Dan Green

Creative Nottingham

2010-07-24T15:54:00.003+01:00

I have been invited to be a guest blogger on Creative Nottingham, and will be posting from the 26th July for two weeks. Should be an interesting opportunity to think out loud once again.

http://www.creativenottingham.com/

2010-04-29T20:10:00.002+01:00

2010-03-24T23:47:00.001Z

Videokunst

2010-03-24T23:46:00.003Z

My work is now online on the videokunst.ch website

Voiceunder

2010-03-10T13:06:00.003Z

I am co - curating a show looking at the contract between the audio and the visual in moving image. It's going to be in the studio at Broadway on the 7th of March, call for submissions is below, if you are interested in submitting work, get in touch at sixesandsevens.submissions@hotmail.com

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - Voiceunder

SIXES&SEVENS are hosting a one night screening event at the White Box Studio at Nottingham’s Broadway Media Centre. We are looking for moving image works, lasting no longer than five minutes that deal with the relationship between the image and the soundtrack/voiceover.

We are interested in work that plays with the tension between these two registers, touching upon the fusion that happens between a sound and an image when they occur at exactly the same time and the questions they ask each other.

The Screening will be held at the beginning of May (exact date tbc) and offers a great opportunity for artists to showcase their work in Nottingham’s exciting and innovative Media Centre.

Please send proposals or links to the moving image piece you are choosing to submit to:

sixesandsevens.submissions@hotmail.com

or - send us a DVD of your proposed moving image piece in its entirety to:

248 Alfreton Road,
Nottingham,
NG7 5LS

Your proposal must include documentation of previous work and a short description of your practice. (500 words MAX)

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS 12.00pm Friday 26th March

Satellite

2010-03-01T13:01:00.000Z

Sixes & Sevens are hosting an evening event in response to the Star City show at Nottingham Contemporary on the 19th March, go vist the blog to find out more

www.sixessevens.blogspot.com

Nottingham Visual Arts

2010-02-15T12:58:00.001Z

I am having writing published on Nottingham Visual Arts. So far, I have published reviews of 'Tacitly Speaking' at Backlit, 'Dirt' at Box and an interview with Alex Farquarson. More soon.

http://www.nottinghamvisualarts.net/review/feb-10/tacitly-speaking

http://www.nottinghamvisualarts.net/review/jan-10/dirt

http://www.nottinghamvisualarts.net/writing/feb-10/stylish-start

You Old New Romantic

2009-11-27T15:16:00.003Z

I will be showing as part of 'You Old New Romantic' at Backlit, opening on the 11th December (private view 10th December 6-9). Curated by Ashley Gallant the show takes a look at artists who question the reality of the everyday, demonstrating an inherent instability both in their view of their surroundings and means of production.

http://www.backlit.org.uk/

Part I

2009-11-21T16:02:00.003Z

Left to right, Meg Tait, Lotti V Closs, Dan Green, James Huyton, Simon Franklin, David Bance

Left to right: David Bance, Antonitta Sacco, James Huyton, Emily Birrell, Meg Tait

Dan Green - Wanderer Above the Sea at Zennor (Listening to Trewhellam)

Documentation of the first Sixes & Sevens show at Surface Gallery last week.

Sixes & Sevens present Part I

2009-10-27T14:41:00.003Z

I am now part of a group called Sixes & Sevens consisting of friends graduating from Trent at the same time as me, loosely defined:

"Sixes & Sevens acts as an umbrella organisation supporting a number of artists within Nottingham, committed to hosting diverse art events and collaborations throughout Nottingham and the East Midlands."

We are hosting a show at Surface Gallery in Nottingham of new work between the 10th and 14th of November, with the private view on the 9th 6-8.

Degrees Unedited

2009-08-27T12:46:00.003+01:00

I was recently asked to review my experiences of blogging on the reviews unedited site for a-n magazine. It is available to view along with an e-mail interview with the editor Richard Taylor.

http://www.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/article/556295

Degrees Unedited

2009-08-20T02:43:00.001+01:00

I have two new articles on the degrees Unedited site, one is a review of the goldsmiths degree show, the other a piece concerning my experiences of blogging there this year alongside an e-mail interview with Richard Taylor.

http://www.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/article/556295

In Search of the Sublime: The Wanderer

2009-08-19T13:29:00.003+01:00

Photograph, 2009

Disclosure

2009-06-13T16:35:00.002+01:00

At Broadway in Nottingham, In search of the Sublime: The Whisper is on show in the bar as part of 'Disclosure' selected by Mark Titchner and Matt Davenport to coincide with Mark Titchners show of the same name at Backlit.

The secret Installation Project

2009-05-19T23:17:00.003+01:00

Secret Installation Project

2009-05-11T16:11:00.003+01:00

I will be showing at the Secret Garden Party's 'Secret Installation Project' as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival 2009, from the 18th - 21st May at The Cuckoo Lounge.

2009-05-04T16:55:00.004+01:00

Chaser - installation shot 1

Chaser - installation shot 2

Chaser - installation shot 3

In Search of the Sublime: The Whisper (working title) - Installation shot 1

Experiencing Lyotards 'Great Zero'

2009-04-19T18:02:00.000+01:00

The quest is essential, the doorway is key and the experience is waiting. The artist as a pilgrim, as an explorer. The romantic hero cast against his chosen landscape whether that is Friedrich’s natural world or Blandy’s cultural environs begins to perform a task of a search inside themselves for a deeper meaning. The reflection of this must, however, be onto the audience, a re-imagining of the quest in the viewers mind. It is a shift of perspective, the recounting of discovery and of experience that will involve the viewer in having their own.

The gallery space is liminal in nature; it is outside of the ordinary. The white space removes all that is not important, isolating the work and elevating all that is shown to a new level of importance. The gallery is a place for experience. The viewers active movement through the gallery door, symbolic of the opportunity for experience (the door as a link between two scenes through which the protagonist willingly chooses to pass rather than its converse implication as a barrier where the protagonists’ movement has to be earned or granted) creates the conditions for an experience, connected to an artwork, to occur.

It is the involvement of the viewer through their observation that is key. Michael Snows ‘Solar Breath, Northern Caryatids’ is a video projection of a window with its curtains, moved by the wind, slapping against the pane. Whilst we are observing a phenomena and an idyll, we are also drawn to the gallery itself. The outside may have been brought in, but how much does it alter or re-imagine the white cube space? Snow transforms the wall into a window; the space is transformed rather than changed, temporarily becoming a different environment. This is a re-staging of the easel painting, the video becoming like “a portable window that, once set on the wall, penetrates it with deep space.” (O’Doherty B, 1999, pg 18).

“The work, in effect, poses this "problem" of perception and we as viewers must draw from this special case all the "general case" metaphysical relationships that are encoded within the language of the piece” (Youngblood, 1970 pg 71). The video work uses the lens to show the viewer exactly what the artist has seen. As much as it includes the same distinction between what is shown and what is not shown as painting, the decision to focus the lens on a particular place means the viewer sees through the artist’s eye; moving image becomes more direct in its communication. The inclusion of audio to accompany the image in Solar Breath intensifies the atmosphere, and the questioning of the links between the two develops further the possibilities of experience for the viewer. This is more Dogme95 than John Smith, the audio a simultaneous recording documenting Snows presence within the space; the viewer joining him in his room. A removal of audio, however, would intensify the effect of the image and instead invites the viewer to impose their own soundtrack, whether music, voiceover or deep thought. The removal of one aspect of expected stimulation creates an uncertainty and disorientation.

The experience comes not from just observing, but by choosing to participate. It is this inclusion of the viewer in the work, whether as a reflection akin to Lacan’s mirror theory of observing the artists quest in comparison to the viewers’ own, or in questioning the decisions and relationships of elements within the work. Disparity creates the space for this interpretative involvement of the viewer; the effect of the presentation creates the environment for it to happen. The artwork is a representation. The artist admits that there is an unpresentable yet attempts to represent it, is not governed by rules but searches for them, just as the postmodern cannot exist “without a shattering of belief and without discovery of the lack of reality of reality in reality – a discovery linked to the invention of other realities." (Lyotard, 1992)

Lyotard’s ‘Great Zero’, the space between the representation and what it represents, offers the experience to the viewer; a questioning of what the representation represents, and the implied relationships therein. It is Lyotard who describes the sublime as relational to reason, that active engagement of our internal conditioning and perceptive experiences leads to an engagement and experiential interpretation of the artwork. This considered, the experience is within the viewer, a connection between the internal knowledge and the external stimulation; for Kant the experience of standing in front of a natural wonder (a mountain, for example), leads to a sublime notion resulting from an inability to comprehend the entirety of what is seen; the experience is of “reason exceeding all presentation, pain in the imagination or sensibility proving inadequate to the concept.”(Lyotard, 1992 pg 9) The viewer may not make the same connections as the artist, he relinquishes control of the interpretation; however this consideration is far less significant than the creation of space for the viewer to employ their reason and to interact with the work.

As a result the idea of differed desire, linked with that of loss, becomes instrumental. We cannot fully perceive, and we cannot create the experience. If it is immeasurably linked to an internal connection with the external, then an expectation of what might happen, perhaps a desire to re-live a previous experience, results in the sublime always being just out of the protagonists reach. Thus there is a link to the Romantic, the desire for the unreachable and the mourning of loss; a nihilism considered by Nietzsche whereby the highest values are in a transcendental realm unreachable by mere mortal humankind: God, comprehension of creation and unrequited love are all unachievable.

“When ordinary vision—conditioned and enculturated by the most vulgar of environments—is liberated through aesthetic conceptual design information…We see through the filmmaker's eyes. If he's an artist we become artists along with him.” (Youngblood, 1970 pg 72) The sublime experience is out there. We may not be able to find it, but by placing oneself in a position where it may, the experience can occur. The artist, as a pilgrim encounters it and reflects his encounter to his audience who, in turn, might find themselves encountering their own experience. The key is the willingness to experience, and the subsequent involvement in the search and in the artwork. If the artist allows the viewer in, the viewer not only becomes part of the work but takes it away with them. The implication is that the viewer becomes integral to the work, not through any direct involvement but by their own perception.

Bibliography

DAVID, A (1998) Lyotard on the Kantian Sublime, In Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy, Boston 10-15 August 1998, Available at http://web.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Cont/ContDavi.htm [Accessed 4 March 2009]

HEISER, J. (2008) A Romantic Measure In: Kintisch, H. ed, (2008) Romantic Conceptualism, Bielefeld: Kerber Verlag, 1998, pp 135-149

LYOTARD, J-F (1992) Answering the question: what is the postmodern? In: he
Postmodern Explained to Children, Sydney, Power Publications, 1992 Available online : http://74.125.93.104/search?q=cache:B8QAMAjdsuAJ:teaching.arts.usyd.edu.au/ArtHistory/ARHT1002/readings/postmodern.pdf+lyotard+answering+the+question&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk [accessed 13 April 2009]

Mirror Theory, Wikipwedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_stage [accessed 7/11/08]

NEWLING, J, 2007. An Essential Disorientation, An investigation into sacredness and its relation to contemporary art. Kielce: SARP.

O’DOHERTY, B, 1999, Inside the White Cube, The Ideology of the Gallery Space Expanded Edition University of California Press, Berkeley

O’REILLY, S, 2009, Michael Snow, Art Monthly 323 Feb 2009, 23-24

VERWOERT, J, 2006. Bas Jan Ader, In Search of the Miraculous. London: Afterall.

WOODWARD, A (2006) Jean Francois Lyotard, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/Lyotard.htm [accessed 30 March 2009]

YOUNGBLOOD, G (1970) Expanded Cinema, London, Studio Vista

Study for In Search of the Sublime: The Whisper

2009-03-27T22:30:00.003Z

Narratives of Forgery

2009-03-23T21:31:00.002Z

‘Fuck it.’

‘Fuck it.’

He moves towards the door, tentatively. Pauses; listens. His cautious approach belies his nervousness and trepidation as to what is happening on the other side. ‘Someone should go in’, he says in a hushed voice, ‘I need to know’. In parallel to his panic, muffled, unidentifiable sounds emanate from behind the door, his attention held firmly in that place, his mind running marathons of disbelief, the imagination taking hold of his normally cool demeanour.

The door links two scenes, two differing places of activity. What is in one is inherently linked to the other. There is no real distinction, instead an idea that the door provides an opportunity to enter the other scene. It is a portal, a threshold through which a character might travel in order to experience, understand or encounter what lies ‘on the other side’. The door is not a barrier, but a question of when and why. You may enter at will.

Panic sets in. The noise stops for a moment, then reappears.

And stops.

And starts.

Someone approaches at the end of the short alleyway, and for a moment pauses to look at our agitated protagonist. ‘Help,’ he mutters under his breath, a vain attempt to gain attention. ‘Something is happening in there, and I’m not sure its good…’ The figure passes, uninterested in the dishevelled character, perhaps wanting to avoid any further confrontation with this apparent madman.

The door is a barrier. It separates two scenes. What is on one side is separate and uninvolved with the other. The door is a portal, a threshold, but not one with any implicit right of passage. It must be earned or granted. Your status as a pilgrim beyond the portal’s opportune existence is not in your control, it must be opened from the other side. This presents us not with an opportunity, but a choice; an increase in tension means that the ideal of the other side being interesting or desirable creates a longing to know and to understand.

Time passes, slowly. The noise continues, crescendo and diminuendo alter its implied state and meaning. Our protagonist sits, leant against a cold brick wall, the tension evident on his face and in his behaviour, not caring about the loose cables and cobwebs littering the wall. ‘What if……what if......she……I……FUCK……I just want to know……but I don’t…….’ His continual muttering and panicked deliberations over what is taking place only deepens his imagined viewpoint.

The threshold the door presents is an illusion and a reality. In it we find the possibilities on encounter. There is no certainty in the encounter, however by crossing the threshold the possibility of experience is formed as the character moves from certainty into uncertainty. Disorientated, he will discover what is possible when the decision is made. The decision may be made with trepidation or with a positive motion, however this is unimportant; it is his decision and willingness to cross that makes it all possible.

He squirms, a sudden thought jolting his body. The mystery and his invented interpretations of the unfolding events begin to manifest physically, as if his entire life depended on knowing. He looks up towards the light brown door, stands and raises himself to try and look through the spy hole, but sees nothing. A figure enters the alleyway, walks to the end and enters the door opposite the one he is observing. Glances are exchanged, but little more, a look of distain towards the more wistful glance of the protagonist.

The unknown. There is a psychological given, a combination of stimuli and imagination can create the widest conclusions. It is that internal human desire, to take what is seen and heard and connect it implicitly with what is understood, with the position in which that person is found. It is testament to the ability of the mind to create new narratives fusing the perceived evidence together. Intrigue, expectation, wonder, fear. Scenarios are invented and believed without question, it can become an impossibility to reverse the internal perceptions that have been developed. The enquiring mind might investigate further and question their perceptions rather than jumping to an immediate conclusion, taking a closer look at the evidence before assuming what is seen. If there is a truth, they will find it.

He steps back, careful to make no noise and give away his entrenched position. He faces a decision that he knows will change the entirety of preceding time period in which his imagination has created this. Memories of events leading up to this moment play through his mind. He knows that he could knock and find the answers to his questions, or he could leave with no conclusion, opening up the possibilities to create his own. The decision is not about whether or not to open the door, but whether he wants to know.

The invitation is to question everything. The decision is whether or not that is desirable. The reality is that any position of disorientation, fear or threat can create limitless possibilities for experience and new conclusions, perceptions and prepositions that will, in due course, affect the next experience. The truth is out there.

As he makes his move, he whispers ‘I…’

This was commissioned for the 'Narratives of Forgery' show at Backlit in Nottingham as part of the 'Beyond Belief' series of shows selected by Ben Judd. 'Narratives of Forgery' was curated by Simon Franklin and David Bance and also featured Meg Tait, Ellie Russell, Calvin Sangster and Lorna Carman.

In Search of the Sublime: Gertrud-Kolmar Strasse unt In der Ministergarten

2009-03-15T13:34:00.002Z

Bonnington Film 09

2009-02-05T12:17:00.000Z

In Search of the Sublime: Part 1 (Have I Told You Lately....) is being shown on the flat screen in the Bonnington Gallery at Nottingham Trent University on Friday 6th February, the first day of the Bonnington Film '09 show. Each day features a video projection in the gallery space and one on the flat screen outside. I am showing alongside Geoff Litherland.

Searching for the Sublime: Part 1 (Have I Told You Lately....)

2009-01-23T22:07:00.004Z

Selected stills.

Chaser

2009-01-23T22:04:00.003Z

A four - part work (to be shown on four separate monitors, with headphones in differing locations around a space). The protagonist takes the camera to show his prospective audience his experiences of chasing the sun.

2009-01-17T11:58:00.001Z

Encountering the sublime is an experience. It is personal, what is sublime for me is not necessarily so for you. The glint of the sun reflecting on a window, snowfall on Christmas Day, the way light falls on your lovers face as you wake. I recently had a conversation with a man who recalled watching the 1930 Amateur Cup Final at Highbury, his beloved Wycombe Wanderers winning against all the odds, I similarly remember the same team winning the FA Trophy in 1991, Mark West scoring with a diving header, we were both 9. It is those moments that are inexplicable in their beauty, poetic and personal, as much as they may be experienced by a crowd they are yours to keep, to treasure. They are miraculous, unplanned, surpass expectations and are situated outside of the normal daily routine.

All night long on my bed
I looked for the one my heart loves;
I looked for him but did not find him. (Song Of Songs 3 v 1)

Bas Jan Ader searched for the miraculous. Quite what he considered miraculous is unclear, but we can assume it was things out of the ordinary. He failed. He never made it across the Atlantic. He probably knew he would fail, that his chosen task was too great, yet he undertook to succeed anyway. He frames himself as a hero, battling against the waves, a romantic, alone with the sea, a figure against an incomprehensible expanse of water, leaving the certainty of dry land and casting off into the unknown. He crosses the boundary from civilisation into the wild, subjecting himself to the uncontrollable and inescapable elements.

I will get up now and go about the city,
through its streets and squares;
I will search for the one my heart loves.
So I looked for him but did not find him. (Song Of Songs 3 v 2)

The experience is important. The key is your willingness, the choice to partake, to allow the experience to happen. Whitehead (1929) says that each experience is integral to the next, and inherently influenced by each previous one, gradually building character and belief. It is in the crossing of the threshold from reality and the usual environment into the liminal space that is the precursor to the experience. The threshold is important as a boundary, a border over which the protagonist travels, whether doorway, passport control, a meditative state or emotional perception, the choice to cross into the liminal makes the experience possible. The experience can be minor, the highlight of a day, or could lay the foundations for a movement. ‘To cross a threshold into a sacred space is to experience a momentary disorientation’ (Newling J, 2007 pg 38). Disorientation is necessary, and the sublime is sacred.

If the sublime is an experience outside of the ordinary, is a search futile? The sun will rise and set, and the time can be predicted; however we cannot control the clouds that, at times, obscure us from seeing natures greatest drama unfold. If we search, will we inevitably be disappointed? Can an experience of the sublime be created, or is it futile to do more than create an opportunity for such an event to occur?

‘..one individual, silent and alone, approaches the limits of society and culture where the city borders on nature at the coastline, and goes across this limit into the unknown by travelling across the ocean on a boat by himself.’ (Verwoert, J, 2006 pg2)

The natural is key to the sublime. Its unpredictability means that small miracles of nature can occur at any moment. Some are huge, grand gestures - eclipses, sunsets, rainbows, births; others are more subtle and harder to see – the first shoots of spring, changes of light. Nature is a sacred space, it is an escape and it is peaceful; yet it is also a place of work, of danger and of necessity. ‘In our struggle to understand nature, light becomes a principle metaphor of expression’ (Newling J 2007 pg 68). Every organised religion has a place of significance for the sun, most notably as symbolic of God. Light can be seen as key to a spiritual experience. Small encounters with the sublime in nature, previously inexplicable (although modern science can explain, or will try to explain phenomena) have inspired ideas of God and the miraculous, and alongside nature can be considered sacred.

‘And you would have seen the sun, as it arose, veering away from their cave in the night, and, as it set cutting them out of its path on the left, they being in a cavity therein.
That was a wonder of God.’ (The Holy Qu’ran, Al-Kahf (The Cave) v 17)

I am fascinated by the sun. It is both necessary and dangerous. Its symbolism of God interests me, the search for the sublime through a chasing of the sun becoming a search for God, for answers, for a deeper meaning to life. The song of the Lover in Song of Songs carries a similar symbolism, a search for God. He is found not in the bed, or in the city streets, or by asking if he had been seen, but when the search was exhausted. It was at the point of giving up that the lover reappears.

Similarly, the sublime is rarely found during the search, but when least expected. The search is not futile, but creates the necessary disorientation to enable the searcher to experience the sublime. Bas Jan Ader failed to cross the Atlantic, his work could be seen as suicide, but perhaps he found the miraculous whilst alone on the sea, perhaps he found his answer in meeting God as he died.

Once the experience is complete, the threshold is crossed back into reality, what do we do with the after effects of the event? Heidegger (1936) says that it is the communication of these experiences that make us beings and that it is through communication that we become whole, it can be presumed then that this leads to the advent of society and the beginnings of organised religion.

These ideas of the sublime, of the encounter and the experience through a liminal threshold, and the subsequent communication of that experience is key to my practice; communicating my experiences with reference to a search for the sublime, symbolic of God, conscious of the ongoing process of development of character and belief.

ANON 1999. The Bible New International Version. New edition of 2nd revised edition. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Song Of Songs chapter 3

ALI, A 2001. Al Qur’an, A Contemporary Translation. Bilingual edition. Princeton. Princeton University Press. 18th Sura Al-Kahf (the Cave).

HEIDEGGER M. 1936. The Origin of the Work of Art in: KRELL, D F ed. 1978. Martin Heidegger; Basic Writings. Revised and expanded edition. Abingdon: Routeledge.

NEWLING, J, 2007. An Essential Disorientation, An investigation into sacredness and its relation to contemporary art. Kielce: SARP.

Process Philosophy, Wikipedia : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_philosophy [13/01/2009]

VERWOERT J, 2006. Bas Jan Ader, In Search of the Miraculous. London: Afterall.

2008-12-24T20:23:00.002Z

08/12/08
24 photographs

(detail 1)

(detail 2)

(detail 3)

(detail 4)

Update, Bang!

2008-11-26T14:12:00.003Z

I've been thinking further about the idea of the liminal, developed from the ideas of contras, instead of contrasting entities looking at the ground between them. Journeys - physical, emotional or spiritual, places and non-places, the formation of character, process philosophy, wandering, exploring, Heidegger, Lyotard and Debord. The map is not an accurate representation, peoples experience is. This re-investigation of the experience is interesting, can I create an experience for people, that being the work? If so, can that experience then be shared, moreover, can I encourage others to share their experience further?

Further to this, 'This is my City' has been selected for the Hedge showing at the Bang! short film festival at the broadway in Nottingham, screening at 7:30 on the 29th November (Saturday).

Review

2008-11-12T22:17:00.000Z

New review of David Blandy's 'The Barefoot Lone Pilgrim - The Search for Mingering Mike' at Bluecoat in Liverpool, as part of the Biennial.

http://www.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/484503

Made in 24hrs / Making Marks

2008-09-21T17:26:00.003+01:00

I have just returned from the Made in 24hrs project in Deptford. The experience of working for 24 hours solid in order to show what can be produced in that time frame was really interesting. I was part of a group of 40 people, mainly Goldsmiths Design students, but spotted with graduates, Fine Artists and tutors, briefed to respond to Deptford specifically by means of using as a basis for our thinking items purchased that morning at Deptford market. We were broken into groups focussing on differing disciplines, although collaboration and interplay between them was encouraged.

As a result of the morning session, the sound team (Tom Taylor, Louisa Cranmore, Lauren Godfrey and myself) produced a cabinet of sounds made from various appropriated materials intended to reproduce the atmosphere inside a sitting room occupied by a Grandmother - a ticking clock, a caged birds wings, knitting needles and Vivaldi's Four Seasons. The result was the cabinet and, some distance away, a speaker playing the sounds produced.

"From objects bought at Deptford market we constructed an imagined scene based on the stories of use and ownership we thought might be behind the objects. A living room filled with various noises – a ticking clock; someone knitting; caged birds flapping; Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on the record player… All these sounds we attempted to recreate mechanically, using simple devices made from the junk/stuff around us rather than recordings. We wanted the combined sounds to be heard separately from the visual results, although the visual adds a new dimension as the inability of the created mechanisms to convey the message through their physical forms creates an alternative route to consider the way that appropriated materials might moonlight as something totally different. The outcome becomes two results, that of the sonic recreation of an imagined atmosphere relayed through a solitary speaker, removed from the source of the sound which are themselves enclosed within a cabinet, which on opening creates a more personal experience as the viewer enters their location."

As the evening drew on and into the early hours of the morning, we worked to produce items for exhibition. The results were as diverse as the people there. My final item was a pair of celestion speaker cabinets converted to be acoustic instruments, using PC casing, twine, stones and a spinning top.

"Two speaker cabinets appropriated and manipulated to contain materials for acoustic sonic production. This switch from the cabinets being carriers of speakers, the final stage of amplification, usually of pre recorded or sourced sound, into tools for the creation of new sounds takes full advantage of their intended function as acoustic chambers, and opens the possibilities for the cabinets to become instruments directly controlled by the operator who is now integral to their operation rather than a passive consumer of their function. "

The show is open for the rest of the week, and is mentioned on the London Design Festival website as well as its own

http://24hrdesignandmake.co.uk/

A video is being produced of the days events, including interviews and discussions as to how the project ran.

I am also featured in Making Marks at the Hand and Heart Gallery in Nottingham, running until 21st September.

A new painting, and an old one

2008-09-12T13:58:00.002+01:00

I've just finished the black painting. I've been wanting to do one for a while now ever since I first began producing white ones. It will be interesting to watch how the black gloss ages in comparison to white gloss, whether there is such a noticable discolouration.

The second work is an old one I found today, but I think it sits nicely with the last video I produced.

February 2006 - August 2008

2008-09-04T22:44:00.002+01:00

New video. Features footage of a shelter I built two and a half years ago in the woods near home. At the time, it was an attempt to look at the history of people who have lived and worked in the woods in the area, especially through the chairmaking industry. I had some nice images, but in many ways it was something of a non-starter. I decided to gao back and revisit it, with the intention of re-building and starting again, perhaps spending a night and scavenging to begin producing items from what could be found there.

When I went back, however, my thoughts changed. The shelter was 'alive'. The shape was still there, although most of it had fallen, and the woods were in the process of re-claiming it. Moss, brambles and fungus had grown over some of the wood, whilst spiders webs and a white feather were part of it as well. It occurred to me that perhaps this was more interesting, I had recently seen a film about Robert Smithsons Partly Buried Woodshed - the idea that what we do can often disintegrate and fall apart, but that the idea behind it remains. It once again calls into question the idea of restoration - should artwork be restored? I have previously made paintings in white gloss, intending them to discolour and fade, if they were ever restored, it would take away from the intention.

The piece is a video with narration: -

It all begins somewhere. A dream, a longing, an idea. From there it grows, develops, changes and, often, happens. Realisation is not a formality, a requirement or even a measure of success. It is the process. It is the way the beginning becomes an end. The story is valuable, it should be heard. What began as a fleeting thought has altered and grown until it has become a new entity, that is to say it becomes its own, the result is the sum of its beginnings, but it has a life of its own, not tied to original plans, but unleashed to become what it will. Results have lifespans, ideas don’t. An idea can move with the times, its results will one day look old, and may crumble. What is important is the journey. It is not until you move away from a place that you begin to realise what you have left behind. It is not until encountering a fresh perspective that you can look at the past and see what it really was.

This place has a story. Its history predates the idea of what you see, runs back into the mists of time, what you see, however, has a shorter story. The seen is the result of the unseen. It is the unseen which holds the lineage, it is the seen which creates opportunity to discover that. You may question the identity of the seen, seek to identify it and catalogue in your perception what it is and what it represents. Is this a futile task? Is it possible to ever know where the seen originates? My perception of this is far different to yours. I know. I know what I think. I know the history behind the seen. I know what it is to me, yet what does that do for you? It answers none of your questions, it requires instead for you to make a judgement of your own. Your conclusions may well be radically different to my own; does this mean there is no real answer?

This is a story. This is history, culture and progress all wrapped in one. This is a mark left on a landscape, left in a time by an individual with a singular purpose. What it has become, and what it continues to become may not be the same as what it was intended to be. Sometimes, ideas and their results return to where they came from. Some are carried to the grave, some disintegrate, others become stagnant and dissapear. Those which bear fruit and result in a physical interpretation may last, or may fall, some are simply left to rot forgotten. They all leave a residue; a mark on the landscape, a culture or a mind. A legend may be created surrounding the idea, deliberations and questioning by minds can posthumously elongate the life of the original perception, developing it far beyond the means and intentions of the infant thought. The resultant myth may not be akin to what was intended, but may give the seen a new life far beyond what it was initially designed to represent. The seen becomes the protagonist, hinting at the unseen, giving rise to an unquantifiable measure of perceptions which may or may not marry to the initial and original, unwittingly conceiving new interpretations and meanings to apply to the seen, amalgamating previous perceptions with perspective forged from the unchangeable present. It is possible that these new understandings are closer to the intention than the unseen ever was, or that when laid with the origins produce a more complete and rounded notion. Whatever happens, the unseen remains unseen until revealed, sometimes never, sometimes in good time. The idea has a life which, when passed on, will grow and mature and morph, to be considered and reapplied infinitely. There is no end to this unquantifiable essence.

It all begins somewhere. It is the process which is important. Every idea has a story.

24hr Design and Make

2008-08-11T18:44:00.002+01:00

I'm going to be involved in a project as part of London Design Festival. For 24 hours a group will work in a space in Deptford split across different disciplines to see what can be produced within that time period. The project has been conceived and organized by a friend, Liam Healy.

We will be working from 7am on Friday 19th September through till 7am Saturday 20th September, with an opening at 7pm on the 20th, and work on display through till the 23rd.

121-123 Deptford High Street
Deptford
London
SE8 4NS

Website link:

http://24hrdesignandmake.co.uk/

And the design festival page

http://londondesignfestival.com/events/view-event.aspx?id=922

a-n magazine

2008-08-04T12:03:00.003+01:00

This months a-n makes mention of a review I posted on their Interface website. The review is about the Nottingham Trent Fine art Degree Show this year, called "Objectivity in a White Cube". The mention is inside the back cover. The issue also features a review by a good friend Tom Duggan and Emma Cocker, a tutor at NTU. Good stuff.

I have several reviews on the interface site, here is a link so you can go read....

http://sites.a-n.co.uk/interface

I have also just started a blog on their degree shows unedited site....

http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees

They are all available as links form a-n.co.uk

I also have a website at http://dangreen.awardspace.com, its an old project, but its still there.

2008-08-03T16:20:00.001+01:00

Lamposts

2008-08-03T16:17:00.002+01:00

Imagine a City

2008-08-03T15:52:00.003+01:00

Installation view

Installation view (2)

Video still

Video still (2)

It has been a great experience working with Dave Young as part of the project in Leicester. Good to have the chance to see an artist at work, and to learn from how its done.

The last part of the project was on the 21st July in Leicester, a show comprising the launch of the book and photographic documentation of the six installations at the LCB Depot. As part of this, I collaborated with Dave's other apprentices, Amy Fisher and Steve Poxson, to produce a video looking at the ways we encounter and interact with a city whilst in the guise of a visitor. I wrote a piece, used as a voiceover, based around these ideas and ideas of what a city is, trying to reflect parts of texts by Italo Calvino (Invisible cities), Voltaire (Candide), TS Eliot (The Wasteland), John Betjeman, and a paper by Sue Clifford (Places: The City and The Invisible) which features Calvino and Bachelard amongst others.

The text reads as follows: -

What is this place? What are its parts? The city is not bricks and mortar, iron and concrete, but spaces, people, stories and dreams. It is not enough to be a flaneur, to look, but necessary to ask, to consider the consequences of the movements of those before. What dreams have come and passed. The city has a heart and a soul, it has grown and aged, been renewed and changed, been broken and restored. It has seen countless events played out upon its canvas, a setting for changes of the individual and the masses. It has aided the shaping of its own fortunes and losses, in tandem to those who dwell within it. It is fortress and battleground, haven and enemy, oasis and desert. To those who inhabit it, it is what it is in their eyes. For the visitor it is what is found. The explorer might choose to walk in the past, to picture what has been, to gaze upon ancient walls and consider what has been, or else to look into the future, to ask what might be, what could be and what changes are in progress. The flaneur would look and not ask. He would take in the vistas, sounds and smells, but the inquisitor questions all. Is it enough to see the past, present and future without asking what links them all? Is this the same city that stood here centuries ago, or is this an embodiment of a changing, morphing entity, blown by the winds of time and the enterprises of countless citizens? I am an explorer. I come not just to see, but to ask. I come to see the ancient and the ultra – modern side by side, to question how this city has come from the crumbling ruins to the shining silver vistas, to consider not just the plans and preparations for growth and development placed upon its environs by the few, but to look deep into the heart of the city. The city is made of stories. What happened where I stand? Who’s footsteps do I walk in, how many unspoken thoughts were conceived where I now tread? The city is a delicate balance, inspired and upheld by the individual. The city is a place for the individual to become more than that. It may be a utopian vision, but it is one that is played out in the hidden spaces and the backstreets, one individual meets with another, and the city is formed. It is through this that the city moves forward, it is with this impetus that a city becomes great. It is necessary to imagine scenes from previous lifetimes, to conjure in ones mind an impression of how life has played out upon this backdrop. What if cultures collided, if those who built with wood met those who build with steel, if those who governed by force came face to face with those who are sworn to protect the right to vote. What of industries past and present? The days of coal and steam now replaced by offices full of people sat at small desks, paper the product of a modern industrial workforce. The metropolitan feel, multiculturalism, what would those living here even one hundred years ago perceive when faced with the multiracial society we now uphold? Does today’s city bear enough resemblance to yesterdays? What dreams never occurred, lost in the tides of a forward reaching society, visions never fulfilled, plans never begun. We all have our view of this city. Mine is my own. No-one else sees it. From now on this is my city, that is to say the city I perceive is mine. It is what I take away. My city is a secret. It is a happening and a conception, it is found and formulated, it is a response and an imagination. I cannot see this place through another’s eyes, I can only create for myself a picture through my own. The real city is within. It is alive within each and every one of its inhabitants, the living breathing entity is comprised of their hopes and dreams. The city is alive. The city is in me.

London Design Festival

2008-07-08T22:55:00.000+01:00

I'm going to be part of a project as part of London design Festival, somewhere in Deptford. The event is going to consist of a group working in a space for 24 hours, creating work in various disciplines. I shall be working with sound, and seeing how this becomes part of the larger performative making session and the ensuing installation and show.

7am 19th Sept - 7am 20th Sept.

Opening 20th Sept 7pm, show open until 23rd Sept.

More details to follow.

2008-06-28T17:13:00.000+01:00

Stills from 'E6', a short video by Alia Pathan. I have been involved in the sound design for the project, working to her brief to create suspense and tension, to give atmosphere to the video.

The video should hopefully be shown in Tokyo as part of the Traversing Territories project which Alia has travelled to as a representitive of Nottingham Trent University.

Imagine a City

2008-06-28T17:03:00.000+01:00

I am currently working as an apprentice to Dave Young as part of the Imagine a City project in Leicester. His piece is an installation at Leicester Guildhall, and took place on the 26th June titled "The Whispering City". It was an audio/visual/fire installation in the courtyard (although unfortunately due to rain we had to move some elements inside) of the Tudor building, focussing on the many faces of statues within Leicester and found sounds.

As part of the project I will be collaborating with Steve Poxson and Amy Fisher (the other apprentices), our work being shown at the LCB Depot, Leicester, on the 21st July.

http://www.imagineacity.co.uk/
http://www.leviathanwhispers.co.uk/ (Dave Young)

26th April 2008

2008-06-28T16:30:00.000+01:00

Stills from audio/visual project, May 2008

Footage shot on Location in High Wycombe, Bucks.

Soundtrack written to imply an 'urban' sound, looking to contrast the country and city in one piece. It was performed live, although future development of the idea will begin to look at isolating each element alongside the possibilities of it becoming a video piece.

Traversing Territories, 12th MArch 2008, Bonnington Gallery Nottingham

2008-06-28T16:18:00.000+01:00

This was an improvised performance in collaboration with other Nottingham Trent students and students from Mushashino Arts University Tokyo, as part of the Traversing Territories project (Ryoikii No Yukiki)

Dan Green, Simon Burd, Dan Cervi, Matthew Chesney (NTU), Yasutaka Watanabe, Hoonida Kim (MAU)

Other students in the exhibition - Bill Nguyen, Alia Pathan, Sarah Duffy, Toby Everitt, Martin Nightingale, Jenna Finch, Ashley Gallant, Tracey McMaster (NTU), Lisa Koiso, Son Woo Kyung (MAU)

http://www.ryoikinoyukiki.com/

2008-06-28T16:14:00.000+01:00

My work concerns noise and silence. I seek to create spaces where people can experience these, either individually or together. Perhaps to really experience silence, we must first experience noise.

Noise and silence contrast each other, sometimes comforting, sometimes confrontational. We grow used to one or the other, and the loss of either can lead to sleepless nights and an uncomfortable feeling of being out of place. We can enjoy and loathe both; noise can mean social time or music as well as work and non-stop busyness; silence can mean peace and relaxation as well as loneliness and fear. Engagement with the work, that is the choice to let ones thoughts roam, is necessary to fully experience the work, but this is left as an option. Whilst the viewer doesn’t have a direct influence on the work itself, they influence their own, and possible others’ experience. There is a meditative factor, an interest in spirituality which whilst a way of asking quite personal questions is also an offer to the audience, providing a space where thoughts of identity and the spiritual are encouraged.

I work with parallel mediums of painting and sound. Often separate, occasionally together, I seek to investigate the idea of silence within these. The contrasts and tensions are evident within, the influence of minimal and modernist art contradicting the idea of spirituality. There is a constant presence of structure, the grid form, whether visual or within the production process. Repetition and looping are key components of the sound, whether from instrumentation or from the manipulation of field recordings. The result is often music rather than ‘sound’, raising the question of where art stops and music begins. I use live performance in order to create a unique experience alongside recorded work, the ‘liveness’ meaning that the experience can never be repeated, instead becoming a memory in the mind of those who were there. The composition process is comparable to painting, layering the chromography of sound onto the blank canvas of the space’s background resonance. The process is important, and at times should be shown, but not to the degradation of the experience.

The idea that the contrasts I mention may blend into one, that the country and the city run into each other and at times become one. My work could be seen as a suburb between extremes where the opposing factors become binaries, working together as one, sometimes corporately, sometimes by invasion.

2008-06-28T16:11:00.000+01:00

Consider This: Volume 1 (For Mark)

Painting (Gloss/Emulsion on Canvas), video projection, sound

2008-06-28T16:08:00.000+01:00

Machine Music Vol. 1

Released alongside the Surface Gallery show (see previous blog) in March 2008.

First run of 20, including hand sprayed discs, numbered sleeves.

Track Listing: -
Start
Machine
Sunday
Hughenden

For Mark

www.myspace.com/machinemusicstuff

2008-06-28T16:04:00.001+01:00

“The Origins of Machine Music” (2006 – 2008)
Shown in 'Collapse', part of the 'It Couldn't be Made Up' series at Surface Gallery, Nottingham, 6th-7th March 2008

Born from a new found love of electronica and ambient music, these are a set of intro’s made with the full intention of developing them into full scale pieces. There is a moment when the intention becomes a challenge, and these recordings remain untouched and unfinished, the result of someone trying to find their ‘sound’ within the multifarious world of music. Akin to a modernist experience like James Joyce’s ‘The Dubliners’, they take the listener to a point where things are expected, but the tracks fail to deliver on their promise - all promise and no delivery.

Part failure, part unrealised dream, they are tinged both with the frustration of lost inspiration and an impotence of ideas, yet shine with the promise that through hard work and development they might become something more. Through the experience of a close encounter with them, the listener may leave wondering what may come, or with a new, potential melody resounding in their ears.