W 12 = Done and Dusted

Finally done! Weeks to think about and minutes to destroy (in fact the umbrella fell down just after our presentation: so that was lucky). And loads of materials tucked neatly in one corner of the studio as a resource for future units.

It was hard to photograph as you can see below and the movie just didn't work, but at least the sound track is up in this blog separately. The elements worked together very well - the glow soyfish needed to be at the front. We had to put the fan on high to have any real tenatacle moving impact and the glow paint didn't really glow for very long or very much. We think part of the problem was that the umbrella was moved away fromt he window during the week and it wasn't that bringht in the studio as it was. Oh well. Nicole's ceiling lighting worked well. Basically all the elements made a complete environment and used almost all the senses. There were even good reflections off the black plastic walls.

I called it - in the moment of presentation - 'A Glimpse of the Ocean Sublime', which is a term that a correspondant of Freud's used to describe the feeling of a religious experience. I really like that we succeeded in re-using so much of my rubbish from the first installation to construct another completely unnatural / natural environment. People were very curious about the sound track - my sound of a garbage truck stating up but manipulated so it sounds blooby or, as someone said, 'like my husband's stomach'.

W 11 - Nearly There!

Just one more week to go! Katie found a great solution to the glow paint issue - safety paint. This comes in larger cans from Bunnings. The Reject Shop art sections only stock tiny cans. And she's painted the white fabric of the umbrella. White - although I didn't think of this obvious fact before - is the surface that will glow the best...it was only a coincidence that the umbrella I wnted ot throw away was white! Any way, we tried it out in the enclosure and it works very well - a sort of Halloween yellow-green. Later she painted the floral canes (the ones Nicole and Katie had painted white) with a couple of coats and then we sticky-taped them around the central pole of the umbrella and left the whole thing to cure and get as much light as possible.

We also trialled hanging it - it only needed some fishing wire sewn through two of the spokes on one side (so it'll hang at an angle) and one sticky hook on the ceiling. As it's positioned to the side the back spokes are supported by the enclosure. So in W12 the umbrella can be taken into the enclosure collapsed, hung on the hook and opened up.

Although I'd bought little sticky hooks to hang the jellyfish from, we thought that given their weight, these were probably unnecessary. In the end we use sticky-tape. We used a lot of sticky tape in today's studio! So while the big jellyfish will hang on the left, the small ones are grouped on the right (and a smaller group on the left in front of the bigg jellyfish):
Having hung them we taped on the LED lights - grouping colours in what we thought was aesthetic. Next week we'll add a fan to waft the tentacles as well. It should be beautiful.

Next came the coral that had dried all around the studio. The two main issues with these forms was how best to show them off and how to light them. This involved some problem-solving on the fly. At first Katie and Nicole grouped the individual corals on the floor and leant them against the wall of the enclosure. This simply did not do justice to the work put into them - they just looked like untidy lumps. Instead we dug out the polystyrene packaging shapes I'd brought in a few weeks ago and stuck the coral over and around them and grouped them into three areas in the enclosure. Around these - to cover up the floor, exposed polystyrene and the edges of the plastic we scattered a very thin layer of shredded paper. Less was definitely more.

There were then several experiements with lighting. The plan had been to use optical fibre toys. Unfortuantely, Katie's order hasn't arrived. Fortunately, she found that the torches used as tiny theatre lights aimed at the coral (rather than placed in it), lit it to the best effect - lots of depth, shadows and structure revealed. And, this way, it doesn't take very many lights. Less is more again:


The Ceiling: Nicole did some ruminating. I could see she wasn't happy about the small tears in the plastic of the enclosure. The solution she came up with was to stick the torch base of the fibre-optic toy through a hole and aim it at the white ceiling. This produces a dabbled light effect - like a theatrical creation of the surface of the sea. With just a couple of lights we can bring the ceiling into the installation and use it to add another dimension to the effect we want. This lead to thinking about doing the same for the sea floor, but using a torch on a different colour setting. Great thinking processes!

The viewing flap idea needed revisiting. The idea had been to re-use a device with a rectangle cut out of it that Nicole found in the studio. Katie and I had found that in practice it was very clumbersome moving it around all the objects inside. So I suggested we abandon it and simply cut a flap in the plastic on the front side and have people peer in. Same effect - less bulk and damage issues. Katie held a rectangular container to the inside of the plastic. I held the edges down on the outside and Nicole cut! Teamwork.

Katie has been thinking about the soy fish mobile. Again the late order of fibre optic toys was for this mobile. However, seeing the effectiveness of the glow paint, she's decided to paint the fish white and then use the last of the paint over the top, expose the paint and hang from a coathanger. I suggested this was an object we needed to hand right at the front as it'll be small, but effective.

Finally, we tried out the seascape sound effect with my MP3 player and portable speakers and - yes - perfect.

There are a lot of elements to this work and one of the challenges - apart from getting them done has been how best to arrange and light them. Not everything has worlked first time round. That's the good bit about having multiple brains - together we can think of different ways to do things.

For me the process has exposed two things:

(1) Less is more. If I was expanding on this idea I'd use fewer elements.

Either just the soy fish mobile, but much bigger and hung in an arrangement that would make viewers go gosh-wow - I'm feeling highly influenced by Do Ho Suh's Cause and Effect - a massive chandelier of interlocking plastic people.

Or lots and lots of the small jellyfish - a room full - through which people would walk, interacting with the moving tentacles. Not unlike Warhol's Silver Pillows.

(2) How limited I am physically. It was gentle, but essentially Katie would not let me climb and assist in any of the hanging, I tire easily with all the standing in the studio, I don't bend well or far any more and I simply couldn't enter the enclosure once we'd stapled it up so entry was via a narrow slit.

W10 - Construction continues

In a FREEZING studio this week Katie created corals and covered every available hanging space with them as seen below:

She also put some more costs of white paint on the floral canes we'll use for the central; tentacles of the big jellyfish. They are still proving resistant to having all their colour covered up, but this may not show up in the darkish enclosure? We trialed some mini LED lights (from the deepest depths of the 'useful stuff' in Mark's garage brothel) wedged up in the spokes of the umbrella to see the effect. Katie took the umbrella home to paint it with glow paint and expose it to bright light and we'll asemble in W11.

With tearing help from Katie, Megan and Polly I constructed 10 more jellyfish - there was just enough peeled foam to make the hundreds of beautiful floating tentacles needed and hung them
by the enclosure ready for installation in W11. They look like deflated southern belles; their skirts all awry:

W9 - Studio Update

This week we presented our idea to the class and then constructed the floor to ceiling enclosure from the same black plastic I used for the first installation and a lot of tape and staples. This includes covering the white side walls. We realised that an essential part of our installation is the lighting effects so we need to be able to test everything under the conditions they'll be displayed under.

We see people viewing the installation through a slot (which keeps the space as dark as possible, but also heightens that feeling of 'another world'). Nicole wanted to use a free standing perspex panel with a square slot in it that we found in the studio so we've put that under the 'front wall' and will cut a slot later.

Katie showed us her flour and water and shredded paper coral, which is below both unlit and lit by a fibre optic toy in the enclosure:



What I noted from this is that drying time is huge - Katie wasn't keen on my idea of drying in a low temperature oven and they are quite weighty forms even when this small - and this small they aren't the right scale for the enclosure. Clearly they will support glow sticks and fibre optic toys for lighting.

We were surprised to find that our experiments with highly watered down PVA glue and shredded paper in more loose seaweedy forms worked very well forming attractive rigid shapes. Katie will keep working on coral forms over the break.

Nicole had found some glow paint which we tried on the umbrella. Glow paint is transparent so it doesn't change the colour of the object, but - once expsed to 3-4 hours of strong light - with fluorese green in the dark. Nicole did a test paint on part of the unbrella but it didn't absorb sufficent energy to glow by the end of the studio. I think this idea will work briliantly, but it's clear she needs more paint, several coats and strong light. Nicole also put a first coat of white paint on the cane supports we found in the studio that we want as the cental long tentacles for the big jellyfish (clearly they need a few more). Katie thinks these cane tentacles will look fantastic if they are coated in glow paint too.

I brought in what is called peeled foam. It's a very thin sheet of foam used to protect the surfaces of large goods when they are packed. Katie was keen that I use this for tentacles on the jelly fish rather than newspaper. It has to be said that it has a lovely shine and tears into much longer softer strips which move in an undulating fashion.

Over the break I've used glass paint - red, blue and purple - to paint the parts for another 9 jellyfish. I'll finish construction in studio time.

I've also created a 1 minute 40 second sea scape soundtrack using an 8 second recording of a truck starting up (from autospeak.com) that I've sampled and manipulated in Audacity. I had been thinking about using souns that we made to represent our impression of the deep sea, but I decide dit was more in keeping with the threme to use an unnatural sound and convert it into something that gave the impression fo the sea

I've created a little film below (which also features our new enclosure) to showcase the soundtrack:

W 8 - Materials experiments

WHAT ARE WE MAKING
A glimpse of a marvellous underwater world: a natural setting constructed with unnatural materials.


SMALL JELLYFISH
I brought in the two Coke bottle jellyfish I’d made (recipes on blog).
We have materials to make about 10-15 more (inc some small ones).
They can be lit using small LED torches – we need to buy a few more.
We talked about colours (using the glass paint) but I don’t think we reached a conclusion.
They can be hung over the wooden rafters I already have and/or from the ceiling using self-adhesive hooks.
I’ve prepared the bottles by drilling the holes ready for construction en mass.


BIG JELLYFISH
I brought in my broken golf umbrella.
Katie took off the handle.
We thought this could be suspended from the ceiling at an angle so you can see some of the spokes underneath.
There are some red and black twisted canes (you use them in big flower arrangements) and we thought these could be taped to the umbrella as its longest tentacles (and then use the shredded paper for shorter tentacles).
I think the conclusion about lighting was probably to use LED torches along the spokes. But Katie wants to try out Christmas lights too.
But we’re not sure about painting the ‘silk’ – Katie will experiment. And she will bring some nail polish remover to see if she can scrub off the company logos on the white ‘silk’.


CORAL
There was a bit of PVA glue in the studio so we mixed that with water and some shredded paper. We tried two experiments: one were we mushed up the paper and squeezed it into a ‘coral-type form and another where the gluey paper was just hung (a bit like spaghetti) to dry.
Katie experiment with homemade clag (four and water heated into a paste) and shredded paper and let us know what works.
We didn’t come to any conclusions about sizes, amounts or shapes or how we’d make them stand up but I did bring in some chunky polystyrene packaging that we might be able to stick it into.
We also talked about lighting the coral with glow sticks and weren’t sure about hiding the sticks or not (if they can be seen that’s what people will look at)…but Katie did like the look of them stuck into the polystyrene blocks.


SOY FISH SCHOOL
Right at the last moment we’ve added an extra element. I had about 25 soy fish (from Sushi) which we thought we could use something like doweling or a coat hanger and fishing line, to make a school of fish and we would somehow illuminate them too.
We tried to drain the fluorescent fluid from a glow stick into a fish. It’s fiddly and there isn’t much volume so I added water. That seemed to work, but the glow faded fast (it looked really good for a few minutes). I also suggested luminous paint.
Katie will experiment with construction.

Have a look here for a LED soy fish lamp: http://www.tomfereday.com/

FLOOR
Katie played around with heaping the shredded paper on the floor as our ‘sea bed’. My only concern is I’m not sure how it’ll work with the coral – more try outs ahead!
NOTE: We can bulk up the paper by putting the furniture fibre (or even the polystyrene cladding) underneath.
Katie talked about spray painting it.


ENCLOSURE
There is plenty of black plastic at the studio and I have plenty of sticky stuff.
We’ll need to hand plastic from the ceiling at least down to the top of the walls and over the ceiling.
Katie had a look into the space through the window as I suggested, but it’s too low – no one would see our fabulous coral! So we’ll have to drape the front from the ceiling too and put in the ‘peep hole’ you suggested.


SOUND
We can quickly record some sounds and I can manipulate them using Audacity software to make a looping 1-2 minute soundtrack.
We’d talked about ‘underwater sounds’.
I already have portable battery-operated speakers and an MP3 player


MATERIALS STILL NEEDED
50 glow sticks ($5) - http://www.ilumn8.com.au/pd-50-x-8-inch-glow-sticks.cfm
20 LED torches (a pack of 4 is $2) - http://www.ilumn8.com.au/pd-finger-lights.cfm
We can order on-line.

A lot of clag!
Some buckets
Space to dry coral
Nail varnish remover.
Self-adhesive hooks (25)
Nicole you were going to bring in your glass paints.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES FOR WEEK 9
- hand in proposal and journal
- present installation idea to group
- look at Katie’s experiments
- prepare the enclosure?
- Record underwater sounds
- Any other suggestions?

W 7 - Group Installation Discussions...Materials

From http://www.designpublic.com/, David Stark Design and Production designed these vast, planetary, organic, sinuous shredded paper shapes for Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s 2007 Awards Dinner which made us collectively go 'ooo'.

Actually, so did this Umbrella Bloom (http://www.swiss-miss.com/2009/01/umbrella-bloom.html)...the kind of art that at first glance induces intense pleasure and then questions about how was it done - with a cherry-picker on a windless day - I assume.

At some point we also went a bit ecological and I tried to show a clip from Japanese master animator Hiyako Miyazaki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayao_Miyazaki). I wanted to show a clip of a forest scene which was so full of life - but not earthly - and almost underwater-like and got the wrong film!

I actually needed his 1984 classic Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nausicaä_of_the_Valley_of_the_Wind_(film) with an excellent Korean trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wSba9hwCaU and this Disney version of the trailer has excellent shots from the forest scenes with the 'ball on stick' shots I meant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ms-ilMug8A.

The balls were an idea we kept coming back to and the idea of suspension. We ambled through planetary, forestry and seascapes adding the desire to activate other senses through light, projections (words, clouds, sea....), soundscapes (words or poetry spoken, under water noises) and smell (burnt paper for instance).

At the moment we seem to be resting upon the idea of jellyfish - shredded paper tentacles - floating in an in door aquarium. Nicole talked about the idea of viewing the aquarium (there's a panel with a slot in it in the studio) and I wondered if we could get people to view it from outside through the windows?

Excited by all this I went immediately to investigate materials - The Reject Shop and The Nearly $2 Shop are excellent places to find both art materials and materials ripe for 're-purposing'. I found pom-poms, ribbons, pipe-cleaners and fake hair that resembled tentacles. I virtually restrained myself as the original point was to reuse the rubbish rather than add extra things.

But I was also considering lighting. For instance, I might be able to source a theatre light and construct a mixed-colour gel for it. And, I was also thinking about what it would be like to stage this in a toilet - there's a particular one on St Albans Campus which wouldn't be too busy and has huge mirrors over two walls. Acoustics and reflections, the ability to have complete darkness - hmm. Meanwhile I found tiny coloured LED lights and glow sticks. The torches allow one to light individual objects and glow sticks would provide a gentle light, perhaps from the floor (scattered, fixed upright in a 'forest).

I also couldn't resist buying some 'glass paint' to test on a trial jellyfish recipe using PET bottles. The point of such paint is that it dries clear like stained glass. On using it I discovered it was nothing more than PVC glue mixed with acrylic paint...ripped off...but can I mix the colours?

finally, there are some good jellyfish shots here (at the start) as well as a shot of neon tube lighting (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rx0lAhBpPo&NR=1).

W 7 - Recipe for Jellyfish

Ingredients

a 2L Coke bottle,
plastic fishing line,
a button,
some sort of furry and sticky industrial off-cut (I'm sure that sticky tape would be fine)
shredded paper
scissors
a hammer
a nail
something to hammer into
a tiny cololured LED torch

Instructions
1. Cut the bottle into thirds.
2. Hammer a hole into the lid and replace on top third of bottle.
3. Hammer a hole into the centre of the bottom third of the bottle.
4. Cut a length of fishing line.
5. Thread it through one hole in the button and pull it out the other so the line length is halved.
6. Thread line and button up through top third of bottle and through the hole in the lid.
7. Turn bottom third of bottle up-side-down and thread line up through the hole in the centre.
8. Cut 2 lengths of the furry sticky industrial offcut long enough to go around the bottle.
9. To one piece stick pieces of shreded paper (the tentacles) and when you reckon there's enough, stick the tape around the bottom-most edge (the top third of the bottle).
10. Stick the other piece of tape around the remaining edge (the inverted bottom third of the bottle).
11. Tie a know in the end of the fishing line.
12. Stick an LED torch on the fishing line aimed doen at the jellyfish and switch it on.
13. Hang it up and draw the curtains.

In this version I used glass paint to change the colour of the plastic and a white LED torch. I also used part of the centre third of the bottle to form a cylinder that fits into the inside of the construction. Provided its the longest part, sticking paper to this cylinder gives a second layer of much longer tentacles.

W 7 - Rubbish Theory

In the windows of Degraves Street Subway, Julie Shiels is creating patterns and creatures from plastic packaging: http://citytraces.julieshiels.com.au/?p=803

W6 - Groups begin

We ended the assessment class by assembling into our groups: hi to Nicole and Katie and we had the briefest of chats about what we might do. I mentioned my ideas about rubbish - particularly re-using what's there rather than carting away and these ideas about animals made of rubbish. Hopefully they'll check out this blog and that'll generate other ideas they're more interested in.

Nicole showed us work by Shadow Artists, which you can see at this blog: http://millzyville.com/blog/?p=190, who have used rubbish and recycled materials to project an image completely unlike its constituents. Clever. Difficult.

W6 - Mr Welcome in action

Today the class individual installations were assessed. These videos show students interacting with the work, one shows the reaction from outside and one from the inside:

And then it was time to start to remove the installation and I thought one last photo of Mr Welcome Undone was appropriate to show its construction.

Hopefully my new teammates will be able to incorporate some of these materials into a second group work! I thought I'd leave the plastics in place as it's easily to select what you want.

W6 - Australian Pastoral

Following on the idea of sculpting a group of animals from rubbish, there is a need for a reason to do so. The following are a selection of Australian pastoral paintings from the 19thC.

'Jeremiah Ware's stock on Minjah Station', 1856
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/TLF/972p9/
'View from Borodomanan Station homestead of sheep being herded across a river'
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Collection/detail.jsp?ecatKey=107
Cattle. The last gleam of the setting sun, john Glover, 1816
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Collection/detail.jsp?ecatKey=1485
Winter Sunlight, Frederick McCubbon, 1908
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/agsa/home/Collection/detail.jsp?ecatKey=1863
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au/TLF/01889/
Dogging a Log, Tom Stretton, 1924
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/collection/pub/itemDetail?artworkID=20007
'Evening, Templestowe', David Davies, 1897
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/collection/pub/itemDetail?artworkID=47731
'Ford at Wollondilly', Conrad MARTENS , 1839,
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/collection/pub/itemDetail?artworkID=59642

A couple of references:
Horn, Jeanette, 2007, 'Australian Pastoral: The Making of a White Landscape', Fremantle Press
Dixon, R. W. (2004).

Two Versions of Australian Pastoral: Les Murray and William Robinson. In Judith Ryan and Chris Wallace-Crabbe (Ed.), Imagining Australia: Literature and Culture in the New New World 1 ed. (pp. 285-304) Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: Harvard University Committee on Australian Studies/Harvard UP.

These paintings tend to echo European romantic yearnings for a 'Golden Age' as populations become increasingly urbanised. Here they are important in the formation of European-Australian national identity - a population that identified with mastering the harsh Australian bush but which, in fact, grew up in urban centres.


So here is the idea of a double identity the constructed bushman versus the actual townie and the reality of rubbish from manufacture versus a desire for naturalness (usually mediated via popular culture, advertsing, tourism etc).

Here's a sheep constructed from telephone cords by Jean-Luc Cornec:


The imported sheep, especially, is used as a historical symbol for Australia's growth and prosperity. Rubbish is also evidence of our propserity; our increased leisure time, our convenience food, our pharmaceuticals, our lifestyle diseases. And rubbish, like sheep, is in plentiful supply, covering the landscape and ruining it.

So I'm thinking we could build sheep of rubbish (possibly with plastic bags using some of the techniques I've found) and restage the essential elements of a famous Australian pastoral landscape!

Appropriation Art reuses elements of pre-existing art and in some cases restages the complete work as Anne Zahalka's photographic work. This link takes you to her Bondi exhibition:
http://www.zahalkaworld.com.au/pages/bondi.html, where she recreates other works, such as Max Dupain and Charles Meere 'The Bathers' on an undisguised fake beach background. Bondi is an Australian icon and surf culture another supposed facet of Australian lifestyle / identity. The point of her appropriation is to re-appropriate and re-populate the beach with 'bodies expelled' from it (Perera, 2006).

For a fuller description and evidence of Appropriation in history rather than a recent post-modern phenomena: http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/martin/art_law/image_rights.htm

...which includes the much copied American Gothic (the original is here: http://www.artic.edu/artaccess/AA_Modern/pages/MOD_5.shtml)

and here's a Google image search of of the many images:
http://images.google.com/images?q=appropriation%20art%20%22american%20gothic%22&rls=com.microsoft:en-au&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi

Perera Suvendrini 2006, 'Race Terror', Borderlands, vol 5, No 1, viewed at http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol5no1_2006/perera_raceterror.htm, on 3 September 2009.

W6 - Recycled Animals

Another group installation idea I have continues to work with recycled materials and uses the raised upper edge of VU St Alban’s evacuation area as a place to display the work. It would involve each member of the group constructing an animal and installing them to ‘graze’ in the grass.

I also like the idea of trying to reuse the materials I've already used in my individual installation. Partly to continue the cycle of reuse, partly because I'm just lazy (what you want me to think about, locate and transport a second load of materials?) and partly because 'forcing' myself to look and play more closely at a limited range of materials will stimulate creativtiy (there's nothing like telling me 'you can do anything' to send me into a non-productive panic).

Examples:
Scrap metal pet from http://keetsa.com/blog/eco-friendly/recycled-animals-no-not-real-ones/

Or this hansome chook from coloured plastic papers:
http://exclusiveroots.com/product-details/28/140/12915/Fair-Homeware/Ethical-Living/Henrys-Recycled-Plastic-Animals-Recycled-plastic-chicken.htm

Or these dogs, cats and horses from broken porcelain from Mary Engels:
http://www.trendhunter.com/link/animal-movement-junk-art-mary-engels-scultpures/2

Or these fantasy creatures from packing materials and colourful liquid product containing bottles by Caroline Adriaansche at: http://www.recyclart.org/2009/02/animals-by-carolien-adriaansche/

Steven Tan's blog has images of a Chinese-style dragon constructed form drink cans: http://steventan.org/blog/?cat=11

Previously, I’ve also included examples from Fiona Hall (also using containers) and Joshua Harris (inflated shopping bags).

And here's a how to video from TV lessons:

http://www.tvlesson.com/video/16051_how-to-recycle-plastic-into-art.html

W6 - Installations at NGV International

I went to look at two installations at the weekend:

Master Tetsunori Kawana (Japan) 2009: Five Elements Water, and
Bill Viola (USA) 2007: Ocean without a Shore

Both watery, but using very different ways to represent water and its meanings, the former being a vast bamboo and wire construction that I read as a frozen tsunami draining into NGV's restaurant and the latter an equally large-scale 90 minute video of the comings and goings of the dead through a veil of water that separates this mode of existence from the next.

Here is a quick walk around Five Elements Water using my Motorola phone:

Here are a couple of typical clips from Ocean Without a Shore:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyMWn8ebItU

This one gives more of an impression of the audience experience as the amateur footage moves between the three screens each with their comings and goings of the dead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beMhIoeGQzQ&feature=related

I think both clips are amateur footage, so complete copyright infringements, but do give some sort of record for educational purposes.

W5 - Henry Welcome Up and Running

This week I installed the final bag of plastics to the mosaic, the newsaper flaps hanging from the rafters and covered the whole thing with black plastic. So, problems encountered:

• bits of plastic mosaic dropping off - adjusted my sticking technique to better support weight on wall


• newspaper flaps not really long enough for space - used masking tape to stick ends to rafters


• light coming in through rear plastic wall from window even with dust filters etc down there - stuffed whatever I could find in the studio between the plastic and window


• adjusting the polystrene cladding on the rafters meant the newspaper flaps would drop off - er, just lived with that one and did a lot of picking up!


• when I pulled the plastic over the construction I found I hadn't taken the thickness of the polystyrene into account so while I could tape and staple one side, there was a gap on the other - added more plastic from the large stockpile in the studio.


• wanted to test out the sound system, but the batteries (which I had tested) were dead and the spares I'd brought were the wrong size - I had to live with that one too!


• I wanted to shoot a little movie of the whole thing working together. This posed two problems (a) it was too dark to shoot film (surprise), so I used a little LED torch with the camera and gave the film a Blair Witch Project effect and, (b) I couldn't have the sound running as mentioned so I dropped in the sound file using Windows Movie Maker instead.

Apart from that the plan seems to have worked well. Here are some shots of the newspaper flaps:

And here is the video of Henry Wellcome's Legacy, part 1 up and running:

W 4 - Artist Statement

Henry Wellcome (1853-1936), who co-founded a multinational pharmaceutical company that mastered modern techniques of advertising and created AZT, also collected over one million diverse objects in his lifetime for a never realized museum of man. Wellcome '...really believed that you could read history, and you could read people's cultures, position on an evolutionary scale, from the kind of technologies they used' (Lisa O'Sullivan on Rear Vision, Radio National, 2009). In other words, he believed in the Enlightenment notion of Progress and that, inevitably, Western civilization was higher on that evolutionary scale than Other cultures from which he collected. My cube repositions Western civilisation on Wellcome’s evolutionary scale by showing just one consequence of its highly developed ability to make and sell.


In building the cube I wanted to completely consume the space I was allotted and force the viewer into participation by entering the work and engaging directly with it. In constructing the cube of undisguised rubbish, that is rubbish that is not transformed into a work of beauty, I am also refusing to engage with either aesthetics or craft. Many artists do transform recycled, reclaimed or natural materials into works that delight with their cleverness and expressivity (such as John Dahlsen, Fiona Hall, Yuken Teruya, MLSK and Joshua Allen Harris); but perhaps, unfortunately, the messages they evoke are opposite to their purpose. Instead, through my un-transformation, I am commenting upon fashionable ‘pop-ecology’ that pervades the media and our suburban lives. In so doing I expose my implication in systems of mass production, mass consumption and mass wastage. The cube simply declares, ‘this is my rubbish and you are standing in it, touching it, being touched by it, smelling it and hearing it’. Hopefully, the experience is uncomfortable reminding participants that human consumption is overwhelming us, but we continue to ignore its consequences.

This cube also replicates the "museum" and the "gallery" and destroys them. The modern museum and gallery are purpose-built buildings stripped of ornamentation, context and any function as living or work spaces. They exist to exhibit selected and arranged objects to the gaze of those seeking to fill their leisure-time. The selection and treatment of these objects by experts denotes their value as commodities and guides (controls and/or fixes) their meaning. However, in this “museum”, there is no light to see the venerated objects, the prohibitions against touching are lifted and there is no sense of reverent hush. As a result, the experience is not mediated or comfortable and there is no gift shop at the end.

Finally, it should be noted what is not in this cube. This cube represents only three weeks of SOME of my rubbish. There are no tins, glass, green waste and food scraps, grey or black water or non-recyclable waste that goes straight to landfill: I still took the easy and more pleasant route in choosing to what I wished to display.

W 4 - Plastic Mosaic begins

As per my schedule I have installed the remaining rafters and stapled the black plastic in place as the back wall of the cube. I think I may have to stuff the dust filters across the back - between the plastic and the window - as there's still quite a lot of light coming in. If that doesn't fit there's lots of black plastic and I'll stuff that in the space instead.

The rest of class I spent arranging and taping up my 1 bag of washed and cut recycled plastics to the two side walls. Here are the results so far:

It is quite clear already that it's impossible I'll have enough to cover all the surface area - I might be able to collect another 1 bag of plastics over the next two weeks - so I'll try to cover the surface from the top edge down to hip height as that'll be where most people will feel down to anyway. Plus - let's be honest - it'll make it more comfortable for me to install if I don't go below knee height.

W 5 - Callum Morton

Biography: Born in Canada, Morton studied architecture and fine arts in Melbourne and subsequently lectured in both as well as sculpture. He began exhibiting in 1989 and has shown work both throughout Australia's major institutions and the world over which includes representing Australia in the 2007 Venice Biennale and the Triennale India in 2004 at which he won a gold medal. Morton has been represented by Anna Schwartz Gallery for over a decade.

Work Type: Sculpture/Installation moving from models of buildings to buildings

Themes: The relationship between people and their built environment: private and public space, reality and illusion, interior and exterior.

Art Movement: Post-modern comment on the modernist dream of the city and its skyscrapers, he references actual architectural works and creates his own connundrum.

CVs:

Anna Schwartz Gallery, 'Callum Morton', viewed at http://www.annaschwartzgallery.com/sitebuilder/works/artists/8/morton,_callum_cv_2009_web.pdf?=m, on 20 August 2009.

Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, 'Callum Morton: Profile', Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, viewed at http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/27/Callum_Morton/profile/, on 20 August 2009.

Australia Council 2009, 'Artists: Callum Morton', OzArts, viewed at http://www.ozarts.com.au/artists/callum_morton?SQ_PAINT_LAYOUT_NAME=artist_about, on 24 August 2009.

(this site also links to 'similar' artists).

Works:

Anna Schwartz Gallery, 'Callum Morton', viewed at http://www.annaschwartzgallery.com/works/works?artist=8&c=m, on 20 August 2009.

Grotto, 2009:

Materials: Steel, polyurethane, concrete, plaster, fibreglass, glass, vinyl, wood, synthetic polymer paint, light and sound

Exhibiton: 2009-2014, commissioned by Fundament Foundation, Tilburg, The Netherlands

A commission in which Morton created an invisible pavillion in the centre of a Baroque-style garden. Grotto is a Baroque folly, a screen, a cave, a grave and a functional pavilion. By day, its glass creates an illusion of invisibility buy one can enter it finding a cave within that also functions as a cafe. By night the illlusion is reversed: the mirror becomes invisible and the grotto's shape is visible looking something like a burial mound. Morton's design both clashes with and is continuous with its Baroque surrounds.


Design, visiting:
Fundament Foundation 2009, Grotto, viewed at http://www.grotto09.nl/en/grotto/design, on 20 August 2009.


Photos:
Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery 2009, 'Callum Morton: Grotto', Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, viewed at http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/27/Callum_Morton/1175/42581/, on 20 August 2009.


Habitat, 2003:

Materials: wood, acrylic paint, aluminium, sheet magnets, lights, sound74 × 110 × 130cm(each) six parts; plinth 90 x 648 x 150 cm

Exhibition: 2003 Melbourne International Festival, NGV

Influence: Moshe Safdie who built a much admired pavillon of 'little boxes' on Montreal's harbourside for the 1967 Expo in Canada whose theme included housing in a crowded world. note that this project went massively over-budget and, at the time, did not deliver the promised facilities.

Execution: 1:50 scale architectural model of Safdie's 'Habitat', with light and sound to suggest a day in the life of the housing complex.

Theme: Juxtaposition of a dream of community living is juxtaposed versus a diminutive scale and accelerated time frame, its inmates caught in a cycle of unending routine. Unfulfilled voyuerism.


Influence, Moshe Safdie:
CBC Digital Archives 2009, Moshe Safdie: Hero of Habitiat, viewed at http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/architecture/topics/1427/, on 24 august 2009.

Complexe de la cité du havre, Habitat 67, viewed at http://www.habitat67.com/origine_en_.html, on 24 August 2009.

Description:
The Ian Potter Centre NGCAustralia, Habitat: The Installation, viewed at http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/habitat/inst.shtml, on 20 August 2009.

National Gallery of Victoria 2003, Habitat: Callum Morton, viewed at http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/habitat/resources/habitatrb.pdf, on 20 August 2009.

Review article:
Taylor Alex 2003, 'Habitat: Callum Morton, ArtLink, Vol 23 No 3 , downloaded from
http://www.artlink.com.au/articles.cfm?id=2328, on 20 August 2009.


Vahalla, 2007:

Materials: Steel, aluminium, polystyrene, epoxy resin, silicon, marble, glass, wood, cement sheet, plasterboard, airconditioner, pvc pipe, corrugated plastic, acrylic paint, lights, sound.
465 × 1475 × 850 cm

Themes: A reflection of reality: his childhood home and memories, ruined. But also: contemporary instability. Inspired by war. Evidence of presence and destruction. Cinematic in its narrative: "like a ghost-ride in the theme park of my life"

Exhibition: 2007 Australian pavillion, Venice Beinnale (and now part of the 2009 Melbourne International Festival).

Description:http://www.melbournefestival.com.au/program/production?id=3581&idx=65&max=67/

Artist's Statement:
Australia Council 2007a, 'Callum Morton: Vahalla', Au3 Venice Biennale 2007, viewed at http://2007.australiavenicebiennale.com.au/content/view/38/121/, on 20 August 2009.

Floor Brochure:
Australia Council 2007b, 'Callum Morton: Vahalla', Au3 Venice Biennale 2007 , viewed on http://2007.australiavenicebiennale.com.au/images/stories/files/cm_floor_brochure.pdf, on 20 August 2009.

W4 - Henry Wellcome

Sir Henry Wellcome (1853-1936) was born in the American frontier, initially selling lemon juice as invisible ink, but died a wealthy knight of the British Realm. Wellcome co-founded a multinational pharmaceutical company that mastered modern techniques of advertising such as promotion, image and branding. He also funded pioneering medical research and his will provided for the creation of the Wellcome Trust now the largest charity in the UK, spending over £600 million a year on research to improve human and animal health (the Wellcome Trust, 2007). Brian Deer's work (1993) suggests that the drugs Wellcome's company pioneered, including AZT, are truly a triumph of marketing over function.

In additon, Wellcome collected over a million objects in his lifetime with no particular focus - just whatever curious and exotic things his international group of buyers took a fancy to - the majority of which remained in boxes uncatalogued and undisplayed. Much of the collection has been dispersed, but there is substantial library and collection of medical texts and objects in the 'Wellcome Building' in London as well as a collection in 'The Science Museum' whose oddness and diversity is highlighted by a short film installed with the collection called The Phantom Museum (Brooke, 2003) referring to the fact that Wellcome's dream of a museum of man was never realised.

The point of Wellcome's amateur archeology and collecting was that he '...really believed that you could read history, and you could read people's cultures, position on an evolutionary scale, from the kind of technologies they used' (Lisa O'Sullivan on Rear Vision, 2009). In other words, he believed in the Enlightenment notion of Progress and that, inevitably, Western civilisations were higher on the evolutionary scale than Other cultures. One might say, that with my cube, I'm showing just one consequence of Western civilisation's technology and therefore its true position on the evolutionary scale.



References:

Brooke Michael, 'Phantom Museum, The (2003)', BFI ScreenOnline, viewed at http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1201323/, on 19 August 2009.


Deer Brian 1993, Sir Henry Wellcome: thy will be done, viewed at http://briandeer.com/septrin/henry-wellcome.htm, on 19 August 2009.


Phillips Keri 2009, 'Regarding human remains', Rear Vision, Radio National, 12 August, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/rearvision/stories/2009/2646908.htm#transcript, downloaded 16 August 2009.


the Wellcome Trust 2007, History of Henry Wellcome, viewed at http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/History/index.htm, on 19 August 2009.

W4 - Artist Credit line

SARAH BERRY
HENRY WELLCOME'S LEGACY PART 1, 2009


Black cube: (2x2x2m): pine, black plastic, recycled furniture fibre, polystrene cladding, dust filters, torn and shredded papers, plastic food containers, carpet, staples, nails, trimmings from self-adhesive industrial foam.


Sound installation: MP3 player with battery-operated speakers, playing sounds manipulated using Audacity software of 1 water-filled bottle of Ayam Plum Sauce (210ml) hit with a teaspoon.

W4 - Materials and Methods

Materials:
Recyclable and non-recyclable plastics (cut) and papers (shredded and torn)


Reclaimed materials: trimmings from rolls of self-adhesive high density foam, dust filters, polysterene cladding, furniture fibre filling, heavy-duty plastic, carpet


7 Pine rafters (2m x 1 cm x 3cm)
2 chipboard walls
Staples
Gaffer Tape
Nails


1 bottle
MP3 player-recorder and mini-speakers
Audacity software



VIDEO: Meet My Bin



Methods:

CUBE:

Side walls created by adjusting 2 2x2m chipboard walls to 2m apart.

Back wall formed by window, bottom wall by concrete floor of studio.

Roof created from 7 Rafters - pre-drilled, spaced at 40cm and nailed to upper edge of chipboard walls.

Plastics - 3 bags - washed, cut and stuck to chipboard walls with self-adhesive foam

Torn newspaper - 1 bag, hung from rafters in curtains of different length

Polystrene and furniture fibre laid on rafters for sound insulation

Black plastic (6m x 2m) laid over cube, edges stapled and covered in gaffer tape to eliminate light. Front edge weighted down with rafter off-cuts.

Shredded papers - 12 bags - scattered on concrete floor of studio.


This should create a 2x2x2m cube in total darkness with a significantly different accoustic (muffled and oppressive) to the surrounding studio and which can be experienced by touch, sound and smell.


SOUND INSTALLATION:
Take one bottle from recycling and fill it with water.

Place MP3 recorder on the hollow wooden floor in the centre of a church hall

Place the bottle at a distance from the recorder and hit five times with a metal spoon.

Pour out 2 cm of water and repeat until the bottle is empty. Removing water raises the pitch.

Edit sound file in Audacity to create a 1 minute loopable installation.

Load back onto MP3 recorder and connect mini-speakers.

Play in cube.


Sound manipulation:
I removed non-impact sounds and linked sequences with silence. I then replicated the track three times and edited each track in different ways: repeated sounds, changed pitch, added bass, reversed sounds, added echo, fade in and out. Finally, I added different lengths of silence at the start of the track to complicate the rhythms.

Installed in the cube the resulting sound is intended to be at odds with the muffled insulated cube, at once reverbant but also oppressive.

W4-6 - To Do List

WEEK 4

Home:
Collect boxes/bags to store materials
Collect and wash plastics
Tear newspaper strips
Shred photocopy paper
Pre-drill 6 more rafters
Record bottle sounds.
Edit sounds in Audacity to create 2 minute soundtrack
Transport everything to VU - inc insulation materials

Studio:
Affix remaining 6 rafters
Begin plastic mosaic
Test materials (papers and plastics) to see 'how far they go in the space' and, therefore, how much more I'll need for the final week!
Try out insulation materials on cube's ceiling and back walls.


WEEK 5:
Be prepared to work Thursday afternoon in studio

Home:
Complete proposal
Make a copy of Artist's Statement and get it laminated.
Collect and prepare any more paper and plastics required
Add soundtrack to MP3 player and attach mini-speakers
Transport materials and include a TORCH and power for speakers!.

Studio:
Deliver Proposal
Complete mosaic
Install power and ensure it can be accessed!
Hang newspaper curtains
Add insulation to cube's back and ceiling
Drape plastic over cube.
Staple and tape edges.
Check for light elimination
Scatter shredded paper.

WEEK 6
Studio:
Bring a torch.
Set up MP3 player and speakers.
Affix Artist's Statement to outside of cube.
Disassemble everything and take for recycling.

W3 - Testing Materials

Today during class I tested some of my ideas about materials. I tried various 'sticking' methods to apply the plastic rubbish to the walls:

...and found that PVC glue was messy and gravity really interfered in the 'staying still in one spot while the glue dries' process! However, I have rolls from Reverse Garbage (not even sure what they are but they look like trimmings from a much larger roll) that are sticky and seem to bear the weight of the objects. I think throwing some some paper masking tape into the mix should complete the work. And to ease installation further, I really only need to tape objects from the top and it only needs to last a day!

I also put up the first 'rafters' on the top most edge of my studio cube. Unfortunately this pine is not recycled - but at least it is a sustainably grown material - but it will be recycled after this project! I got Bunnings to cut the wood to length (2m) and pre-drilled each end. This means all I had to do was adjust the distance between the walls until they were exactly 2m front and back and hammer a nail in on each end. Next week I'll add in the rest (maybe another 6).

Finally, I measured the heavy duty black plastic that came with the studio and which will form the back, rook and front of the cube. Happily I found one piece that had already been cut to 2m x 6m! I also found another piece which was 1m x 2m. This I decided to install on the left of the cube front to see if my materials worked. I wrapped the top end around the front rather and held it in place with staples. This way the plastic will hang straight under its own weight, but the wrapping means not all the weight goes through the staples leading to tearing. I stapled the left edge to the studio chip board wall and, for further light elimination, added a strip of plastic masking tape. Then I took offcuts from cutting the rafters to length and stapled them into the bottom edge of the plastic to hold it relatively taut against the ground. Once I lay the 2x6m sheet over the entire structure, this flap will form the entrance to the cube and prevent light from entering.
In this photo, you can also see that I've laid a piece of heavy-duty black carpet across the threshold of the cube (part of the materials liberated from the hard rubbish collection). I just wanted something to delineate the outside studio space from the inside of the cube (sort of introducing it) as well as giving somewhere for people to remove their shoes if they want to.

W3 - Evolution of the Cube

I done a lot of thinking this week about what this cube is about and, therefore, what I make it from. I've considered covering the floor in sock balls and stapling socks on the walls which I could source from Savers - but that's a lot of socks and, thus, still a relatively expensive option and would mean a lot of stapling and very sore joints. I've also considered various sorts of foam and investigated sites such as Clark Rubber where I found a product called Peeled Foam. This refers to thin sheets of foam that manufacturers use to wrap all sorts of objects which I could either buy a roll of, find the dumpsters of suitable retailers or contact a likely local organisation (perhaps Mobil, VU, Kmart) and ask if I could collect materials from their delivery department. This began to seem like a lot of work.

Finally, given the assignment's time constraints, my desire not to spend much and the fact it'll be pitch black inside I think my criteria for deciding on materials are:

- softness and safety for audience entering the cube environment
- give an insulating and muffling effect
- be diversely tactile
- offer maximum impact into the space and upon the audience
- quick to de/install a lot of whatever it is
- easy to install: the less smelly chemicals and repetitive motion installation takes, the better
- easy to source a lot of whatever it is without lots of driving, phoning or Internet searching
- easy to transport: it fits in my economic little car
- cheap
- recyclable

Conclusion:
Rubbish, specifically, my rubbish. Thus, part of the meaning of the work becomes my contribution to landfill and a record of my consumption.

This ties in with the sort of installation work I've been looking at on the Internet and the hard rubbish I liberated last week! And, in light of the work I've looked at, most of it transform rubbish into something beautiful - no more so that Miwa K's PET bottle jelly fish - and, I don't think that's where I want to go. Rather, I want to engage other senses than merely seeing, and make the audience part of the installation, but disorientation rather than beauty is the goal becasue I don't want people to love their rubbish! Other artists I've checked out also variously use the power of art techniques to hide both construction and origin of their materials, while other do not. I don't want to transform rubbish into anything but rubbish - which includes truth in the title as well - and once the installation is done, everything will be recycled.

Possible Titles:
A Guilty Record of My Consumption. Three Weeks of Rubbish Collection and the Sound of One Bottle. Landfill Cube. Landfill Sensorium.

Floor:
A deep and uneven layer of shredded used photocopy paper from my printer (I have a recycled industrial shredder).

Hanging from ceiling 'rafters':
Curtains made up of strips torn from my broadsheet newspaper (ie, a large newspaper so the strip can be hung over the rafter and not attached at all).

Walls:
A tactile mosaic built up of plastic waste that I collect (and wash!) over 3 weeks.

Sound installation:
Impact sounds on hard rubbish eg a bottle, recorded in a tall reverberant room and manipulated using Audacity. This will be in complete contrast to the muffled cube environment and - I'm hoping - quite disconcerting.

W3 - Sources of Recycled Materials

Reverse Garbage (http://www.reversegarbage.org.au/), 8/142 Addison Rd., Marrickville,Sydney NSW 2204 Ph: (02) 9569 3132 or Fax: (02) 9560 9765Drop in, from Mon - Sat, 9am - 5pm .

- see website for huge and changing variety of items available. Can Choose a 65L bag of items for $25 (but you need to add delivery of $30 as well).

Reverse Garbage Truck Inc., 1A Wingfield Street, FootscrayVIC 3011 Ph: (03) 9687 3484 or Fax: (03) 0687 3280

Junk Busters, 535 Nurigong st., Albury NSW 2640Ph/Fax: (02) 6041 4777

Pp.63-4 of EcoRecycle's 1997 'Becoming WasteWise' at http://www.ecorecycle.sustainability.vic.gov.au/resources/documents/Becoming_Waste_Wise.pdf contains a list of commercial organisations involved iin recycling paper, concrete, aluminium etc.
AND a more uo-to-date search engine for similar companies http://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/www/html/1679-waste-wise-shopping-guide.asp

Some councils have Resource Recovery Centres at their landfills sites. Unlikley to have fabrics, papers and packing type materials, but everyhing else imaginable:

Bolinda Road, Campbellfield (Melway 7:H8)Ph: 9359 3813Fax: 9357 4154, opening times: 8.00am - 4.00pm (7 days)

Riddell Road, Sunbury (Melway 361:D8)Ph: 9744 2974Fax: 9740 9322, opening times: 10.00am - 4.00pm (7 days)

Savers (and other ops shops: St Vinnies', Salvos) - http://www.savers.com.au/ - are great sources of fabrics.

Clark Rubber for foams and plastics - http://www.clarkrubber.com.au/products-a-services/foam/foam-memory-foam-cut-foam/acoustic-foam-speciality-foam.html#peeled-foam

In addition: collect rubbish from me, neighbours, class, street hard rubbish collection, street dumpsters, mall dumpsters, organisation delivery departments, or decide to collect whatever appears at a specific location over a specific time... (I've started seeing 'useful' things caught in the weeds on the sides of the freeway and strewn across the St Albans Campus).

Source of statistics on plastic bag use:
http://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/www/html/2713-use-less-plastic-shopping-bags.asp

W3 - Installation art: but what is it?

There are lots of definitions.

A good start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Installation_art including definitions, hostorical content and listing links to contemporary artists and art spaces.

This definition from the Californian State Board of Education , seems somewhat limited: 'The hanging of ordinary objects on museum walls or the combining of found objects to create something completely new. Later, installation art was extended to include art as a concept. '

From arttowngifts.com (ie a US art shop) comes this version: "Art works of various media, such as painting, sculpture, and projected images that fill a certain space and are used to create an idea or story for the viewer.'

From a more useful glossary (Notebook: The Development of a Context for Understanding Visual Art References and Resources.): 'A rather loose term for works that appeared in the 1970s in which artists assembled elements of various materials in specific gallery or museum situations, intending to establish an environment rather than an isolated, single work of art. ' (http://www.noteaccess.com/APPROACHES/AshtonG.htm)

From the TATE Modern: 'Term used to describe mixed-media art works which occupy an entire room or gallery space and into which usually the spectator can enter...'

Eye On Art (http://www.eyeconart.net/history/postmodern.htm): 'An installation presents a visualization of 3-dimensionallity, in real time and space. It can include 2-dimensional mediums (painting, drawing, photography, etc), but a 3-dimensional element is also necessary for the interaction of the viewer into the installation space. Video and electronic media are used frequently. Installation art is often conceptual in nature. That is, the emphasis is more on ideas than on the creation of unique objects. For this reason, installation art frequently incorporates an assembly of "ready made" (manufactured) objects instead of focusing on the craftsmanship of the artist.' and goes on to give a diverse range of examples.

There are plenty more definitions, but the common elements seem to be: 3-dimensions, manipulation of space, use of space to affect viewer, conveying an idea, ordinary objects either presented as is, carefully reworked or individually crafted.

W3 - What materials can you use in installation art?

Apparently anything. This version of Stonehenge was created from recycled portaloos:

Banksy 2007, installed in the Sacred Space field in Glastonbury, downloaded from http://writingaboutmyworld.blogspot.com/2007/06/recycled-art.html on 12 August 2009

W3 - more recycled art with a focus on plastic bags

John Dahlsen (http://www.johndahlsen.com/) calls himself an 'Environmental Artist' constructing 'paintings' from plastic bags (such as 'Green Plastic Bags' above) which he sells as very large prints, as well as totems of rope, bottles or foam

(see http://www.johndahlsen.com/detail_totem/Rope&plastotem.html)

and installations featuring massive highly coloured photos of rubbish above a mimicking pile of rubbish (see http://www.johndahlsen.com/detail_installation_art/multi_colour_install.html). He hopes his work goes out with an environmental message - obviously - but they also come with a harmony of form and colour than remains true to its materials: that the installation above was made of plastic bags is in no way hidden.

Here are plastic bags used in alight installation infront of Madrid's Prado from ttp://www.inhabitat.com/2009/04/04/eco-art-plastic-bag-light-garden/

In early March 2009, art group Luzinterruptus created “A Cloud of Bags Visit the Prado” from 80 bags inflated by the wind.

Poor photos, but an interesting idea: shelters constructed of sewn plastic bags
http://www.bruceburris.com/BURRIS/MWO/dunahoo.htm and http://www.bruceburris.com/BURRIS/MWO/dun_transyl.html

And, just to vary this survey of plastic bag art, here is some beautiful work that immediately evoked a tear in my eye using toilet rolls from Yuken Teruya:

For more see this excellent Design Blog http://artstyleonline.com/paper-art/real-beauty-is-simple/#more-1800

W2 - installation artist, Fiona Hall

Emerging in the 1970s initially as a photographer, Fiona Hall has shown how '...ordinary substances are transformed into extraordinary new presences' (Hoffie, 2005) in order to re/explore her perennial themes of 'interrelationships of life and death, beauty and violence' (ibid) or, as the Australian Government Culture Portal (2008) terms it, 'the relationship between nature and culture'. In this Sydney-born Hall was undoubtedly influenced by her scientist-mother, the bushland-setting of the family home and her extensive studies and travels overseas (ibid).

Ewington (cited in Hoffie, 2005), describes how in a recent retrospective (for example at Queensland Art Gallery and Christchurch Art Gallery 2008), Hall's work can be seen to have moved from representing connections between objects, materials and contexts to generating connections through her 'restless patterning'. Thus, Hall moved from documentary-style photos into maniplated images and, from the mid-1980's, into sculpture often using shredded metal, bank notes and beadwork to create botanical and faunal 'specimens' (real, imagined, endangered and/or extinct) arranged in museum-style cases in order to comment upon consumerism and its impact upon the natural world (as well as us).

Possibly these themes and connections are explemified by Hall's well-known Paradisus Terestris, 1989-90, her 'erotic sardine can[s]' (Australian Government, 2008): where peeled back cans reveal an isolated human body part out of which grows a leafy plant. Such works refer to such interconnected ideas as natural diversity, colonialism (such as the plants gathered by European explorers) and consequent exoticism, consumerism and human isolation and commodification. Here a humble tin - an unregarded and disposable object for food storage - is transformed into a fragile and vocal, work of beauty. Such works are clearly informed by Hall's studies into European literature, particularly its notions of good/evil and heaven/hell (Australian Government, 2008). This series can be viewed at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery website along with a comprehensive exhibition listing and visual chronology of Hall's extensive work.

In a similar vein, Mourning Chorus (2007-8), with its play on words is a more recent series of scultpures of imagined extinct birds composed of resin beaks applied to disposable plastic contrainers such as detergent bottles (MCA, 2008). Surely such work, reusing the thrown away, can be seen as owing much to both the Pop Art (1960-70s, USA) movement that raised ordinary consumables to iconic status while its handcrafted nature relates it to the Arts and Crafts Movement (mid-1800s, UK) that rebelled against mass-produced goods (Australian Government 2009).

References
Australian Government 2008 (last update 17 July), 'Fiona Hall', Australia's Culture Portal, http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/fionahall/, viewed on 6 August 2009.

Australian Government 2009 (last update 5 August), 'The Arts and Crafts movement in Australia', Australia's Culture Portal, http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/artsandcrafts/, viewed on 6 August 2009.

Churcher Betty 2006,
'Fiona Hall', Hidden Treasures, http://dl.screenaustralia.gov.au/module/849/, viewed on 6 August 2009.

Hall Fiona, 'Paradisus Terestris, 1989-90', Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/17/Fiona_Hall/87/, viewed on 6 August 2009.

Hoffie Pat 2005, 'The Art of Fiona Hall', Artlink, http://www.artlink.com.au/articles.cfm?id=2280, viewed on 6 August 2009.

Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney 2008, Fiona Hall: Force Field, Education Kit, http://www.mca.com.au/general/Fiona%20Hall%20Force%20Field%20Education%20Kit.pdf, viewed on 6 August 2009.