Material Dialogues (Maurice - Phantom Demographic)

Hello! I cant seem to open any of the recent images Maurice has posted? not sure if its my computer? i can see the olde ones and the ones Amy has uploaded. Hmmmm. Strange?

thats strange, can anyone else see the 2 images I uploaded yesterday?

yup - I can see the two images above (Nissan Maxima and Star fleet)

Hi Julika, I wondered if you would be interested in assembling a composition using the same 11 pieces of paper (1 each in A0 to A10) I've been working with? Some of the compositions I've been making resemble plans for buildings, and so I wondered if it would be interested to ask you to produce one on account of your architectural experience? I would be interested to see what you would come up with. It could be any kind of composition (and the choices are quite limited). If it were to be something resembling a plan for a building, perhaps it could be some form of public building or a place to assemble.. but really i'd be open to anything at all. The only guideline is that the pieces have to overlap so that they can be taped together, otherwise the composition would fall apart! If you're interested to have a go, I could send you a photoshop document that I use to try out compositions. It has 10 layers, each one being the equivalent of an A size piece of paper, I'll post an image of one so you know what I'm on about. If anyone else is interested to try this, please let me know.

Sounds great! Send the file over and I'll see what I can do!

Fantastic! I'll email the photoshop doc over separately, i'll also post an image on here so everyone else can see roughly what the layers look like.

Another one..

Just been sent this from Julika, which is her layered composition of the 10 ISO paper sizes (1 each from A1 to A10). Does anyone else fancy having a go at this? I can email you the photoshop doc which has 10 photoshop layers, each layer corresponds to an 'A' paper size.

Julika assembled the smaller sizes around the largest A1 piece as a way to create a kind of hierarchy. Over email, we talked about the difference between using photoshop layers and actual to-scale size paper. For me, there is a huge difference, in that most things you can do on photoshop constitute a very deliberate decision - for instance deciding to rotate slightly one of the layers involves clicking 'Edit' - 'Transform' - 'Rotate' and then rotating the layer to the position you want. Whereas when you are shuffling the pieces of paper around, they slip, slide and land in all sorts of positions that are somewhat out of your control. The difference is interesting.

Here are some images of another of the artworks in the same series that I've been posting here. I showed this work at an exhibition in London over the Xmas period. Again this work has 10 pieces of overlapping paper, one each from A0 to A10. The composition is the result of trying to make every piece physically connect with every other piece (which is quite difficult to do!) hence they are all converging in the smallest A10 piece, producing a kind of 'exploding outwards' effect. The overlapping paper means that when the work is exhibited, it is not possible to view it in its entirety, only a partial view of each piece is available, and so something is held back for later when the pieces are taken apart from each other. The fact that the artwork is only partly visible and accessible during the exhibition stage is interesting to me. In a wider sense, I relate this to the blurriness between public and private space that we have been discussing. I like the fact that the work sits within a context of display while resisting that in some way, by concealing some part of itself.

This work has approximately 20 layers of ink applied, and references an old masters paint layering technique which was used to achieve realistic skin tones (I have been using a number of different layering techniques in this series of work). The final print retains a sense of the smokiness and luminosity that you might find in a old masters painting, but also brings to mind camouflaging patterns, I think both of these references point to the idea that the work itself is concealing something, and maybe also references the notion of the 'phantom public we talked about earlier. I would say that I am trying to strike a balance in the work somewhere between it having a sense of poetry or mystery about it, to the ideas to do with shared ownership and the artwork as a networked entity.

The paper that I have used for this work is a black-coloured cast coated paper - the cast coating gives it a sheeny surface that resists the ink that I apply to it (except for where the paper is creased, the ink slides over it without sticking to the paper) and the black colour of the paper also resists somewhat the application of coloured ink. I'm quite interested in the tension involved in this process, where there is a meeting of 2 things (the squeegee blade and the body vs the resisting surface of the paper) which involves degrees of resistance and force or coercion from both sides. I think this relates in some way to how we are talking about the interface between the individual and the collective, and what happens in that space.

ps. I have been working with some people who came to see the work at the exhibition, to develop a structure for shared ownership of the work. I'll post about that in another post shortly.

Great - there are so many things to discuss here... will be really interesting to discuss as part of the 'on/offline communities of practice' group with public and private spaces... Is this the work you will bring to the show?

Yeah, I'll bring this work along, plus some paper and inks to make a few other works if there is time and space. It would be interesting to print the composition designed by Julika while we are all at the Cookhouse. Am very much open to inputs from anyone else who is interested also.

After Julika's composition, I decided to ask a few friends and acquaintances who work within architecture if they would be interested to produce a composition using the ISO size papers. The composition that I have posted above here is by a friend who runs the 'Institute for Provocation' space (IFP) in Beijing. He is interested to extend the collaboration beyond the making of the composition, and so we have talked about how to approach the printing of the work. The dialogue may extend to talking about what form the distribution of the work might take, and it would be interesting to do this remotely between Beijing and London. I will recreate this composition and print this work at the Cookhouse along with Julika's.

The temporarily vacated plinth of Chelsea College's Henry Moore sculpture, as shown to us yesterday by Donald from Chelsea Space, during Scott's Walk and Talk. I'm considering sneaking in while old Henry's back is turned to use this as a surface to make some prints from.

Hello Assemblers, here is a picture of the structure I constructed yesterday in the space. Please feel free to adapt it/look after it/vandise it in any way that suits you. I will try to post an adaptation kit (paper tapeand sscissors) over the next few days. It would be great if you could take a photo in case you change the structure.

I currently cant attach a file for some reason. I will send the image later!

Hi Julika

Try a different browser maybe, it doesnt like Safari, but Chrome and Opera work well, also image needs to be smaller than 1mb.
Looking forward to the adaption kit!

Thanks Maurice! Here is the image. Hope tonight goes well.

Hey Julika, here are some pics of the composition you designed. I wondered about printing it using an area of the floor space under your installation as the print plate, what do you think? it could be moved afterwards. Any thoughts on colours? I have cyan, magenta, yellow, black and white inks with me.

Looks great! How about yellow black and white? Or is there a limit on how many different ones you use?

No limit at all, I have been using all 4 process colours (CMYK) and other layering processes, like a technique used in old masters painting to create realistic skin tones. Often I put 15 to 20 layers on a print, but sometimes I just put 1 or 2 layers, ie. 1 layer of white followed by a layer of black. I could try white followed by yellow, then black? In screen printing it is customary to start with the lighter colours first..

I see! So thats how the rich and deep colour of the airbnb printis done? I think white yellow and black isa good sequence.