Dissertation Bibliography

Blue Ball and Society Makes Me Sad

These are 2 video I made in my first year. It is very interesting looking back now because I feel like I have arrived back at a similar point in my third year. The faux-television aesthetic is something that has become the way I make videos. A person that is more interested in popular/mainstream culture, that watches television and glossy music videos on the internet, might find that artist video falls short aesthetically. Where a person might thrive on this constant visual familiarisation, artists put other factors at higher priority than glossy finishes, which derive from this 'mainstream' style. I have learnt that I can quite easily make glossy style music videos but I do not want this style to be the focal point. However, I am interested in how I can exploit these trends in filming styles.

My Job

Since completing an internship at the ICA, I have worked there part time as a gallery assistant.
Most people that work there are practising artists/film makers etc. Whether or not I enjoy the work, it is important as an artist to be aware of the viewer, you have to tackle these things from the inside out. I also get a card which gets me into any gallery in London for free.

The Orifice: Final video

This is he final version of my orifice project. Leading on from the performance installation, I carried on the idea further with the professor character questioning its meaning whilst wandering around. In the second half I created a counter-argument to the work itself using the narration of a character within the film to air my preconceived opinions of viewers. Its a kind of comedic paranoia surrounding the perceptions of video art/non-video art.

Music video for Robert Miles

I made this music video for Robert Miles using my new Canon SLR

art school

Super 8 workshops, country visits part 1, Jurassic Park, cooking, Lewes Bonfire night, art school friend's family small hold part 1, visiting artist run spaces, Norman Mclaren, rave in mate's bedroom, wasting time in the studio part 1, important decisions, late night early week soho, warehouse conversion, wasting time in the studio part 2, drinking in the back of a van, party scene, skateboarding, my friend is in a band, pub quiz, wasting time in the studio part 3, people ripping off Paul Maccarthy, neon, art school friend's family small hold part 2, Frieze Art Fair/Soho nights part 2, cows mating, friend on vallium, dogs, mum laughing at cat which she steals from neighbours, sheep noises, mockney, DIY punk, Artist being silly, getting a tattoo, hangover, cooking part 2, urinating in the bushes, sculpture, acid casualtys, stuck on motorway listening to previous UAL graduate DIY punk, pints, acid casualtys part 2, spend loan on trip to America, funny tutor, stupid friends, stream, urinal, birthday, constant housing disturbance, jaeger bombs, wetherspoons
This is a video made of clips from my mobile phone throughout the last few years with an accompanying description. As I have always taken phone camera pictures for my other blog (which you can see here), I thought it would be interesting to put all the video together. Like all my work it is riddled with hypocrisy, poking fun at itslef as it chronicles the many cliched extra-curricular activities of an art education.

Post-interim show thoughts

For my interim show I created an installation in the film and video room which housed a performance. The installation comprised of the 'orifice' sculpture, from which the idea had developed, linked up to some faux medical monitoring equipment. Around this, I hung some plastic sheets and a spotlight focused on the sculpture. On the projection screen was a looped video of the sculpture which I had created prior to the event, with accompanying loud bass-y audio. Red, blue and white, the colours of the sculpture were themed throughout the event, including the drinks and sunglasses worn by the actors. The orifice sculpture, originally a symbol for babbling nonsense, became the emphasis of this work. Viewers were made to queue outside whilst they acquired one of the colour coded drinks and a paper paint suit. An actor manned the door informing viewers that the suits were to prevent them from, 'contaminating the orifice'. The colour code came about by chance of the raw materials from which the sculpture was made, however I found their likening to both the logo of Tesco's and the French flag humorous and interesting. Along with the initial ideas that arose from the sculpture, I wanted to create this colour coded environment as a suggestion of generic uniform or authority. As the viewers were being greeted at the door and the importance of cleanliness around the orifice was emphasised, I was also greeting them as they came in the door, using a megaphone. The sound from the projection was intentionally loud, attempting to immerse the viewer, so the megaphone was needed both to communicate and to serve as an action of hilarity. The viewers/participants were then prompted to thank the orifice for their ideas, one by one. This action was as satirical and unrealistic as the overall idea of the sculpture holding some sort of wisdom. This was my first time experimenting with performance and I found it quite difficult to take seriously. I am happy that I developed the ideas from the orifice as a single sculpture into this larger work but I do not feel the performance as a 'live' element was crucial. However, with the manipulation of editing, the documentation will serve well as a part to a film, a further development. I wish to use the documentation as one part of a film, the second part focusing on the character, which manned the door, as a cvonfused professor. His thoughts on the event will be narrated, through which I will vent my own loosely problematic questions regarding the work. The thoughts that are narrated will be a mixture of fiction and reality, including my real thoughts on the work. I have been thinking about what it meant for me to be included in the performance, the basis of a sculpture in a performance installation and the colour coding; did it work, what did it display?

Natheniel Mellors article on art and humour

http://blog.frieze.com/art-humour/

christopher-hopkins.com

I have made a website as my online portfolio. Click the image below to visit it.

Tutorial with Reactor

Total GHAOS from Reactor Projects on Vimeo.

"Based in the UK, Reactor is a group of contemporary artists whose collective practice is focused on creating projects in which audiences become active participants. Reactor creates projects that place the audience in a central and interactive role, exploring the dynamics of group behaviour and the production of collective reality and responsibility; demanding participants re-evaluate their relationship to the world they inhabit." Elements of this work, such as the colour scheme being used to suggest an established authority and the way people are integrated into the work, interest me greatly. I believe there is something truly brave about challenging the viewers perception of what they might consider to be 'silly' or 'childish'.

Orifice progress

Re-filmed orifice sculpture against green screen so white blue and red colours flash behind it as opposed to the whole screen as I tested before.

I have also taken a heart monitor video graphic from the internet and edited the colours so they are red and blue, I couldn't work out how to make it white, I don't think its possible. It will be playing on a loop on a small monitor, as if it were in a hospital, to really suggest the sculpture is living. I will make it seem as if the sculpture is connected to the monitor by a tube and a needdle.

Actually looking at it now,the red one looks more orange, I may have to edit that again. The colours are to correspond throughout the props/work in the installation to give a feeling that they are all encompassing, or taking over/invasive. They are the colours of the sculpture and coincidentally the colours of Tesco. This is not a direct dig at Tesco, or anyone for that matter, but 'The Orifice' is a satirical installation that suggests all the worth lies within the orifice sculpture itself. The fact that the default colours matched a huge corporation like Tescos' logo was a happy accident that matches up with its suggested representation of society's wisdom.

Approaching the (inter)rim

My interim show is approaching for which I am making an installation based around my orifice sculpture from the strong body of work exhibition at the beginning of the school year. I have been filming it bubbling with my spit using a high definition camera for clear and therefore most coherent footage. It will appear as a large scale projection in a dark room (film and video room), where the sculpture itself will be present under a spot light, either on a plinth or in some kind of faux incubator. The idea is to present the orifice as a spectacle or oracle of life, suggesting satirically that it holds the answers to life/the world/everything.

I have ordered overalls which viewers will be made to wear upon entry into the installation and also lab coats for myself, a helper, and a camera man who will document the work but also add to the theatrical element. I have also ordered an IV drip to connect to the sculpture and will have a television screen with a heart monitor graphic, giving emphasis to it being a living thing/creature.

Marck Leckey: Artist Film Club @ ICA

Leckey's early video work has a heavy stigma of 90's dance music attached to it, which I initially couldn't help being repulsed by as is it is so unbelievably hip and fashionable right now. Once I got over this I was able to enjoy his absolute poetic depiction of this era in , 'Fiorucci made me Hardcore', 1999 (below). Works following this continued to look at aspects of 90's culture, with a rave seemingly in someone's bedroom and, 'Parade', a video named after a men's porn magazine in which Leckey's appearance is seemingly influenced by a phantasmagoric procession of images (stills below).

Then came the favourite for me, 'Green Screen Refrigerator'. An epitome of consumer fetishism, this film based around the artist's self confessed infatuation with a Samsung fridge is a spectacle about a spectacle. Leckey's personal attachment to his work is the thing that inspires me. It doesn't matter that I wasn't old enough to go raving in the 90's, this era was strewn with DIY ethics that are ever present in my own interests, this is enough to relate to and appreciate his great and interesting work.

BANG!

BANG! (2012) by Matthew Noel Todd ""There is no universal history that leads from savagery to humanity", said Adorno. But there is now a film with talking dogs that traces the development of the world spirit from Plato thru August 2011 riots to today. BANG! is a materialist history of the present that uses the language of internet memes, advice dogs, and infantilised avatars to tussle with the journey from an organic society to the surreal subsumption of capital; the unfinished story of communism for a world that's gone to the dogs."

Orifice

Further from my idea of putting a gradient of colour on the really high plinth, derived from a fried chicken box, I have thought about other colour schemes that match the basic colours of the sculpture itself. The Tesco logo happens to be the same colours as the sculpture and is a kind of all encompassing emblem for today's society, we can't escape it.

Whilst thinking about ways of deploying the gradient, the idea of spray painting it arose, leading to thoughts of other ways of displaying the colours. I'm thinking about jagged free hand lines in the style of keith harring.

or distorting an image of the logo to create an abstract pattern.

I am also thinking about whether or not to to have a live projection of the orifice sculpture on the plinth or to create a video using all these interesting abstractions of the blue white and red colours. I want to try recording the bubbling spit with a contact microphone and creating a bass driven soundtrack.

'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.

Barby Asante and Sonia Boyce: Peckham Space

Asante is interested in creating works that stimulate dialogue around the cross-cultural and multicultural and how we view and frame these questions in contemporary Britain, often using familiar or popular culture triggers as a means to begin the dialogue.

A Strong Body of Work: Exhibition

To bring together my ideas from the past 2 weeks, I decided to have a small exhibition in college. The theme was a satirical take on egotism, as much an exaggerated faux self portrait as it was an expression of my view on parts of society. It featured a video by myself and another by first year student, Milo Crease, where he had reacted to a brief titled, 'off the ground'. I felt Milo's video fitted into my theme slightly as it was quite self indulgent and in equal proportions ridiculous in comparison to the other works. I had an idea to build a really high plinth and put a cat on top of it, simply referencing being stuck. I developed this idea beyond a single work, thinking about how it could be re-used with a different object on top each time, suggesting some kind of elevation of said object. This time I felt it was appropriate to place my laptop on top on the plinth, playing the the song, 'simply the best', by Tina Turner, on loop, emphasising this idea of elevation in a social sense at the same time as literally by height. The plinth didn't fit the laptop exactly because it was an after though, in an ideal world I would have built a plinth that fitted perfectly, keeping the relevant aspects of presentational tradition in place. In an attempt to utilise the features of the space, I decided to place my 'Orifice' sculpture on the radiator, a plasticine lump with a centre of my own bubbling spit powered by a fish tank pump. Looking back I feel the work could of been made more of a spectacle by having its own plinth. At the same time it provoked thoughts of abjection, it was a quick joke about people talking nonsense, placed opposite another sculpture of a chisel with a line of salt posing as cocaine. As a show that was created in 2 weeks time, I feel happy about they way it looked but certainly on review there were things I would change. This way of working however, churning out ideas quickly, is something I should have been doing for the last 2 years and learning from my mistakes, part of this is making up for that lost time.

step into my orifice, baby

This work started as and idea to make an anus hole sculpture that never stopped passing wind, as a reference to the constant barrage of verbal diarrhoea I experience not just first hand living in London but also from corporate advertising all over the media/television/internet.

A possibility might be to combine this sculpture with the high plinth, placing it on top and creating a live feed from a video camera to a TV screen, referencing the spectacle of television as a shit spouting orifice. It is made from a fish tank air pump, some tubing and plasticine.

Really High Plinth

I have developed my idea of making a high plinth on which to place a cat, referencing a cat stuck up a tree and the stagnation in art, into simply making a high plinth, referencing the elevation of art works and the artist itself, in social terms.

It is interchangeable by what is placed on it but my favourite object so far is my mac book pro playing the song simply the best by Tina Turner

Le Pétomane

I am going to make an anus that either constantly farts or plays music. For the music I was thinking of when I call up virgin media to pay the internet bill, something similar to what they play when I'm on hold would be perfect. Le Pétomane was a performing farter, a fartist, a sound artist

Cat on a really high plinth

An idea I have to put a cat on a really high plinth. An entirely satirical gesture referencing a cat stuck up a tree, emphasising the idea of being stuck or stagnant amongst ones practice.

Tino Sehgal; Artist Talk

After a few return visits to Sehgal's Unilever commissioned piece, 'These Associations', I was delighted to attend his artist talk at the Tate this weekend. He made some key points that I related to regarding his work and the wider spectrum of contemporary art in general. He explained that people visit museums and galleries to see art, as if to suggest that is where art belongs, then you can differentiate between styles and forms within that setting. He talked about Western culture and the western world in general, relying on change and how art has to be different than what was deemed current before it. I agree with this idea of opposing what has gone before but not as the totality or complete basis for an artwork. He talked about it being hard for a painting to be an artwork because it is so familiarised in society, which is something I have been constantly puzzled by thinking about the painting course here at Wimbledon and the idea of dividing fine art up whatsoever. Finally, he talked about his lack of involvement in the work and his restrained mehtod of imposing instruction, " the performers know more about the piece than I do", he exclaimed, whilst referencing to those involved in the work that were seated in the auditorium. In response to an audience question about the future of 'live art' and where it sits in the time line of contemporary art, he talked about the work of Joseph Beuys and how his charisma got in the way of the work which was ground breakingly conceptual. This made me think a lot about where Sehgal draws the line, after all I laughed and enjoyed his talk, answers were delivered with charisma, would I be a different kind of spectator if I went and viewed the work after seeing him sitting on a stage answering questions?

Jack Strange

‘Spinning Beach Ball of Death’, 2007, Pencil Crayon, Card, Wood, Motor A friend suggested I look at Jack Strange a few years ago, describing his Mac Book piece, a led ball resting on said computer's letter G on the key pad. Probably after seeing this piece I always thought about making a work of or around the colour wheel of death, also from the Apple tree of creations ( no pun intended). Due to the universal annoyance of this symbol, it is not surprising that Strange himself has come up with a work reflecting the frustration that this spinning emblem inflicts.

Lis Rhodes; Light Music

Appreciation levels become confused with works such as 'Light Music', made in 1975 it was no doubt an advanced installation for its time, but this is forgotten as people whisk in out and out in the year 2012, amongst checking their emails and facebook on their iphones. I started my BA with a keen interest in celluloid film, later to realise it was a purely aesthetic desire and that other mediums made more sense for the message I wished to communicate. However, the somewhat primeval feel, in the grand scheme of art history, that I obtained from this installation left me amazed and with an after thought for the use of film and also smoke machines!

Tate Modern: Tino Sehgal; These Associations

"The work of the British-born German artist Tino Sehgal exists solely as a set of choreographed gestures and spoken instructions acted out by performers in gallery settings", explains Arthur Lubow for Tate etc, making the work immaterial as such. Very much in the category, if any, of relational aesthetics, Sehgal's piece for the unilever series in the turbine hall is at times like a dance that represents scientific molecule movement. It is an epitome of relational art, inviting the spectators to participate by way of conversation with the performers and also by simply being in the space alongside them as they circulate rapidly. There is no short term time frame for this work, you could stay all day if you wanted to, observing the movements and interpreting them any which way you wanted, this is what makes the work interesting for me, I value it on its accessibility.

Claire Fontaine

Olympix

John Smith on margate project

Harmen de Hoop

http://www.harmendehoop.com

My Ebay

Selling things on ebay to get some money for the summer, I realised how great the feedback comments were that I had previously recieved, so I decided to make a video about it. I screen grabbed the comments and animated them in a childish fashion, over which I sang sarcastically to the tune, 'yankey doodle'. My monotone English/Surrey accent, juxtaposed with the traditionally American song, uses a satirical approach to prompt thoughts on a transatlantic relationship and culture we have developed/inherited with such websites as ebay or craigslist.

"Ban-ski mate"

I'm not sure if I've actually heard someone saying it but this is a play on a certain type of mis-prununciation that I've had stuck in my head. I'm going to make a stencil and deploy this in select parts of London as well as putting a photoshoped version on my blog.

Still deciding whether to have the line in front of the K or leave it as pictured here

Beagles and Ramsay

http://www.beaglesramsay.co.uk

Products go crazy

Pure Products Go Crazy from Frieze magazine on Vimeo.

Article attached - http://frieze-magazin.de/archiv/features/warenwahn/?lang=en

Counter Culture and Relational Aesthetics

http://www.rainevasquez.com/Text/Counter-culture_and_Relational_Aesthetics.html

Lenka Clayton: Mysterious Letters

I don't know whether this is an intervention or a type of relational art. I don't want to start constantly blabbing on about relational aesthetics all the time just because I'm finally working out that aspect of my own work, but it definitely has a place in this idea. The dimensions I can see are, fluxus style instructional art existing in the form of documentation via the internet (http://www.mysteriousletters.blogspot.co.uk/), an intervention into both public and private space e.g. the mail system and people's houses and the relational aspect of the letters being read and the effect they have on the reader. embedding disabled - http://youtu.be/7fx5McC-_Tk "Lenka Clayton is a conceptual artist whose work exaggerates and reorganizes the accepted rules of everyday life, extending the familiar into the realms of the poetic and absurd" Bush video -

Exploration of Art as a Commodity

Douglas Gordon

Jeremy Deller - "Folk Archives", Reviewed by Rachel Withers

Gurning and Embroidered Knickers - http://www.newstatesman.com/node/150706

PPD Self Evaluation Questionaire

Placement Risk Assessment

Beautiful Inside My Stomach Forever (Fried Chicken Party)

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