpicked. The threads going one way have been put in one pile, the threads running the other way in another pile. 

The vague idea at the moment (as implied by the working-title) is to unpick all the canvas and unchip the stretcher before putting the stretcher back together, and holding it together by wrapping the canvas threads (possibly soaked in medium first) around the broken wood. I have no idea weather or not it will be possible but that's the interesting bit.  

If you look at the canvas in the top image you will see one side is not being unpicked. This is because the canvas is from the end of a roll - so the threads running longways run, say from right to left, weaving over and under all the threads running up and down. BUT then they loop over and run back left to right (if that doesn't make sense, nevermind, I'll show you sometime). Unpicking these threads is pretty fiddly once you get to the looping back end, and the threads are over 2m long. The work is at a really exciting stage, ideas are sparking as I am unpicking and I am looking forward to trying to unchip the wood. 

Beetle!

Christmas games don't often produce much more than an afternoon of hilarity and arguments. Yet these funny/crazy/quirky drawings came from playing Beetle with my family and Grandparents over the Christmas Holidays.

Beetle, if you have never played it (do!) is essentially a game of chance. You don't need anything to play except a dice and pen and paper. You decide between yourselves which numbers on the dice signify which body parts of the beetle. So here 1=Head 2=Body 3=Feeler 4=Eye 5=Wing and 6=Leg (one leg per 6 thrown, not one 6 for all the legs! (Grandma)). 

You have to get a 1 (Head) to start and then you fill in the beetle as you go round throwing the dice in turn. 

I love these drawings, they are crammed full of character mostly because they are half finished and the way you draw them (I got lots of legs before I got a body-dilemma). Mum and dad both overlapped the head and body to make very upset-looking beetles. Mine looks like road-kill.

Antlers/Dazed and Confused

Legs are all on the bottom- beetle wearing a hula skirt, looks like it walks upright on all its legs.

Whoo!

My favourite (Grandmas) French/devil-bat - very jiggly.

Operahuset

This is the Operahuset in Oslo (the Opera House to you and me) It is just the most incredible building! Its a playground asking you to run all over the roof. Its all white marble, angles, views over Oslo and the fjord, cold wind. 

The building sits up out of the fjord like some huge banking, it is rocky and angular (have a look at google images to see it from far away). It is made so you can walk right from the waterline up various marble bankings onto and all over the roof.

The bulk of the Operahuset seems to be made entirely from marble. There is glass for the windows and a metal, braille-like covered block on the top, but a visitor mostly interacts with this marble. 

It is a soft grey-white and has been cut or finished differently in different parts. More than anything it is brilliantly practical. Walking up the slope, which from afar looks like you could use it as a slide into the fjord, you can feel your boots being gripped by the surface, even in rain and frost it would be easy to walk up here. 

The marble has been smoothed to varying degrees. Angles, shades and imitations of shadows make a visitor look at the surface and the building just as much as the view. Crests and huge expanses of space mean you are torn between wanting to just get to the next bit or just look over this wall, and also wanting to sit down and have a picnic and just look.

It is a completely fantastic building, and would be well worth going to Oslo to see! I'll bet the Opera's probably pretty good too.

Graffiti Squares

I love these Graffiti Squares. You see them everywhere. Paintings made from a push and pull tussle between graffiti artists (not sure thats the right term here really but you know what I mean) and those who paint over the graffiti (maybe they own the wall, or live opposite and have to look at it, or maybe its the council? Who knows). In the end you get these fantastic patchwork walls. No tags, but not a clean wall either. It ends up a sort of timeline and map of all the graffiti. Definitely a collaborative painting.

I love the idea of a group of kids wandering along and tagging walls one evening, then the over-painter walking along a day or two later *annoyed argh* thinking s/he'll have to sort that later, ill do it tomorrow. Rummaging through the garage (got some of that wall paint here somewhere, this'll have to do) Either its the right colour but the wall itself has aged and is a little dirty, or its a slightly wrong colour, or its a new tin but matched up as well as you're going to get. Then s/he doesn't paint the whole wall, but a little rectangle just over the graffiti itself. Not a clean wall, but no graffiti. Everybody wins. Repeat if required.

Unpicking Drawings

These drawings are a product of two performances, but themselves are very static and quiet. The paper was cut in the Action performance in Glasgow and they are of a 20x20cm piece of canvas as it is being unpicked. I have hundreds of unpicking drawings, they pick out moments or habits of the threads. They are very immediate and so some work whilst others don't. 

Grey Area

So Grey Area was taken down Sunday before last. Fringe Arts Bath is a fab thing to be involved in! Lots of visitors (except that cold, rainy thursday morning...) and brilliantly organised and looked after by Arran Hodgson.

Logo and info posters, many thanks to Matt Graham

Emily Ilett and Ashanti Harris

 Vicki Ley

 Trevor Smith

 Will Kendrick

 Video: Will Kendrick Sound: Chris Witherall

 Megan Hoyle

Claire Prosser