The Lecture of the Studio

Constantin Brancusi

Gabriel Orozco

He made his work in the city.

Carl Andre

He only used the materials that he was able to carry and assembled the works in the gallery.

Giorgio Morandi

Andy Warhol

He named his studio "The Factory" and set the studio as club.

1/Collaborative Workshop

Work No.1

Andrew asked each one of us to find an appealing picture in the library. Then we arranged them together and grouped them by relevance. Therefore, the images selected by Jason, Jacob, Elsie and I are put in a group.

Jason picked a photo of Morandi's vases in a geometric composition. For Jacob, he loved Giacometti's sculpture. Elsie picked the pictures from Martin Creed's work.

For me, originally I wanted to find a picture in Eiko Hosoe's Butterfly Dream, but I did not find the book in the end. Hence, I picked a photo in Olafur Eliasson's Cartographic series I.

"The Cartographic series is based on aerial photographs of the Icelandic terrain that Olafur Eliasson obtained from the National Land Survey of Iceland. The photographs were then turned into photogravures and faintly tinted blue, green, or violet."

From olafureliasson.net

I like the composition and patterns in this photo because it reminded me of the Taichi Diagram. There is a deep black line that divides the picture into two parts. The right side has a lighter tone and the landscape is composed of the curvilinear patterns that bring up a fluid feeling. In the left part, the dark areas stand out tough lines which emphasises the rocky texture. Meanwhile, in a technical way, it looks like the effect of Ebru or ink painting.

Cartographic series I, 2000

Cartographic series II, 2002

Cartographic series III, 2004

Cartographic series IV, 2007

Plan

After acquainting with my group members, we decided to make a collage based on the pictures we take outside the studio. Moreover, we may do a collage film as well.

Displaying

On the 8th of October, we displayed our works without any rehearsal. We just placed phones and laptops on two chairs and displayed our videos. For me, I had not finished editing my raw video yet, so I simply chose the one. Jacob did a video of the screen, Jason shot the process of burning matches and Elsie was inspired by Martin Creed produced a work. Surprisingly, the sound of waves and wind perfectly coordinated with the other videos. Meanwhile, we all did the videos in black and white so the tone was quite harmonious.

Sean gave us some ideas on the scale of work after showing it. Thus we thought we may display the each video on the walls of a room if we could make a formal outcome.

2/Collaborative Workshop

Work No.2

Inside and Outside

The second take that given by Sean was the topic, inside and outside. Although the topic seemed so simple literally, we found it was a tricky logical concept to think about when getting deeper into its meaning. Therefore, we decided to find another time to talk about it.

In the discussion, Elsie mentioned the exhibition, Hodgkin and Creed - Inside Out (2019) in Kistefos Museum. She showed a video that Martin was holding a flowering and trying to match the colour of it with the colour of the paintings. For Jacob, he talked about the water surface that kind of delimiting two spaces. I thought inside and outside are two relative terms. They were about space and perspective. The difference between inside and outside was caused by we are simply viewing an object from one point through a boundary. Therefore, I summed up three essential point which composes the relationship of inside and outside.

A viewpoint A boundary An object

From this idea, Jason further developed it into the Taichi Diagram. However, we then fell into a problem that how can we express it through collaborative work. I came up with an idea that to film a person standing in a screen and saying, "I am inside", and while the scene zooming out, another person comes out and says "I am outside", and keep doing so. However, it was very difficult to realise for us. So Jason and Elsie tried to simplify it by just letting the people in the video knock on the glass door or window to imply they are inside. Nonetheless, these ideas were not really achievable in a week, so we had to think out another one.

Later my sight was caught by the exit sign above the door because it reminded me how we recogise the boundaries in the space in daily life. We would naturally distinguish the inside and outside space because our awareness senses that we either entry or exit. In another word, the entry and exit indicated an intention of crossing the boundary. Finally, we decided to make a work about the signs and labels in our daily life which tells the spacial indication. Moreover, we could place the signs in another circumstance to create a new meaning. In addition, Elsie gave out a very interesting idea that putting the pictures that we taken on the ceiling and floor because she remembered a poem used to mention that the up and down is constant while left and right, front and back are changing.

Discussion with Andrew

In 15th October, we had our third workshop and each group was going to talk to the workshop tutor. For our group, we brought the works and pictures that we did within a week. Elsie found a "No Waiting" sign and she placed it in different environments like the climate change protest, a wall of a house and a door with a "Wait" sign. It was a very witty action to put two contradictory signs together, as Andrew said the power of two authoritative signs became powerless while they were putting together. For Jason, he reworked on some signs which changed the meaning of them humorously. He also did a box with some collages about death on one side and it can be re-folded inside out, changing into a box with nothing on the surface. As for me, I took some pictures of different signs and I intended to place them in the areas which alter their original meanings. This would help to highlight the function of the signs, which indicates the intendancy of motion from a side to another. About this idea, Andrew commented that similar to what Elsie did, to place the signs in the other area was kind of questioning the legal power of them.

He also tried to find the connection point through we three's works. He talked about the possibility that to arrange my pictures as a sign to heaven so Jason's box was implying the hell. Another idea was we can go to find more signs and organise them consecutively as a message.

Presentation

Luckily, our presentation took place in another room which had two big display devices, a screen and a moveable wall. Therefore, we planned to use two screens and two projectors to display our first project. Due to the time was not sufficient for us to put up the second project, we decided just focusing on the first one.

We intended to create a symmetrical space that Jason and Elsie's video playing on two sides and Jacob's in the middle. For my video, it will be projected onto the wall opposite them. It was a problem for us to figure out how to project on the screen between two displayers. Finally, Jacob held the mini projector on a chair by adhesive tape.

Reflection

In the second collaborative project, “inside and outside”, I shared many viewpoints with our group members and we finally decided to do one of my ideas. However, I think the biggest contribution was to help our group to set the screens and videos, which the final effect was really good. Referring to what I have gained from this experience. The first thing is friendship, I genuinely enjoyed the atmosphere when our group meets together and everyone was so friendly. Secondly is the method of developing an idea. It was very efficient when we had a discussion together, which broadened our thoughts. Last but not least, I think the inspirations I gained in the workshop were very helpful for carrying my project forward. For example, Jiadi’s inverted box questioned how we see this world, our first video installation also let me think about the perspective and the ways of creating the harmonious sense, and I found many interesting patterns when I was editing my video for the first collaborative project.