From discussion in a one to one meeting (1);

Artist 1 Susan Hiller – Auras

Artist Susan Hiller’s work Auras: Homage to Marcel Duchamp 2008 features found portraits of individuals surrounded by clouds of light: ‘metaphors for our selves in the digital age.’ Hiller is alluding to the 1910 Portrait of Dr. Dumouchel by Duchamp (1887–1968), a historical aura portrait in the clairvoyant tradition. (Tate, 2019)

I wouldn’t want clairvoyance to be the dominant visual reading of my project. What I do is create intergenerational identification by gene transmission.

So, the question. Will my intent be taken the wrong way?

Hiller’s colour work Aura’s flows from this portrait of Dr Dumouchel:

Dr Dumouchel – Marcel Duchamp

Auras – Susan Hiller (Homage 2019)

Emanations – Michael Turner

My work could possibly be made to go in this direction as I now have archive portraits as well as a colour abstract. The abstract immediately above is similar to Aura’s.

A summary of Hiller’s career and work exhibited/installed at the Lisson Gallery is presented by the BBC in their Introducing Arts website (BBC 2015). An artist talk is provided on the site.

Sadly Hiller died and her obituary can be found on the BBC website. This contains the heading “Connection, empathy, identification” from which I sense a parallel with my practice as Identification is an underlying theme.

From the obituary (BBC, 2019) there is mention of ghosts, “Ghosts are invisible to most people, but visible to a few.”. There has to be some concern as this year, ghosts began to appear in my abstract work.

Artist 2 Evan Roth – Red Lines

The work of Roth is described at the Artangel website (Roth, 2020).

Connecting you to the landscape of the internet.

Evan Roth: red lines – from the ArtAngel website (Roth, 2019)

A network of mesmerising video landscapes is streamed free to your home or workplace in this pioneering new project by Evan Roth.

Roth has travelled to coastal sites around the world where the cables that make the internet possible emerge from the sea. Filmed in infrared, the same spectrum in which data is transmitted online, the videos reveal another side of the internet, one that moves at the speed of weather, wind, and tide.

Evan Roth – infrared from the ArtAngel website (Roth, 2019)

Red Lines can be experienced by anyone in the world. To join the network, all you need is a device like a smartphone, tablet or laptop, and an internet connection. Devices should ideally be plugged into power and connected to an internet connection with no data limits (check with your service provider) with the browser set to http://p2p.redlines.network. 

In summary, the connection to my practice appears to be infrared, computers and landscape through internet transmission. The images are at places where internet cables emerge into the open at the end of a “red line” or connection to another geographic location.

A sentiment behind the work is given by this quote:

(In Maori culture) … your connection to the land you walk on helps shape your very identity. You are who you are because of who came before you; the earth and waters that supported them, now support you. – Janina Matthewson

Artist 3 David Fathi

David Fathi presents his work within the FMP module here. The interest for my work is the crossover between science and art. A blog post expands the research. The connected blog post from Week 5 can be found here.

Discussion as a reminder was about three projects, the first two books then the installation.

• Book: Anecdotal … nuclear bomb testing on own lands e,g US Nevada
• Book: Wolfgang … Pauli Quantum physics, anecdotes of things going wrong, CERN archive
• Installation: The Last Road .. Henrietta Lacks archive HeLa cells

The migration to installations fell out from presenting Wolfgang creatively in numerous settings. Don’t let the form of archives seduce you. Maintain control.

The talk highlighted ideas of balanced pairs:

Bibliography

BBC (2015) Are you experienced? Visionary art from Susan Hiller. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4Tdy4ML2xms1FRp5RZTkjky/are-you-experienced-visionary-art-from-susan-hiller.

BBC (2019) Obituary: Susan Hiller, the artist of neglected memories, BBC website. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47069583.

Tate (2019) Hiller Tate Britain. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/susan-hiller/susan-hiller-room-guide/susan-hiller-homage-works

Roth, E. (2019) Living with Red Lines. Available at: https://www.artangel.org.uk/project/red-lines/

Images

Marcel Duchamp (1910) Dr Dumouchel. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Dr._Dumouchel#/media/File:Marcel_Duchamp_Portrait_of_Dr.Dumouchel_220x340.jpg.

Susan Hiller’s Homage to Marcel Duchamp (2019) moremilkyvette blogpost. Available at: http://moremilkyvette.blogspot.com/2008/11/pirates-gallery-susan-hillers-homage-to.html.