Simon Martin, UR Feeling

Simon Martin, UR Feeling, Camden Arts Centre

- people
- experiences of surroundings
- response to architecture
- physical world vs. perception
- this idea was weirdly fitting as I was finding that the heatwave plus a lack of food and water and sleep greatly impacted the ability to experience the exhibition or make any kind of observations other than the obvious

Presentation Tests

The steps help to show time, progression, a process or a journey. The scattered pieces of fabric almost resemble a trail left behind. There is a subtle sense of falling/dangling, which I could exaggerate if I wanted to increase a feeling of uncertainty or vulnerability, and potentially fear of the future.

The furniture suggests that a human was present. Maybe this draws too much attention to the fact that the human is no longer present; it may look like they have left, and are finished with the work. It has a slightly nostalgic feeling, like when a home environment has become cluttered with relics of the past; someone's home has become their little museum. This probably wouldn't be remedied by having me there with the work, still creating. It would tell a different story with a nostalgic feeling - something like a hoarder being buried. None of this is negative; I just need to figure out if it's the story I want to tell.

The shelf suggests an accumulation of objects (since the objects are laid flat, rather than being objects that can stand, or flat objects displayed on a wall). My issues with this are mainly visual - the lack of contrast, and the space between the shelves.

Finish/Unfinish

Photos from rethinking the following:

- finished vs. unfinished

- product vs. process

- result vs. experience

- space vs. time

Presentation, Degree Show, Part 2

We (the people showing work in the same area) have started discussing how our work will fit together. Since mine is about a process and not a product, I feel that its display should be flexible and not demanding. I have some shelves ready to experiment with, and I plan to get some cardboard boxes. I plan to see how this all fits with the other work, making sure that its presence comes across in the appropriate way.

Presentation, Degree Show

- show time within space
- time as linear: show pieces in rows/columns/stacks?
- placed on surfaces as opposed to being pinned to a wall: showing process rather than a "finished product"
- brown (wood/card) surface for contrast
- shelves - storage, rather than display
- table - placed on and possibly under
- placed on cardboard boxes, varying heights
- non-sewn objects: keep these as supporting material rather than part of the main work
- test all options to see what fits best with others' work

Planning Arrangement Of Pieces

I'm using a new camera, so I realised too late that these were out of focus. I won't worry about retaking them for now, since I just took them to see what I have, what I need more of and how to arrange the pieces. (This means that retaking them would be unnecessary labour for the sake of perfectionism.)

To do: take photos of the sewing process from the point of view of the person sewing?

Unnecessary Labour

- planned obsolescence - products that aim to cease functioning after a certain period
- planned obsolescence - the idea of "fashion": it still functions, but someone else has decided that it should be swapped for something that is a different colour/shape/material/other
- buying useless objects, fuelling the cycle of creating useless objects, enabling and requiring people to  do more jobs that they do not like (retail, factory etc.)
- work that becomes undone by living (washing clothes, then wearing them, then washing them etc.) - these cycles can be broken by ceasing to live - this adds to the feeling of futility in someone who feels unfulfilled, or someone who is only managing to find the time or energy to do the kind of "work" that repeatedly gets undone (personal hygiene, chores etc.)

This idea can be negative if we are doing jobs we don't enjoy, and earning money that we use to fund businesses where too many people are doing jobs they don't enjoy. Someone can be doing a job that they would not be doing, given the choice, and their money can be used to fund suffering (e.g. factory farming, sweatshops) and boredom (e.g. factory jobs, retail jobs). In an ideal world, everyone would be getting paid to do something that felt fulfilling, and their money would be used to pay other people to do jobs that felt fulfilling. This, I guess, would be an argument in favour of funding smaller businesses - someone pouring coffee in a cafe that they are helping to run, and that feels like their own, is quite possibly a lot happier than someone pouring coffee in a Starbucks.

The lower someone's wage is, the more likely it is that they have to get their food, clothes, etc. from businesses where more people have jobs that are unfulfilling. This is a cycle that can sometimes be slowed by reducing the consumption of unnecessary objects (for example, in the case of a broke student who still buys a lot of clothes), but sometimes it is almost impossible (for example, some people only earn enough to buy food that is unfairly traded or unethically sourced - the consumer may not have the power to change this, but large companies, in this case supermarkets, do).