'Micro Seminar' aka Day Long Tutorial with Jesse Ash/ Benedict Drew Artist Talk

For my part of the tutorial we looked back on the work I had produced for the 'Strong Body' exhibition. It was the first time to get more of an in-depth insight into the Chisel, Really High Plinth and Orifice sculptures. I explained how I thought it would be important for me to create more works like this as they didn't seem to deserve much speculation and were simply quick with style jokes like the work of David Shrigley. However it was suggested that I may spend more time thinking about the scale and the malleability of an idea, even though it may exist in thought form as a quick gesture or joke. I was still toying with the idea of the really high plinth, think about how it's initial purpose, to exaggerate the traits of a stereotypical successful human being, such as egotism, could be combined with some other ideas amongst the 3 sculptures. Previously I had thought about placing the orifice sculpture on top of the plinth and creating a live video feed down to a television screen, referencing actual programs of such nature. Regarding aesthetics, I thought back to an animation I had made for as part of a work about a suggested value given to fried chicken I want to try and use the colour scheme from the chicken box to create a generic gradient for the plinth/orifice/live feed combination. I was inspired to bring these ideas together after and artist talk by Benedict Drew. Drew creates video/audio and sculptural installations that seem to look at ideas surrounding information and technology in contemporary culture. His exhibition, 'The Persuaders', was home to some sculptural heads, their basic clay make up seeming to reference a generic drone that is the general public of today.

I felt a similarity between these beings he had created and my orifice sculpture and that perhaps they represented a similar idea. Thinking about the way Drew had presented these sculptures in relation to this video work - facing the screen as motionless onlookers, prompted thoughts about the presentation of the orifice on the plinth and ways I could include colour gradients, sounds and a video feed. I will create a new installation merging the ideas of value from my fried chicken works and the ideas of egotism amongst social situations that are mentioned in the strong body exhibition.