January 9, 2022 by Justin Harrison

I found a curious connection between the films: Star Wars - Empire Strikes Back/Revenant/Man in the wilderness/Rivers of Fundament (Matthew Barney). The visceral and jarring motif of entering and exiting an enviscerated horse/ cow/ tonton for survival and as a metaphor for death, rebirth and transformation. I’m not sure if there is a classical reference that precedes these films - or any myths or stories. .(I’m not sure how ‘Fine Art’ Starwars is but I’m gonna crowbar it in cos… well it’s Star Wars).

However the motif has caught my attention as it also demonstrates the metaphor of a Liminal place a space where a transformation occurs or a threshold crossed - albeit a psychological one perhaps.

In addition in these contexts there is a dual form of sacrifice:
1.The host animal/ mothering agent.
2. The form of a ‘little death’ of the subject ( a passing through) and then a transformation upon exiting.

In Barneys film there is an uncomfortable feel as the Demi God character enters what appears to be a very dead and decaying carcass, which asks the question what kind of transformation would occur in this context?. Much of Barney’s work is unsettling and visual grotesque so it almost suggest something sinister and perhaps rather than a transformation it would be a corruption and deformation////

A place we fear to look ||||||||||||||

The envisceration is profound - a forced space for the incumbent. Perhaps this is what is jarring is the ‘manufacturing’ of a liminal space. I wonder if true transformation can only come through a naturally occurring spiritual liminal space. Fabricated ceremonies lead to a performance of transformation where perhaps the change is only superficial. Which we could say of Revenant, which actually has two moments the first being when Hugh Glass is partially buried being believed to be near death, and then the act of survival where he uses his horses carcass to shelter from a snow storm.

Death and Rebirth///

Tranformation//?

Deformation///

Threshold///

Threashing floor///

This has also had me thinking of the biblical reference fo the threshing floor - a metaphor for separation of the good form the bad - it also has a liminal essence to it for those who are prepared to confront their own short comings and be transformed by a purification process.

More to be extrapolated but I keep loosing my train of thought////

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZy99QDPhpw

Too Much / December 28, 2021 by Justin Harrison

So here's my confession. I've been reading through some denser texts. Derrida and Daniel Dennett - Consciousness Explained. Whilst I find it interesting at moments, I also find it tedious most of the time - wading through Phenomenology, Cartesian Theatre models, and then Derrida refuting structualism, logocentric values, linguistics act... In an attempt to find a deeper understanding of beliefs and where they come from.

I started to delve deeper into theories of consciousness, neurologically and philosophically. However there is so much writing on this topic - like really a lot, not to mention 2 hr podcasts. Each time I pass through one school of belief I find another that contradicts it. Ok so I may not have read extensively but enough to know that this is not my passion.

The more honest part of this confession to my blog, is that I find myself wanting to have difficult and obtuse theory attached to my work to validate it in academic circles, to make it sound worthy of an MA. I think of the people who I want to intimidate with my dazzling intellect. Shame on me. I have previously written about honesty.

Some of my research is getting performative. And actually a little dull.

I looked back over the blog to reference some bits and found brief analysis of photos and film stills - much more interesting. So back to research of stuff that genuinely interests me, (which can still include Derrida and Neurology if it's genuinely interesting).

Matthew Barney / December 16, 2021 by Justin Harrison

A series of ink drawings from Matthew Barnwey’s ‘River of Fundament’. I’m using the drawings to think about Matthew Barney’s work and my own. I like the deeper inspection that comes with drawing, not just visually but also cerebrally. There’s a freedom of thought that seems unique for me when I draw. A deep pleasure in finding marks that describe, especially when they look nothing like the article yet still evoke it

{{{Currently I’m reading ‘Consciousness Explained’ Looking the the nature of our consciousness how we think and perceive. It’s interesting as it explores the visual nature of our thinking which is a contradiction as our brain does not hold physical pictures but converts these things to electrical impulses - well that’s a crude reductionist version. So how is it that we can make images and drawings and they hold not just symbolic presence but deeper emotive and intuitive values too?}}}

I want to make more drawings - go larger and deeper add a little colour too. I always return to drawing in my practice >>> I’m happiest when it hovers somewhere between Abstract and gestural evocative of something familiar yet slightly beyond our recognition.///

I find him Matthew Barney hard one to decide upon. DO I like his work or not? Do I think it succeeds?Or is it all just sensuality opulence?The truth is I am seduced by the materiality of his work. As a sculpture he engages with the visceral physicality of metal, wood, vaseline >>> all kinds of materials. And he does work very closely with his conceptual enquiries taking a the threads of a principal or narrative and weaving his own. However I do have to ask the same question I ask of my own work - how is his audience and what can they take form his work.

Self indulgence is unavoidable in our work, we have to work with what moves us - yet I feel it should be with one eye on our audience, for what is there with out a viewer?

But still I can’t get enough of huge cast metal objects - demi gods of the space they occupy. The presence beyond the work an aura. Then there are the sets he makes sunken corridors of ruin, or vaults of human senses. People and objects set in a charged miasma///similar to Gregory Crudeson, Barney’s work is flooded with symbols, materials, ideas, questions and possibilities.

Hmmm I guess I do like his work then.

Currently Reading///

Consciousness Explained - Daniel C Dennett, Penguin
Why We Believe What We Believe- Andrew Newberg, Free Press
Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Madella,Little Brown and Company

Belief and Intuition/// / December 16, 2021 by Justin Harrison

I still like his notion of ‘intuition’ for dealing with the non factual or logic of our lives. As much as we deal with a hard reality; bills, trains, shopping and germs. We also need a system for dealing with the non factual spheres of our daily lives - a softer reality. That which sits beyond standard taxonomy /// Things which we cannot easily process with reason or even fit our language. That which resides beyond.

The ‘Nursery’ of our belief system. Where do our beliefs originate? I’m still trying to track a neurological model, but equally a philosophical model. That’s a lot of reading>>>

Then also there is that which is in us and that which is beyond us - outside of us. There is me, and then that which is not me and that which is me and not me at the same time.

Internal, external and mutually idependant or perhaps mutually interdependent?

In the sculpture we can engage with the space around the object as much as in. Creating a widening aura, and yet a blurring of boundaries///

///What belongs in a bundle? What must sit outside?

'Ists' & 'Isms' / November 15, 2021 by Justin Harrison

Following JK's lecture and MA discussion on Thursday, I've been processing some more about movements and their nature/purpose.

I fear this is ground that has already been well trodden and the paths already smooth, compacted and familiar. However I guess its good to explore for yourself and see where it can lead.

The question was regarding what era are we in now, after post modernism, or meta modernism or alter modernism. (I remember we discussed some other postulations). In addition we discussed what movements might there be in light of the digital technology that is now available to the arts?

However for all the possible angles I end up thinking of the quote "The clay does not say to the potter, what are you making?". Similarly I wonder if artists in the era of cubism, impressionism were too conscious of what movement they belonged if any, (although after modernism I sense a change in the self awareness/self consciousness of the artist and the art they made)

It feels as though it is after the event, that a burgeoning movement becomes acknowledged and receives it's nomenclature from the exterior/more dominant culture. Even then I want to resist the 'taxonomy', it feels restrictive with a subtext of violence. The aggressive 'spatlung' splitting, a removal from the body.

"splitting to use the term chosen by Lacan, therefore masks the subject from himself in the utterances he makes on himself and on the world. But Lacan also tells us that in discourse the subject experiences his lack of being, as he is no more than represented in discourse, just a s his desire is no more than represented there." Lemaire Anik - Jacques Lacan 1970 p73

Derrida also speaks of the violence of ecrire, that act of making an impression upon the page to write, to name to other.

It seems a naive and plaintiff cry, but is enough just to make, to research and to have value in what I do - I am highly cautious of being seduced by the zeitgeist - who all too often turns out to be shallow, usury and fleeting.

Then it all comes back to Kant's dove it's dream of being liberated from air resistance.

Pulling threads - everything is divisible / November 4, 2021 by Justin Harrison

Not deconstructing just dismantling.

Derrida says everything is divisible, so I divided the canvas into threads warp and weft. It could continue reducing to finer fibres, then to chemical compounds///atomic structure///neutrons and protons///up quarks and down quarks and gluons///

I liked the stages of undoing. An abandon to the process and loss of form and purpose, yet still remaining with some memory of self. I could paint 4 canvases and dismantle 1. As a set. All equal in the sum of their ‘constituent parts’. The Horizontal and Vertical. Undoing.

(I also felt ridiculous doing it, like I was performing being an artist, really an imposter. Trying so hard to be conceptual - I’m not convinced - It feels smug and empty at the same time.)

Taking photos as the canvas eroded and reverted to threads. A partial dismantling - the first division.

I’m not sure I understand deconstruction or Derrida anymore. I read him and think I grasp it then when I got back I have no idea how I thought what I did.

Read Anthony Gormley today - I love his drawing and felt encouraged by how he’s free to draw and let the connection to his more involved sculpture work itself out. The are ties between the two practices but not always immediate or linear.

Reading/// Derrida’s ‘Letter to a Japanese friend’. /—— again

Researching/// Matthew Barney. I love the vast expanse of his narratives, along with the interconnected themes that relate and reference. His work had such a strong relationship to materials, although I know a lot of his work is made for him, which I would find hard - not to get my hands dirty but have someone else make my work..

Things I want to make:

Stick bundle
Bundle drawings
Immerse installation
Etched copper tubes
Stick feathers -wood and plaster
Bundle and wall set
Small natural linen drawings
Axe for an angel - etch on axe cheek.
Immerse diagram drawings
Portraits
Large wing drawing representational to abstract.
Plaster sculpture abstract for. With inserts.
Large gestural drawings

Derrida / November 2, 2021 by Justin Harrison

"Great works [philosophy/literature/writing] transform the context of their reception and this takes time". Royle Nicholas - Jacques Derrida Routledge P73

What if writing or a work of art could physically change the space/ landscape around us because of the power of the text/ message/ essence of the meaning. Quantum physics - transforming the environment similar to the word? Observed particles behave differently///

Pharmakon poison and remedy, both or sacrifice (Human)//////

"Adrian Mróz, a Polish-American philosopher and musician, analyses its application to art and argues that pharmakon is any physical, mental, or behavioral object[7] which can cut (techne). In other words, pharmaka are agential and responsible for changes in consciousness." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmakon_(philosophy)