the Mass Magazine - July 2020 - Movements

Drawing and memory are both palimpsestic activities, the iterative layering of text over and above other text, sometimes destroying the previous but always heaping more on top. These layers, when seen, start to skew the reading. The words/images/memories start to build in meaning, layered through different personal contexts. 

This is the point at which trickiness appears, where separation of the personal memories and that of general understanding becomes difficult. Pedagogic teaching would defer to the comprehension of the etymology. What this project proposes is ‘Listening to cacophony and noise tells us that there is a wild beyond to the structures we inhabit and that inhabit us.’[i] 

This can be seen in individual words where general consensus and lexicon differ from each other, some words are used as the opposite of the original meaning. In the 1890’s the word ‘bad’, originally in African-American oral vernacular, context. It might have emerged from the ambivalence of expressions, used as a term of reproach by whites, sometimes representing one who stood up to injustice.[ii] This one word with multifaceted meanings that can be ‘drawn’ out, allowing memory to start to function in a different territory. This slippage is a gold mine. The language we use when recontextualised allows differing permutations. These layers allow forces/ understanding to breathe. When expressed, these self-portraits bound up in a community of words reveal past, present and future. Exploring a collapse of identity, time, memory glitches and breeding collapsing into human consciousness. Flowing between the lucidity of truth and the signifiers that are taught. 

Taking the simple process of asking for a drawing, the starting point; giving a word for participants to merely depict or translate and enact. This is a simple exchange, bound by interest in the participating, memory, words, drawing or all of the above. This project's limitations were simply a drawing time of two minutes, so that participants have to express themselves succinctly, with only a frame of 19cm x 10cm. The responses were wide and all were included. Karen Barad in talking about Inter-actions says ‘“responsibility” is not about right response, but rather a matter of inviting, welcoming, and enabling the response to the Other.’[iii] The images were collated and layered through animation techniques, merging and revolving the images. Building context and understanding of the words far beyond just one person's experience.

There are layers of learning and knowledge that permeate every action and inaction that we take. Permanent cognitive paths that we travel, delicate superhighways that ease us through our own personal linguistic and physical journey. It is in the abstraction with the erasure of boundaries where the layers of knowledge leak into each other. This is where the artwork operates. Where observing a particular word may possess us, line and shape can jolt us out of that languor, heighten senses and build recollections back into our consciousness. Tracking this is difficult and sensitive, it is in the perception of each viewer and their discernment and reasoning, a refining of the eye. What is initially an exercise in drawing becomes an expansive experiment in social norms, words we use and images that exist around them. This project tries to synthesize drawing practice with that of words in order to provide slippage. Interpretation is no longer weighty, and a single projection onto the layers of context gives its author great power. 

[i] Harney, Stefano and Moten, Fred, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study, Social Text 79, Vol. 22, No. 2, Duke University Press, 2004.

[ii] https://www.etymonline.com/word/bad 21/6/2020 5pm

[iii] “Intra-actions” (Interview of Karen Barad by Adam Kleinmann)

Kings Artist Run initiative 10 APRIL – 2 MAY 2015 Opening: Friday 10 April, 6 – 8pm

SIDE GALLERY

10 APRIL – 2 MAY 2015 Opening: Friday 10 April, 6 – 8pm

Play’s the thing

Roll up, roll up, welcome to the show about you!

Welcome to the wonderful world of play making. This show permits a space for writing, costume play and set design. Aiming to empower the participants through their engagement with the objects in the room. Encouraging interactions in new and unusual ways. As you decide your character, you decide the part you play.  Maybe you will find something out about yourself or your fellow visitor when they put on a disguise!

What you can play with:

Costumes of various kinds
A script-making desk with photocopier
A prop and set design studio
A theatre space for play

Who can you play with:

Everybody

The gallery leaves room for play, a setting out of ideas, an understanding of what is possible, and the freedom to choose what you do.

Recent works focus upon distinct themes regarding language, communication and play. What is of major interest is the disparity of languages; the problems, things unsaid, etymology, miscommunications and multiple interpretations. Paper plays a strong role, as a modus for communication, as a tactile surface for the capturing of ideas as well as its’ own nature as a malleable ‘space’.

Plays the thing

All you need to do is: Visit the Oliver Cloke - The OK Collective exhibition "Play's the Thing" at Kings ARI (Level 1/171 Kings St, Melb),
Take part in the artwork by writing a very short script, donning some costumes and then filming your play,
and then..
Send your video piece to this email and it will upload directly to Oliver Cloke's YouTube Channel!You will then be in the running to win $200! RADNESS.
Videos will be judged for creativity and originality.

Alternatively - you can upload a photograph from your play to Instagram, follow @olivercloke & @ok_collective and tag #playsthething and @olivercloke and be in the running to win $50 cash monies!

THINGS TO NOTE:
*Include your first name and email address in the email subject line when sending your vid
*Your video must have been filmed in the gallery within the designated 'Stage Space'
*Your video, obviously, must be your own
*The exhibition is open Weds to Sats 12-6pm from Friday 10th April - Saturday 2nd May
*You are welcome to come along to the opening on Friday 10th 6-8pm
*If uploading and tagging etc for Insta, please make sure you are public or otherwise direct post your photo to @olivercloke

or check out the artshub advert