Professional Practice: Lee Corner

To get us prepared for the 3M Buckley Centre visit on the 4th February 2014, our professional practice lecturer Lee Corner gave us some encouraging and helpful advice.

First of all, we were introduced to the Commission Checklist and discussed some possibilities that we might have to consider when communicating with a commissioner:

- Can't guarantee the client is the commissioner.
- Danger of chinese whispers (things could get mis-communicated)
- Ethos of building- what goes on? what are their values?
- 3M- ecofriendly, contemporary, growth, business.
- Find out their limits.
- What if personal ethos doesn't match clients ethos?

After much discussion, the whole class came up with a final Commission Checklist to consider when we go to the building:

• Space and lighting
• Fit to colour scheme
• Limits? Open-minded? Appropriate!
• Funding for resources- time/ money/ people
• Inside/ Outside
• What kind of people work there?
• Health and Safety- practicalities
• How many pieces do they want? Can we create multiple works?
• Size of work?
• Accessibility? Are we curating it?
• Long lasting materials? How long will it be up for?
• Collaborations?

We also decided on some questions to ask while we were there, and also things to look out for:

Questions (Don't ask questions you can research- show interest)

• Previous art work? Consider reaction/ repetition
• Are projections allowed?
• Size restrictions?
• After initial ideas, can we check health and safety?
• Will they or us be doing risk assessments?
• Interests? 
• How many works are they expecting?
• How many sites are available?
• How do we keep in touch? Invite them to the studio.
• When can we access the building? Curation?
• How long is the work up for?
• Who views it? Can anyone say no? Who is it?

Look Out For

• Colour
• Lighting
• Space
• Style
• Windows
• Existing objects
• Shapes
• Surfaces
• How it's used- who? How?
• Facilities
• Temperature
• Mood; feel of building
• Context
• Workers
• Noise- bleeding

With all these things in mind I feel prepared to visit the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre and take plenty of notes. A post will follow once the visit has been completed.

Guest Artist Lecture: Ryan Gander

I was very excited to see some of London-based conceptual artist, Gander's personal work in this lecture, however I soon realised as a member of the audience, the artist was filming the lecture as a piece of performance art so I became part of his work! This was an interesting and new concept to me as the filming was not consented by the audience and I was not sure how the film would be presented. Regardless I did not feel less comfortable knowing this.

Symbol used on band poster/ album cover

Several aspects of Gander's lecture intrigued me including his discussion of the symbol 'X' and how it could be viewed as a sign of censorship. He also spoke about how 'the xx' band poster was first released publicly without the knowledge that the symbol represented the band. This concept was interesting as it explored the idea of not only censorship, but also how symbols can be interpreted in different ways by the public and how they become 'hungry' for more information when it is purposely withdrawn from their knowledge.

Gander also mentioned the idea of associations and how each memory or thought can trigger another completely different one. A good example Gander later gave was the 'create your own adventure' books where the readers choice of path led to another section of the book, which then created varied stories depending on the choices of the readers. This gave me an idea to look into the number element in 'Drowning by Numbers' and think of how they may associate with certain narratives/ memories and thought triggers.

Overall, I felt a little disappointed by Ryan Gander's personal input into the lecture. He mainly spoke about other outside influences and didn't show any of his own artistic work. Therefore, I left feeling I still knew little to nothing about the artist himself and was left wanting to know more. Even the work he did show as his own I later found out that some of the things he spoke about were false, and so decided that as an artist, he could not influence or inspire me and felt confused about whether the knowledge I gained was authentic.

To view some of Ryan Gander's personal work visit http://www.lissongallery.com/artists/ryan-gander/