EYEBALL MASSAGE

Part of the whole of this second year thing on my course is all about trying to identify what my practice actually is. Not necessarily what it does, but what is the context of it? Well, I think I'm on the way to finding myself in that respect. I've found that I have a talent for observation; my work is a phenomological exploration, recording the world around me, and sometimes putting my own twist on it. I've also found that I'm drawn to humourous works, the strange and psychedelic, imaginative or unique processes (such as Dave McKean's photocopied collage comic strips) and pure absurdity. These qualities tend to stand out to me when I view an artist or their work.

With these in mind, these are some of the people I've been looking at recently.

PIPPILOTTI RIST - EYEBALL MASSAGE

With a name as strange as her work, Rist mainly works with video, presenting many visual wonders in her latest show at the Hayward Gallery, "Eyeball Massage". Often her work involves various manipulations of video, mainly playing with speed of playback, or crossfading two or more separate videos together to make a film-based collage of video and sound. 

This video shows a few excerpts from the works that were on show at the Hayward.

If there was ever an artist who represented the absurd, Rist is most definitely one of them. The sometimes insane subject matter of her work (smashing car windows with a flower, for example) and over-saturated, sickly sweet colours gives the impression of Rist living in a dream world, or perhaps documenting a dream, representing or acting out juxtapositions and the fantasies that the human condition throws up in the face of authority - ie, the destruction/vandalism of the cars, but using a flower, something that is inherently delicate.

JONAS MEKAS - AS I WAS MOVING AHEAD, OCCASIONALLY I SAW BRIEF GLIMPSES OF BEAUTY

Mekas is hailed by some as being a key influence in their film making career, and the "godfather of American avant-garde cinema". The works I have looked at are purely observational; Mekas was recording moments of his life since 1949, a few weeks after he emigrated to America. In the piece "Brief Glimpses" (video below) some of these moments are seen; holidays, family gatherings, people in the street, walks through countryside - all randomly spliced together, varying speeds and durations.

Watching this I feel as if I am being granted an exclusive glimpse into the memories of Mekas; the random splicing and sometimes chaotic nature of the editing make the clips similar the way recalling memories or dreams can be disjointed and sometimes fuzzy. This makes the work deeply personal, you almost feel as if you are invading his privacy by watching. As Mekas himself explains in the video, he initially intended to put the clips together chronologically, but eventually "gave up", giving way to randomness and chaos, saying that he "does not truly know where any part of [his] life truly belongs" - this further emphasises the video representing the act of remembering; Mekas is now an old man and has had many experiences, so it is likely he has trouble recalling exactly what happened where, despite these recordings. Saying this, who can truly pick out every single significant event of their lives from memory and describe it in vivid detail? Of course, some stand out more than others; human long-term memory is a powerful phenomenon. But not everything can be stored.

Think I might have to try some of these things; I haven't really done an awful lot of work with film. Might be time to try something a little different.

- Padfoot