How did the artist convince the world it exists?

Title: Other Side
Date: June 01 2008.
Materials: Scavenged wood, paint, fake lawn, wheel barrow, earth, grass, time capsule
Dimensions: 4500 H mm x 4000 mm W x 2000 mm D
Location: Gomboc Galleries and Sculpture Park, Middle Swan, WA, Australia

Keywords: Sculptural, site-specific, time capsule, upside-down, emergence, displacement, memory, rhizome.

Description:

A sculptural installation consisting of a 4.5m x 4m x 2m shipping crate build from scavenged materials, constructed on-site at Gomboc Galleries and Sculpture Park in the Swan Valley, Western Australia.  Having been dropped by an airmail cargo shipment from the adjacent airport, the crate has crash-landed upside-down in (ironically) a sculpture park.

Within the crate, on what is now the ceiling is a small patch of fake lawn 4m by 2m bisected by a white picket fence.  The fence appears to have been damaged in the crash, broken open and hanging.

On one side of the fence is a wheel barrow, neatly cut by the inner wall of the crate, as if it the space had been sliced out of a movie set. Before the wheel-barrow are a series of small holes dug in the lawn, exposing the soil below (above), and a few odd mounds of dirt from the digging of the holes. A shovel hangs, stuck into one of the piles.

On the other side of the fence, is what appears to be a a volume of sod with soil intact, hanging open in the manner of a trap door, opening up into a large empty space above (below) the fake lawn. On the floor of the crate, directly beneath the sod trap door is a very large mound of actual soil that appears to have fallen through the hole in the lawn above.

Within the large pile of soil inside the crate, partially visible, is small, red metal container of some sort, which appears to have been buried in the earth (above), thus exposed accidentally as the soil came crashing through the sod trap door.

Unpacking this crate: processes of Other Side

This was the first project of a recent series of experimental and generative works focused on developing my praxis as an emerging contemporary artist engaged in the initial stages of my doctoral studies, researching my practice within the context of developing  a concept of sociality in contemporary art and media. This project, in particular, will prove to be substantial in the genesis of a relational perspective of self and my method of praxis and reflexivity.

At the time of this project’s conception, early March 2008, I had recently relocated to Australia to begin my doctoral studies and develop my practice as a contemporary visual artist. I was living in a share house, where my room was in the center of the house.

Behind the house was a sand pit covered in fake lawn Astro-turf with a large metal skeleton of a cage in it. While at the time I wasn’t cognisant of it,  these initial forms and spaces in my settlement down under seemed to have greatly influenced the development of this project.

Reflecting upon the premise of the project, constructing a very large shipping crate in a field amidst sculptural works, the initial idea was in response to this specific environment, a sculpture park full of monumental abstract formalism. I was attracted to the tongue-in-cheek allure of installing a monumental sculptural work, however not unpacking the work from its shipping container, thus the shipping container which houses the work itself becomes the sculpture.

The Other Side developed from here. While the satirical minimalism of the mismanaged shipment of art was amusing enough, I felt that the vast empty space inside of the crate was crying out for some creative invention.  Like a Trojan horse, the crate could take on an internal layer and silently infiltrate, or infil-‘crate’, this formalist theme-park with a more sophisticated conceptual intervention. It was from this point that “the crate” (as it came to be known by) began to grow and change, evolving through its various stages until it reached its current and final manifestation.

Infil-‘crate’-ion

What would this parcel to contain?  What would I ship to myself? Why was I shipping it?  My initial thoughts were of disruption and displacement.  As this was an aesthetic that I have been exploring in many of my past works, particularly in many of my video installations, ie. It happened just like that (2007).

Thinking on the site of the Other Side, a large green, grassy field, I immediately considered the possibility of extracting a portion of that field and encasing it within the crate. I also considered how the grass underneath the crate might grow up between the boards. The use of grass within the work was not only influenced by the site, but also had a strong parallel influence by the work of American installation/video artist Jeroen Nelemans.  I had the fortune of attending a residency with Jeroen the previous year at Vermont Studio Center and was inspired by his dynamic, living installations using grass or mold.

I began to think of the crate as a space where something dynamic could occur.  I envisioned, as the crate was upside-down, whatever was shipped within the crate might now begin to interact with the new contents of grass as it grew up through the crate into its shipment. A parcel containing a parcel (of land). The possibility of me shipping a patch of lawn and earth from an old site in my past to this new site in my present become a reality of the project.  Trans-planting an environment of my past into an environment of my present. In this way, this act was a metaphor of my relocation to Australia.  I began to consider what I was bringing with me, and within me to my new place of being.  The upside-downess of the crate I could now perceive as a convenient metaphor for my movement to the Southern Hemisphere, and a wry spatial consideration of my possible crash-landing down under.

As I thought through the concept of shipping something or place of my past to my present, I began to view the crate as a time capsule. A space were the memory and the presence collide and intersect. Where the artifacts of past are suspended until they are unearthed by the present. Where the past is sent to the future in a static state. The concept of time encapsulation developed.  Shipping my past into my future, when it arrives it collides with the present.  The Other Side is a variation of this process.

The crate was developing into a container, a capsule, for two diametric spaces, or two sites to meet. The intersection of these sites was a marginal space of the fake and the real, the virtual and the actual, the past and the present. This was a metonymically rhizomatic space. As I worked through the formality of these concepts, using the grass on the site as a means to begin to think about these diametric spaces, and how each space was to influence the other, I considered ways of focalising this intermediary margin between the two. As I envisioned rich and vibrant grass growing up from the floor of the crate into the dense, fake lawn hanging from the ceiling I became concerned with separating this space.

The fake grass on the ceiling was not simply a memory of a patch of grass, but perhaps could serve to demonstrate a process within a site that it represented. The crate could capture, like a photograph, or a snapshot, a memory of doing something, performing some task that could represent something meaningful from my history.  This spatial snapshot, this model could then be juxtaposed into a new space, and the event of this meeting, this crash landing could suspend them in a state of intermixing, thus this work is a snapshot of this collision or spaces, times, and activities.

An entry in the project logbook notes:

“May 01, 2008: I knew I would be shipping an environment, thinking about how the items in that environment formed as a condition of that environment, which was really what I was shipping, my experience of those conditions. After moving here [Australia] and realizing that I didn’t need to bring anything at all, I have begun to view environments a little differently.  I have always have attachment to objects and clothes, and these facades that we adorn our selves with or in in order to feel a certain way. Whether it is for pleasure, comfort, acceptance, etc. Things all provide certain levels of this.  Things are the vehicles that bring these feelings to us, rather than just instrinsically being that feeling, it is the experience of a thing in a context that allows us to find a certain feeling or idea within ourselves, as we relate to that relationship and the phenomenology of the world around us. SO I didnt even need to send anything, as it would become “lost in translation” so to speak.  Just needed to send the context for that experience, the environment, including all surroundings and conditions, including people…”

What was the task?

Somehow the idea of a lawnmower crept into the crate. Looking back to my logbook for the project it was unclear at the time.  The logbook reads:

“March 24th, 2008: Not sure where the [lawnmower] idea came from.  I thought of grass.  I thought of mowing it. Maintaining it and managing its appearance… Control.  So there was also this binary of control and out of control in the missing parcel property of the work.”

Perhaps the lawnmower was the representation of this control over the environment that I was encapsulating within the crate.  It was my attachment to the environment and the crates new destination, in the field of that sculpture park would provide a new environment for this ‘control’ to negotiate.  Yet, as I noted in the logbook, there was a certain lack of control that is explored through the haphazardly ‘dropping’ of the crate. It is this juxtapositioning of these contexts that I find motivating in the work.

Still not sold on the mower for its lack of personality, I opt for something more…well…me.  I recall a piece of advice given by a past mentor, “Your art should be personal, it should come from inside you.” From this point I began to think about the core concepts in the work and how they related to me.  The idea of a time capsule, the idea of shipping and moving, relocation, the ideas of memory and presence.

Over the last three weeks of building the crate in the studio the contents of the crate changed radically.  Everyday it was something different.  At some point a fence worked its way into the crate, triggering a memory of one of my many back yards growing up as a child who tended to move every two years or so.  It just so happened that in this back yard, as 11 year old, I buried a time capsule as 11 year olds do.  Eureka!  All this diggin and I’ve finally struck gold!

This was it.  It was this memory of this site where I buried a time capsule that I would extract from its virtual site, pack in the crate, and ship from my childhood as an archaeological pioneer of Cedar Forks subdivision circa 1992 to my present site as an arts researcher standing in a sculpture park in Western Australia, 2008.

I’m workin’ on a buildin’

Constructing the crate was no simple feat.  It required a great deal of initial thought and planning, not that dissimilar from planning the construction of a house.  In fact, most of the time while constructing the crate, I felt as if I were building a house, and in a strange way I was.  The crate turns out would house a space where realities meet.

In order to build the crate, I would need timber, and a lot of it.  The initial dimensions of the crate measured 4 metres cubed (as shown in Fig. 1 above). This equated to approximately…too many board feet.  Not only would the acquisition of these materials be expensive, structurally the 4 metre cube began to seem out of reach. I scaled the dimensions back to a more manageable 4 m H x 2 m W x 4 m D.

After being rejecting by all of my hopeful material sponsors, I decided the most appropriate source of timber would be from discarded shipping pallets.

I was collecting my material for the project from used shipping pallets scavenged from various building sites and businesses throughout the greater Perth area.  The pallets were then systematically stripped, de-nailed, counted, stacked, measured sawn, and restacked. The total number of pallets collected and prepared for use in the project: 101.  This equates to over 1100 boards, each containing a minimum of 6 nails to be pounded and pryed out.  In the industry, we call this ‘art work’.

After all of the material was collected from various nooks and corners of the city and prepped for construction,  the task of making 4.5 metre structural timber supports was no easy thing.  These had to be scabbed together with nail plates at alternating lengths.

The crate was constructed in bays with facade paneling, all entirely prefabricated in the studio and assembled on-site. Twenty-eight 1 x 2 metre panels were constructed.

The crate was designed to be modular, in that each panel would be interchangeable with any other panel in the crate, thus making assembly fast and simple.  Due to variability of the materials and other factors beyond control, this was not the case.  In fact each panel ended up in being colour coded to aid in the correct placement in the crates assembly.

Fieldwork

With a the shell of the ‘crate’ constructed and fairly stablised vision of the interior of the crate, the ‘fieldwork’ commenced 61 days after the initial conception of the project. The location was chosen after a few visits to the site.

May, 04, 2008: Install Day 1- Impact crater.

After the site was prepped with an instant impact crater and four corner supports anchored in the earth, the sod was left for ten days to re-root before the crate was to be constructed.

May 15, 2008- Install Day 2- Framing

With the help of my construction team, Graeme and Stu,  we transported the crate sections (4 stud-bays, 28 panels, and foundation) to the site and framed up the skeleton of the structure.

May 20, 2008- Install Day 7- Finalising construction

The framing and paneling of the crate was nearly finished after 5 days of building. The interior ‘roof’ of suspended fake lawn was installed, nearly ready for the contents of the crate to be installed.

May 21, 2008- Install Day 8- Interior Design

The interior of the crate was then ‘in’-fitted with various sized holes, white picket fence, large pile of real earth, custom wheel barrow, and other components of the ‘shipment’.

May 23, 2008- Install Day 9- Stenciling

The crate was nearly complete, just needed a paint job.

June 1, 2008- Install Day 11- Open to the public

Working Analysis

• Snail Mail?: The Rhizomatic Act of Sending and Receiving.

• Relocating memories and the act of re-membering.

• Crash-landing past into present in the future.

• Trojan Horse of Self: The emplacement of self into an other self.

• Other Spaces: Heterotopian memories of simulation, representation, and location

Keywords: Heterotopia, opposition, disruption, displacement, memory, rhizomatic, virtual, emplacement

(19/09/09 in progress…)

The project developed as an exploration of virtual and actual spaces of me, and the relationships between the two; the virtuality of a remembered history, the actuality of a presence. Looking at the boundaries between where these spaces exist. the relationships that become exposed through a circumstantial, unintentional act of uncovering.  Turf became a poignant metaphorical medium, where the grass of the project grew.

It was this space and this dynamic of becoming that I’m interested in. In the early designs of the project, fake grass ‘growing’ towards real grass was the key form. There is a dualism that occurs in this investigation, yet the work begins to open up towards multiplicity, which is rhizomatic in its essence.

There is a relationship to philosphers Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guttari’s concept of rhizome, the “theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation”. [1] Other Side is a model of certain relationships between my present and my past, this I suppose becomes the data within the Deleuzean/Guttarian rhizomatic model.  The memory, in its remembered form, in manner, is virtual.  My manifestation of this memory, in present, or in action, creative activity of producing the Other Side, takes on an actual form or quality.  The imitative quality of the forms used within the crate exhibit this virtual nature of the memory as a meme.

Coming back to the circumstances of the conception and development of the Other Side, it is important to consider my physical, spatial, cultural, and personal situation as me, Nathan that has recently relocated to Australia alone, living in room in the centre of a share house, planning his research as an artist, etc. In a lot of ways all I had was memories. Without much stuff, the only comforts I had were inside me.  Memories are directly influenced by the environment at the time of reflection and vision.  There is a connection that is made.  In some ways the Other Side embodies these connections in one instance, one imitation of the relationship as occured in my situation.

What did/does the work do for me?

It asks me to consider these relationships within myself.  How does my past relate to my future?  How am I present, presented, or represented through the processes I engage with as an artist? Specifically within this project, I focused on the relocation of my self, and how through time my self becomes continuously relocational from one perspective.  However, when this perspective is inverted through memory, or activity, or another process of engaging with my existence, or presence in the world, my self becomes static or suspended.

Relating the project back to myself,  thinking about the process, the act of collecting and sourcing the materials to build the crate, I had to rely on myself to resource the material to build the crate. The project became more about building this crate, designing the project.  At times during the building process, I felt as if I where building a home in the sculpture park, and actually home here in Australia.  Building a structure of my past self that was relocated to a new location, a new site for development and growth.  This new site would inevitably slowly overgrow the past, which in its suspended, remembered, virtual state would change and become enveloped by the grass of the present.

Unpacking this idea, it wasn’t my past self as a collection of experiences at a recent point in time, but rather based on a memory of something I had done as a child, 16 years prior to my relocation to Australia. The externalisation of this memory, focused the processual nature of the act the memory was based upon.  The memory that I was re-membering through the installation was that of the creation and burying of a time capsule in a childhood backyard.  I do not recall what was in the time capsule, but more so the feeling I had, awe, wonderment, and excitement of the act of burying things that I held as valuable, personal, and attributable to who I was at the time and how I understood the world.

(05/10/09)

Not only is the installation based upon a memory of this feeling, but also moves one step further in a symbolic act of virtue in a suspended state of attempting to recover, locate, or re-discover this ‘time capsule’. It is a multiplicity of the time capsule, relational to self, to others, to the environment.

It is in some ways a simulation of a memory, of a processual activity, a representational space that is at once many spaces.  In essence, the project formalises a “heteropology” via a heterotopian model of the mulitple spaces and encounters of memory and site. Michel Foucault discusses these concepts in his text Des Espace Autres (1967). Presenting the concept of a heterotopia, Foucault describes this “heteropolgy”, or the “simultaneous mythic and real contestation of the space in which one lives”, of the juxtaposing of relations to ourselves and the spaces that are occupied in one’s memory, culture, personality, knowledge, and being:

It is here, that the heterotopia exists.  The Other Side (the crate) exposes and comes to rest at this culmination of sites. The crate is a site that encounters the set of relations amongst the multiple sites of memory, presence, and process. Within this heterotopia of the Other Side, a sort of erosion, or a rupturing of the boundaries of these spaces occurs. It is here through this erosion that the unearthing of a new site, one that is at once a simulation and a real site is created.  This site is the collision of historical sites of memories, contemporary sites of artistic practice, personal sites of experience and enactment all within the field of my knowledge, expression, and being of self through intersecting spaces and times, presented, performed, and represented.

[1] Rhizome (philosophy). (2009, August 15). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 03:12, October 5, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rhizome_(philosophy)&oldid=308191501

[2] Foucault, M. (1984). “Des Espace Autres”. Architecture /Mouvement/ Continuité.