Research : 1. Current Practice / 2. The Haptic and Digital / 3. Possibilities

Ogof Ffynnon Ddu - National Nature Reserve Penwyllt

The old limekilns Penwyllt

1. Current Practice

Since July last year I have been consolidating ideas, research and practice based around the landscape of Penwyllt. The process opened up previously unknown layers of history. The final work is about our relationship to the landscape. It is our personal relationship to living entities outside of our own human experience that directly impacts the natural environment. 

Having to write a report involved drawing out a mind map. It was at this point that I recognised that the collection of objects from the landscape and their arrangement around the body casts with the copper wire connections also resembled a mind map. The whole process of researching texts on the Anthropocene and re-wilding, walking the landscape and physically arranging the materials in my home studio was part of one process. The thinking and making linked.

Mixing research with potential praxis

Mind map for report

The first element of the mind map - plaster cast of my mouth

Combining materials found and cast

Combining research and making - poem on speech bubble

Early experiments combining elements, and connecting them using copper wire to move away from the wall. (Influenced by Sara Sze, Olafur Eliasson and Anna Boghiguian)

What became uppermost during this time being confined to a small domestic studio space was the fluidity of imaginative and haptic engagement. Thinking, reading, reflecting and writing about the small moments that capture a sense of something deeper that is almost indescribable - even a deep sadness about our lack of care for our multispecies soulmates on this living planet, a kind of mourning. All this was translated into the making. Connecting the sculptural speech bubbles/quotes/poems to the found objects and body casts using copper wire, came from a conversation with a fellow student in 2019. I had found some scraps of copper wire, she said she used copper wire in jewelry making, we then had a conversation about lines and connections and the anthropologist Tim Ingold. Copper was produced in the Lower Swansea Valley in kilns lined with Penwyllt silica bricks - so here was another connection.

Penwyllt silica bricks

Copper. coal, lime and the silica bricks also connect us to our colonial past to the enslaving of fellow humans to increase the 'wealth' of others and our continuing extractive destructive present.

I have to acknowledge that copper and its use in electrical components and communications, has made a positive contribution to the multispecies biomes in terms of enabling world-wide cross cultural communication. It has opened up expansive conversations about our shared past and has created a time of unveiling and revelation which may lead to the healing of our relationship to the living ground that we come from.

Although the work is not directly connected to textiles, the fact that ideas, poems and objects are physically connected by wire enters the realm of the woven.

Weaving ideas in drawing

The woven mind map

2. The Haptic and Digital

The main problem I encountered during the Confirmative Praxis stage and being in 'lockdown', is having to represent what is a physical handmade/haptic sculptural work, digitally. I have never been confident using digital images, so this has pushed me beyond my usual comfortable boundaries. It has been exciting to see the response I have had to both the photographic stills and video of the work. I had experimented with projection over the sculptural forms in the Exploratory Praxis stage.

Projection experiments

Overlay experiments

The still images have caught a sense of depth and layering, and the sculptural elements exist in a new environment even though now existing on a two dimensional plane. This has been a kind of unveiling for me of the possibility of photography in its own right, something which I had never considered for myself, having only used it for archive purposes. Reviewing the images for this submission also flagged up a similarity to the work of video artist Bill Viola, whom I had quoted in the essay on Barthes Death of the Author.

It was muted during a tutorial with Craig Wood, that I should try making some slow video of the work to try and bring out its haptic nature. Again I have been surprised and excited by the results. The videos have become like prayer poems or meditations. A longer version can be found at :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWmXOIvOBIY

It was suggested that we would be having our degree show in a virtual gallery. When I looked at the sites available on the web, I felt a sense of sadness and anger because the WIP Symposium that we had in previous weeks worked so well. It really showcased the work of all the contributors. To have our work placed as flat tiles in a virtual gallery would have not done justice to the depth and sincerity of the work produced. I am pleased that it has been decided that we will now present our work in a film format, despite the challenges that brings. Editing films down to 90 seconds and retaining the message is difficult, but the results are more stimulating than flat pictures in a false gallery.

Short experimental video 1

Experimental video 2

Sound was added after making an original experimental video while listening to Radio 3 and the music seemed to enhance the dance-like slow movement across and through the sculptural and projected elements.

Experimental video 3

3. Possibilities

The nature of a mind map, is that it is never finished. It is an expansive and continually changing work that can be added to or edited. A fellow student said it reminded them of DNA. It is an evolving working methodology.

One of the most exciting things about undertaking this M.A. has been the interdisciplinary sharing of ideas and practise. It has been truly inspirational and collaborative. I see my practice involving collaboration in the future, including elements of lived history, testimony and activism. I have been looking at residencies that offer the opportunity to do site specific research. I would like to research other landscapes and work on a larger scale. I will continue to make photographic images of projections over sculpture that are work in their own right, this is a new area for me and more investigation of artists working in this field is required. 

Brick Kilns on The Wild Headland