Art etc. No.27

The situation demands an alternative response, to life and art. We are all doing it differently. I am trying to look at it as an opportunity, a space that can be filled but doesn’t have to be to allow time for mental wandering and wondering letting thoughts and ideas to swirl around. 

In December, I was selected to take part in a residency in Vadodara, Gujarat by Artcore, Derby, UK. The results of this have already been shown in India and were to be exhibited in Derby in April. With impeccable timing, this had to be postponed and as yet, do not have a date. I am aware how everything will have changed with the length of time we are unable to freely move about. 

To keep links, discussions and critiques going, I began a self-directed residency called Hatchery and invited others to join me. There are now ten artists, mostly UK but also Canada and Italy, who meet through Zoom once a week to talk about virtual gallery visits, artwork progressed and general ‘how things are going’. Our What’sApp group is lively!

For me, this self-directed residency is to prioritise my creativity, not just artwork. Recently, I have had to do temp. work to sustain myself and this is an opportunity to have space and time (if not money). I have been using materials to hand and this limitation has produced a lot of experimental work that do not align to my usual practice. Melting oil pastels to create 3D landscapes, making Modroc casts, printing with bulrushes, making chalk drawings on cardboard and painting lines with the only colour of paint I have which is black as well as things like filming a feather drifting in the water from a kayak and exploring spectrograms after a night time recording. Some of this was in response to the 12o 30day artwork which was a challenge, even Here, I decided to think about the ideas and do the work quickly, not following the brief but being very actively creative and I thank the organisers for the effort they put into this. It must have presented huge technical difficulties.  It was important for me not to limit myself and although not everything worked, it was the action of making. 

This mind map was created throughout the 30 days and has become a springboard form which to leap. In itself, it is not important, it is the one that comes next which will be life-changing. 

Next, Hatchery is being supported by Artcore in an online exhibition called She’d. So called as it refers to the space we have carved out for ourselves to make work and, coincidentally, we are all female in the exhibition but not in Hatchery itself. This includes seven of the artists and the first events are in June, 11th and 25th, with artist talks. The exhibition itself opens on July in two parts, 3rd and 17th. I am so grateful to Artcore for their generous involvement. 

See Hear

Exploring the audio that is my practice, this blog delves into the thinking behind the works to encourage dialogue whilst helping me unravel my thoughts. 

See Hear

It is right to start the New Year, and a new decade, with a new blog. Having reached number 26 with my earlier one, Art Etc. it feels that this is the time. Here, I want to concentrate on art practice which includes my research as they are inherent to one other. Primarily a sound artist, I do not exclude other media but develop creativity across disciplines.

 It has been a good year for me culminating in the Artcore Winter Narratives Arts Council supported residency in Vadodara, India (blog – artcoregallery.org.uk > artist residency > Winter Narratives > Dr Wright). I arrived home on the 21st of December so it is still very fresh. It was perfect timing and the progress I made points to an excellent beginning to 2020. 

Making an exhibition from new work in just 10 days meant little time for procrastination. I went with ideas and a proposal that was, essentially, a methodology but I wanted to have a very open mind and create something that could only be created there. My thoughts are that to make something on a residency that could be done elsewhere means that you might as well stay at home. The work I made was borne out of the experience and pertains to the location but it is not necessarily site-specific, although certain drawings were. This will be tested when it is shown at Artcore in Derby in April. I rediscovered my pleasure in using drawing as a means of experiencing site although sound was my main medium. 

My intention is that knowledge and understanding of what I have achieved this year will unfold with time and impact on my thoughts and ideas.  

Exhibition, Vadodara, India

Art etc. no. 25

Threads of making, writing and play have become knotted into my practice which is very apt considering my collection of lost knots which subsequently all became woven into a rope of a tentative and ambiguous nature. I have become obsessed with the idea of sound as time and return over an dover again with the question ‘can you hear a stalagmite forming?’. It is the notion of time slowed down to thousands of years both in the process of formation from the raindrop percolating through the rocks to the permanence of the stalagmite. It informs my practice of humming with its ambiguity, its initial tenuousness to its longevity, its changing of state allied to its location, environment and its relationship to time. These things can be applied to any sonic environment (as they can to any environment) especially in relation to the listening process. This direction was explored during my Summer Lodge residency at NTU and I seem to be moving into sound performances. Hopefully, these directions will be fruitful but at least they will be fun.

I now have a digital studio at NearNow in Broadway, Nottingham which is arts-council funded. It is a lovely place to work though it is not open every day at the moment.

Over the past few months, I have seen and heard some interesting things. Bruno Latour at the University of Leicester, Lis Rhodes at Nottingham Contemporary, Alchemies of Research conference at Birmingham School of Art to name a few.

No images with this post - my computer was restored to factory settings and working from my hard drive and I haven’t yet worked out how to download the photos. But hope they are still there!

Art etc. No. 16

Art etc. No 16

I am working hard to build my website at www.chriswright.co.uk. A bit a day will keep the temper at bay! However, it is getting there though probably will never really finish it. In the meantime, just found out that In Cammino Verso Il Silenziowas published three days ago which is a really nice feeling. It includes my essaySound, time and self, moving through the aural landscape. This explores the interactions of perceptions of sound to the notion of silence, the heard and not-heard, as dynamic relations that influence the space of sound. My argument is that the construct of time, closely linked to the routines of our daily life, becomes an anomaly when experienced in the space of underground and constructed silent spaces. Thus indicating that the intricate layering of sound, human experience and space is directly related to the moment and creates a sonic landscape governed by natural and unnatural events.

 Scritti di: Michele Ammirata, Silvia Badon, Michele Bartolucci, Michele De Gregorio, Agostina Giuliani, Andrea Laquidara, Mario Mariani, Caterina Marrone, Andrea Taroppi, Chris Wright.

Art etc. No. 15

I have become a nomadic artist in the sense that I am now studio-less, it feels very strange. I am sure I will miss the community of artists as well as that space to work in. It is going to require extra efforts to keep up a network. I see artists’ communities as mutually beneficial, being able to support, commiserate and rejoice without rancour. I do see the change as an opportunity however, and that is helping me. The future is unknown, not tied to a particular space but perhaps finding a project space if I need one. I am already part of a three person crit. group who meet every month or so to discuss our work and think about what opportunities we can create. In fact, it is all quite exciting and have begun applying again after a month’s break as well as building a website which is endlessly traumatic.  

The future is going to be fun, productive and challenging.