Notes from my recent talk at The Whipple Museum giving some context and background to 'Strange Chimera' the work was shown as part of Cambridge University's Science Festival 2017.
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Hello - and thank you for coming along today to see the work and hear me talk about it. I would like to thank the Whipple Museum - for allowing me to firstly access the collection and then to show the work in this fantastic space - also thanks to the library for their kind permission and helpful guidance regarding texts to reference in relation to the project.
I would like to read my current artist statement to give some context to the kind of work I make and the process I employ.
ARTist Statement
My practice is expressed through the composition of constructed hybrid objects, working within the mediums of sculpture, photography and collage to create work revolving around a unifying interest or narrative.
Fascination in a subject is usually triggered by a visual response which is expanded upon through research and investigation.
This develops much like a rhizome channelling in many diverse directions, drawing on academia, personal reflection and considering any wider social or cultural points of interest.
These findings are combined and reconfigured to inform the final resolved product.
The working title for this project is 'Strange Chimera' I am making work in response to the incredible Anatomical and Botanical models of Dr Auzoux.
Exploring the significance of these objects as teaching aids of their time but also considering how they might make us feel in the contemporary space of the museum.
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As an artist, I work across theory and practice, moving between historical and written research and the production of visual artworks. Working site-specifically - as I have for this project; that is to say in direct response to a space and the subsequent showing within that space's context gives a significant resonance to the work.
If the same work was shown within the traditional 'white gallery' I wonder what that would do to the reading or contextualisation of it?
My methodology is one of a 'divergent thinker' as opposed to a convergent thinking approach - coming into the thought process with an open mind there is no final fixed or 'convergent' result. I think this approach gives total freedom to the work.
The Auzoux models both Anatomical and Biological are products of their time and place, designed as teaching aids these papier-mache objects revolutionised the accessibility of medical knowledge around the world - they were transportable making the spaces that science was conducted in completely mobile, they were touchable - knowledge of anatomy and the inner body had become accessible and democratic.
The models were labelled - the names of larger organs fixed directly onto the surface and secondly printed arrows in the shape of pointing fingers and a number system were used to label movable parts.
An accompanying guide provided step by step instructions to guide onlookers through a papier-mache dissection. The models were self-teaching aids that permitted students independent learning.
So how do these thing make us 'feel' today when we engage with them? Do they make us 'feel' anything? Are they static and fixed or do they 'become' something else when we look at them? Can we look at them - and if we do what do we see?
The models are immediately visceral but knowing that they are simply papier-mache makes viewing possible. However, this idea of 'seeing' was brought home to me when during an impromptu conversation at the start of the project. Sitting in the space making some notes I was approached by another visitor - he asked me what I was doing, we struck up a conversation, I asked him how the models made him feel; he told me he could not bear to look at them -being terminally ill.
Historically the artist has engaged with the motifs of mortality through the 'Vanitas' portrait and perhaps a good contemporary example [I am sure everyone will be able to picture this work in their minds] is Damien Hurst who has make the subject of death and the body the focus of his enquiry. [amongst other things of course!] His tiger shark encased in glass titled 'The Impossibility of Death in the mind of Someone Living' and the work 'For the Love of God' a human skull covered in diamonds to create a glittering spectacle. Are two good examples that were well documented in the media as they were considered quite radical at the time.
It would have been easy to continue with the project - the focus of my investigations around these themes of mortality but I felt that the work needed to be something else yet still referencing that 'sense of self' and the body - I wanted it to reflect these engaging models not just the anatomical but the biological too. Also, to somehow develop the temporality or linear progression of the significance of these objects in a contemporary way.
Temporality; the state of existing within or having some relationship with time, in a philosophical context temporality is traditionally the linear progression of past present and future.
Returning to the previously mentioned point regarding the democratisation of knowledge that was made possible by Auzoux - he called this his 'popularization project' that idea resonated with me and I wanted to reference this within the work.
Through the contemporary model of the internet - never has information been so readily accessible at the click of a finger - much like the finger pointers on the Auzoux models guiding the user in the right direction - the click of the mouse - a self directed pointer for gathering and accessing information.
Gradually the elements of this new or 'strange' Chimera were starting to come together, the body - albeit a fragmented one as we 'become data'. The biological - its' roots reaching out like the connections that bind the information superhighway together - like the neurons and synapses of the internal brain.
The use of fleshy materials - to reference how we physically navigate on line space - wanting the work to have a physicality - all materials used are lifted from everyday life - a deliberate echoing of that contemporary reading. Nothing is fixed which makes for a fragile temporal transient structure.
A fragile tableau - it feels watchful, precarious and paranoid. Each element is simply placed which alludes to the motifs of mutability or mutation - it could change or shape shift at any time.
Strange Chimera- in it's current state is presented here as a frozen tableau - it continues to develop through my thought process and continuing research. I am interested to see what it will become in the future.
There then followed a more general discussion regarding process, significance of the choice of materials and how the project had developed.
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Hello - and thank you for coming along today to see the work and hear me talk about it. I would like to thank the Whipple Museum - for allowing me to firstly access the collection and then to show the work in this fantastic space - also thanks to the library for their kind permission and helpful guidance regarding texts to reference in relation to the project.
Maquettes for Strange Chimera in the Whipple Museum
I would like to read my current artist statement to give some context to the kind of work I make and the process I employ.
ARTist Statement
My practice is expressed through the composition of constructed hybrid objects, working within the mediums of sculpture, photography and collage to create work revolving around a unifying interest or narrative.
Fascination in a subject is usually triggered by a visual response which is expanded upon through research and investigation.
This develops much like a rhizome channelling in many diverse directions, drawing on academia, personal reflection and considering any wider social or cultural points of interest.
These findings are combined and reconfigured to inform the final resolved product.
The working title for this project is 'Strange Chimera' I am making work in response to the incredible Anatomical and Botanical models of Dr Auzoux.
Exploring the significance of these objects as teaching aids of their time but also considering how they might make us feel in the contemporary space of the museum.
-------------------
As an artist, I work across theory and practice, moving between historical and written research and the production of visual artworks. Working site-specifically - as I have for this project; that is to say in direct response to a space and the subsequent showing within that space's context gives a significant resonance to the work.
If the same work was shown within the traditional 'white gallery' I wonder what that would do to the reading or contextualisation of it?
My methodology is one of a 'divergent thinker' as opposed to a convergent thinking approach - coming into the thought process with an open mind there is no final fixed or 'convergent' result. I think this approach gives total freedom to the work.
The Auzoux models both Anatomical and Biological are products of their time and place, designed as teaching aids these papier-mache objects revolutionised the accessibility of medical knowledge around the world - they were transportable making the spaces that science was conducted in completely mobile, they were touchable - knowledge of anatomy and the inner body had become accessible and democratic.
The models were labelled - the names of larger organs fixed directly onto the surface and secondly printed arrows in the shape of pointing fingers and a number system were used to label movable parts.
An accompanying guide provided step by step instructions to guide onlookers through a papier-mache dissection. The models were self-teaching aids that permitted students independent learning.
So how do these thing make us 'feel' today when we engage with them? Do they make us 'feel' anything? Are they static and fixed or do they 'become' something else when we look at them? Can we look at them - and if we do what do we see?
The models are immediately visceral but knowing that they are simply papier-mache makes viewing possible. However, this idea of 'seeing' was brought home to me when during an impromptu conversation at the start of the project. Sitting in the space making some notes I was approached by another visitor - he asked me what I was doing, we struck up a conversation, I asked him how the models made him feel; he told me he could not bear to look at them -being terminally ill.
Historically the artist has engaged with the motifs of mortality through the 'Vanitas' portrait and perhaps a good contemporary example [I am sure everyone will be able to picture this work in their minds] is Damien Hurst who has make the subject of death and the body the focus of his enquiry. [amongst other things of course!] His tiger shark encased in glass titled 'The Impossibility of Death in the mind of Someone Living' and the work 'For the Love of God' a human skull covered in diamonds to create a glittering spectacle. Are two good examples that were well documented in the media as they were considered quite radical at the time.
It would have been easy to continue with the project - the focus of my investigations around these themes of mortality but I felt that the work needed to be something else yet still referencing that 'sense of self' and the body - I wanted it to reflect these engaging models not just the anatomical but the biological too. Also, to somehow develop the temporality or linear progression of the significance of these objects in a contemporary way.
Temporality; the state of existing within or having some relationship with time, in a philosophical context temporality is traditionally the linear progression of past present and future.
Returning to the previously mentioned point regarding the democratisation of knowledge that was made possible by Auzoux - he called this his 'popularization project' that idea resonated with me and I wanted to reference this within the work.
Through the contemporary model of the internet - never has information been so readily accessible at the click of a finger - much like the finger pointers on the Auzoux models guiding the user in the right direction - the click of the mouse - a self directed pointer for gathering and accessing information.
Gradually the elements of this new or 'strange' Chimera were starting to come together, the body - albeit a fragmented one as we 'become data'. The biological - its' roots reaching out like the connections that bind the information superhighway together - like the neurons and synapses of the internal brain.
The use of fleshy materials - to reference how we physically navigate on line space - wanting the work to have a physicality - all materials used are lifted from everyday life - a deliberate echoing of that contemporary reading. Nothing is fixed which makes for a fragile temporal transient structure.
A fragile tableau - it feels watchful, precarious and paranoid. Each element is simply placed which alludes to the motifs of mutability or mutation - it could change or shape shift at any time.
Strange Chimera- in it's current state is presented here as a frozen tableau - it continues to develop through my thought process and continuing research. I am interested to see what it will become in the future.
There then followed a more general discussion regarding process, significance of the choice of materials and how the project had developed.
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A few installation images.
