Installations

Monday 23 August 2010

The Surgery at Nunhead, 10th-12th September 2010

I am making a site- specific installation work in the upcoming Nunhead Open presented by artists group The Surgery, which will be at the former Nunhead Community Centre, 56 Nunhead Lane, SE15,  from 10th- 12th September 2010.  The installation will reference the social history and architecture of the Community Centre with reference to current digital communities through alterations to the surface and structure of the existing windows.



Outwith the Open exhibition, the featured artists are;

Isa Suarez, sound artist, March of the Human Rights Jukebox

Jenny Steele, artist, site specific work

Sarah Sparkes, artist/curator film Deserters

Lady Lucy, drawing project linked to Nunhead cemetery

Rebecca Fournier, artist, Wardrobe Cinema

Beris Blake, paintings & drawings


Opening Hours are:
Friday-Sunday 12-5pm. Friday 10th September Opening party 6 pm -8 pm. Sunday 12 Sept Exhibition closes at 5 pm.

Hope that you can make it along for a wee bevvie!

Artist's 'reversing' the interface

These are a few artists that I have come upon in my research into artists that referene the everyday digital interfaces that we utilise.  I am particularly interested in the following visual artists are they treat the digital interface as a landscape that is worthwhile investigating and interpreting, and secondly through non- digital processes in an attempt to physicalise the digital space. 

Flavio de Marco, is predominantly an artist, and writer based in Italy.  He interprets the interfaces of everyday screens through painting and larger wall installations, which demonstrate a modern day interpretations of frescoes exploring the simulated layers and surfaces of the internet.

Mimesi (Imitation) 01 (II), Flavio de Marco, 2005
Acrylic on wall and canvas, 264 x 440cm


Paesaggio (Landscape), Flavio de Marco
Acrylic on canvas, 140cm x 100cm


Spazio Privato Pubblico Pittorico (Paessaggio) – (Private Space Pictorial Public – Landscape), Flavio de Marco, 1999
Acrylic on canvas, 50 x 70cm


Mimesi 00 (Imitation), Flavio de Marco, 2004
Acrylic on canvas and wall, 230 x 1500cm


Secondly, I have been exploring the work of Guillaume Reymond, a french - swiss artist, that physicalises mainly games played online through human and mechanical performance. 


Transformers #03. Guillaume Reymond, 2008 Performance


Transformers, Guillaume Reymond, 2008
Performance
 

Space Invaders, Guillaume Reymond, 2006


Lastly, I would like to make reference to Christiane Baumgartner who interprets the pre-digital screen through the painstakingly slow version of woodprinting.  Directly pointing to the theories of Paul Virilio in her writings, she seeks to memorialise and slow down the speed of everyday life.


The Sketchbook Project, February - June 2011

I am participating in the Sketchbook Project,  which is an open project and exhibition run by the Art House Co-op in Brooklyn, New York City.  Each participant produces a sketchbook within a certain size that tours the following locations:

Brooklyn Art Library, New York, February 19th - February 27th 2011
Austin Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, March 12th, 2011
Space Gallery, Portland, ME, March 30th - April 2nd 2011
The Granite Room, Atlanta, April 8-9th 2011
Form/Space Atelier, Seattle, WA, June 10th - 11th 2011
111 Minna Gallery, San Francisco, June 18th 2011



The multitude of sketchbooks will be available to view online once all submissions have been recieved in early January 2011.  The ArtHouse Co-op are still accepting participants

Although, in the early stages of the sketchbook, it is an interesting and challenging exercise as in one sense the sketchbook becomes the 'work'.  The sketchbook is traditionally considered as a vehicle for prepatory work, which is often indoctrinated into you within art education.  As a practicing artist, I rarely, or never, fill a sketchbook.  Working on bits and peices of paper, beginnings of some sketchbooks and middle pages of another notebook. 

Some of the early pages I have been working on:


Architectural Apology

'My Mistake', Oscar Tuazon, 4th June - 15th August, 2010, ICA

There is little that is apologetic in the physical strength and form of Oscar Tuazon's recent installation at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (4th June - 15th August, 2010), London.  Within the ICA's online promotional text, the exhibition is categorisied as 'radical' - a difficult, almost impossible, achievement within the contemporary fine art world.  Encouragement for 'radical' experimentation rings more true with the outdated language used within art education, specifically the Foundation Diploma Studies assessment criteria.  The 'radical' nature of this work is interpreted, perhaps, due to the pervasive quality of the installation that interrupts the communal corridors and open plan offices.  However, it is certain that all inhabitants will swiftly adjust their daily movements and routes as one would after any internal reconstruction.

This grand architectural obstruction, or architecture within the existing ICA structure - did, however, entirely satisfy what the ICA website suggests of its imposing sense of strength and structural form.  Referencing the foundations and processes of architectural spaces and the history of construction, the large installation appears stereotypically masculine in the materials and finishes. 

Tuazon leaves the audience few clues for the misdemeanour that he feels he must confess. The self depreciating title, 'My Mistake', is in strong contradiction with the satisfyingly solid and physically daring quality of the work.  I have read elsewhere that the artist enjoys exploring paradoxes within his practice, although in this instance he is relying wholly upon the suggestive poetic narrative from the title. 

'Fenestration' Drawings

I have recently been working on a series of drawings that have started to explore architectural facades of institutions and the facade or design of their interface.  I am interested in how the layout, composition and graphics, and most importantly, branding of the website interface, is how the user or customer navigates their institution or organisation.  The architectural facade of a building used to demonstrate, the wealth, power and status of the organisation or institution operating within.  Of course, architecture is not 'dead', but I am interested in the move towards powers that function within virtual spaces - and the tension between the interface of physical architecture and the digital graphic software.

Some examples of recent drawings below:
Facade (Interface), 2010, Pen, pencil, vinyl and ink on paper

Fenestration#1, 2010, Pen, pencil and vinyl on paper



Facade (Home - Interface), 2010, Pen, pencil, vinyl and ink on paper


Monday 9 August 2010

'Going Postal', ICA

'Postcard', Digital Embroidery on linen, 2007

An earlier work from my installation, 'Desktop Diorama' - 'Postcard' was auctioned in an event at the ICA, London on the 16th June 2010, in aid of the Chelsea College of Art and Design MFA students.  The funds raised from the auction of all artist's postcards went to financing their degree show this coming September.  Looking forward to it!

PayPal Pocket

From the 20th May - 27th June, my PayPal pocket was exhibited as part of the 'Every Pocket Tells a Story' at Charnwood Arts Centre.  The exhibition explored the history of the pocket through archived male and female pockets from Leicestershire Museums Collections, as well as a range of pockets made by contemporary makers, with contextual panels written by Julia Reeve, Senior Lecturer, De Montfort University.

PayPal Pocket, Embroidery on Screenprinted puff binder fabric, 2010


FabLab Challenge 2010

As part of the FutureEverything Conference (Manchester, May, 2010) I was selected to take part in the FabLab Challenge at the UK's first MIT FabLab at the Manchester Manufacturing Institute in Ancoats.  The Challenge for twelve artists was to produce an artwork to a digitally related theme within a restricted time using the laboratories up to date fabrication facilities.  The artist's range of outputs were exhibited at the Conference's Finissage event at The Palace Hotel.  An indepth summary of my experience will be published in my perspectives paper, 'The D Factor' in the BodySpaceTechnology Journal (Brunel University) in the coming month.  Images used within the paper (a few of which please see below) are with great thanks to Richard Hooper, of Liverpool Hope University.

MIT FabLab Manchester

FabLab

Finissage Event, The Palace Hotel, Manchester




In the beginning...

'Facade', Vinyl and MDF laser cut, 2010

Post #1! My name is Jenny Steele and I am an artist, lecturer and art educator based in London.  I have decided to start this blog to document my practice, research and projects that I am involved with.  My practice is interested in the history of remediated digital interfaces in an attempt and physicalise the fleeting nature of such visuals, through a 'make do and mend' and humourous approach. You can view older examples of my work in my current website, a better one of which I am developing so please be patient!  To support my practice, I work freelance mainly in art education and have delivered sessions and modules from early years to final year BA students.  My particular interests when delivering qualification and non- qualification based courses are in the areas of Critical Studies, Drawing, Printmaking and Textiles within the context of Fine Art.  I really do hope that you comment on any posts and I very much encourage discussion and debate!