News!

Kathryn Campbell Dodd - Three Rings

I've had a very busy few months making and showing work. First of all I was invited by Mission Gallery in Swansea to be their Maker of the Month for September. I made a few new pieces including these wrapped rings.

Kathryn Campbell Dodd and Gemma Copp at Milgi Lounge

In October I showed work with TactileBOSCH at Milgi Lounge in Cardiff as part of Moist: The House that Balthus Lived. I was really pleased with the way my pieces had been curated; everyone's work rubbing shoulders together. Gemma Copp's film was being projected from beneath one of my chairs into a long mirror in one of the rooms which worked really well. During the same week Jacob Whittaker and I showed a piece of our collaborative Absent but not Forgotten work in Milkwood Gallery in Cardiff as part of the Made in Roath Festival 2011.

Absent but not Forgotten at Blinc Digital Arts Festival

It's been a very busy time for Absent but not Forgotten, in October we were commissioned by Blinc Digital Arts Festival to make a piece of work for a stunning Tudor town house owned by CADW, Plas Mawr in Conwy. We were invited to film and record inside the house to create a triptych of films and a series of sound works which were shown in the courtyard of the house during the festival. 

Here are some images from the event.

Absent but not Forgotten - The Seventh Room

Following on the heels on our project in Conwy, we installed our new work The Seventh Room in The Studio at Aberystwyth Arts Centre. The piece was funded by The Arts Council of Wales and included as art of Abertoir Horror Festival, a six day event. We also made a documentary series of interviews about paranormal happenings in Aberystwyth which was shown in The Box in the arts centre at the same time - you can see them here. It was fantastic to have the opportunity of the film festival to really think about the aspects of our project which reference horror film and TV, we found ourselves constantly drawn back to some of the stunning early examples of the genre from the silent era as well as many other influences. I was really excited that Abertoir screened a film that has been very influential for us, Fall of the House of Usher, a 1928 film of the Edgar Allan Poe story directed by Jean Epstein with live piano accompaniment. 

Here are some images of the project and our link to our new catalogue.

Rhodio - An intervention

Kathryn Campbell Dodd - A spoon is a spoon is a spoon... 

Last week I spent five days at the Venice Biennale during the opening week. I went partly to see my own work in situ at Rhodio, an artist-led group show in a restaurant, Pane Vino e San Daniele in Dorsoduro. The show ran from 30 May to 4 June and involved the work of 13 installation artists from Wales making an intervention into the space. 

Kathryn Campbell Dodd - A spoon is a spoon is a spoon (detail)

At first sight the restaurant space looked fairly untouched, other than the white cloths that Roger Lougher (the curator) had draped across the ornaments and objects belonging to the owners that had been left in situ, a subtle way of directing the visitor's attention to the works that were operating as 'art' in the space. The show was not invigilated, and visitors were left to find their own way around the work with the help of 'table talkers' - a small information sheet for each artist standing near the work.

I liked that quietness, the minimal impact on the environment. So much of the Venice Biennale shouts and jostles for attention, there was something rather subversive about the subtlety of the intervention. The Rhôd group of artists from whom those showing were selected, have been very much exploring ideas about 'place' - the urban rural dialogue; the centre and the periphery - and this was an interesting extension of that conversation. How does a loosely formed group of artists from urban Cardiff and rural west Wales take their discussion to a cultural hotspot like the biennale? What can we say about Wales in this unique place? How can we occupy a little corner of this exceptional art fair?

The show included work by: Michael Cousin, Ann Jordan, Kathryn Campbell Dodd,  Mike Murray, good cop bad cop, Jason Pinder, Kim Fielding, David Shepherd, Richard Higlett, Elizabeth Waterhouse, Penny Jones, Jacob Whittaker. It was curated by Roger Lougher and presented by Mari Beynon Owen.

Jacob Whittaker - A Welsh Stream

Jacob Whittaker, Cardigan based sound and video artist, installed three vinyl records in the show each tagged with a smart phone app that took you to his dedicated live webcasting site A Welsh Stream,  where you could access video from three locations in rural Wales including Melin Glonc where the Rhôd series of shows have been held.

Richard Higlett 

Cardiff based artist Richard Higlett used one of the sketches already in situ in the restaurant, a pencil sketch view of the Grand Canal, and created an inverted version of it as though a frogman's eye view of the scene and a comment on the popularity/folly of the biennale and the sinking of the city.

Penny Jones

Penny Jones took a pair of 16th Century poems - one in Welsh, one in Italian - and created a menu for the restaurant which contained the two. Bawdy and sexually explicit, they are written by women in a man's world. She also redesigned the restaurant logo to depict three pregnant women - one pushing a buggy. During the exhibition Penny made a short performance piece in which she played with the androgyny of a composite character, part woman, part Gondolier. 

Penny Jones

Curator, Roger Lougher showed pieces from his series of altered health and safety signs.

Roger Lougher

Spectral Visitations

Thanks to our spectral visitors at Absent But Not Forgotten: 2 last Sunday - here is a link to the gallery of Polaroid images we shot on the night!

Absent But Not Forgotten: 2

On Halloween night we staged a one-night-event as part of my ongoing collaboration with artist, Jacob Whittaker. After days of rain, we had a clear night here in the hills of Carmarthenshire where the work was shown in a stone barn in a remote location - so thanks to those hardy souls who ventured out to join us!

We made new work for the event including a sound piece which built upon ambient sounds from the location and questions and silences recorded as part of a ghost-hunting EVP session. We also projected waveforms taken from sound readings along with screened and projected white noise.

The project has a strong inclusive element, and from the 50 word ghost stories submitted by participants in our first show earlier in the year we developed a film and sound work which was projected onto furniture. I'm very interested in the significance of personal objects and possessions - the way we project our personalities onto them and mediate our lives through them.

This time we asked our visitors to pose for us under a white sheet (ghost-in-a-sheet style) for a series of Polaroid images - everyone was most enthusiastic and inventive in their performance! I'll post some images when they are available. Meanwhile you can see more images and find out about the project here: www.absent-but-not-forgotten.co.uk 

Absent But Not Forgotten: 2

The second in my ongoing art project with Jacob Whittaker is happening tonight in Carmarthenshire. Following our show at The Last Gallery earlier in the year, we are having a one-night-only Hallowe'en event this evening, Absent But Not Forgotten: 2:

An installation combining projection and sound with textiles and furniture @7pm. Later...Sound performance from Jacob Whittaker with Halloween classics.  PLUS: We want you for our spectral collection – come and be photographed (under a sheet) for our Polaroid ghost gallery...

We'll be showing a new piece of work which is based on the 50 word ghost stories that were contributed through the website as part of the project. It's going to be spooky! www.absent-but-not-forgotten.co.uk 

If you are in the area - you are welcome to join us from 7pm...

Absent but not forgotten 2: Trailer from jacob whittaker on Vimeo.

LUX at Oriel Myrddin Gallery

Donya Coward - Textile Taxidermy (Greyhound) - seen here

I'm very excited that the work for our winter show, LUX at Oriel Myrddin Gallery is starting to arrive! I have been the curator for this show, so it's wonderful to begin seeing the works in the flesh. A box arrived this morning from Donya Coward, her Textile Taxidermy dogs heads are beautiful, humorous  and exquisitely crafted. Sculpted in the style of hunting trophies, they are made with crochet and knitting along with antique and reclaimed fabrics, beads, buttons and oddments. There is a Scottie Dog, a Greyhound, a French Bull Terrier, a British Bulldog and a Pug. We have a few dog lovers amongst the gallery staff (including me!) so they are proving very popular.

We will hang the show next week ready for the opening on Saturday 6 November at 6pm. We also have a one-night-only evening of artists' films, Light Loop showing for the evening; films are from Gareth H Davies, Emma Pearce, Julie Ann Sheridan, Simon Whitehead and Jacob Whittaker.

Absent But Not Forgotten

Absent but not Forgotten from jacob whittaker on Vimeo.

A film made from footage of the opening event at The Last Gallery in Llangadog.

Fright Night at The Last

Photo: Installation shot by Louise Bird

Absent But Not Forgotten opened on Friday evening - it runs until 4 April - open at weekends. Thanks to Jake for the collaboration, Mick and Julie at The Last Gallery for the opportunity, Louise for the gin, the love and the brilliant photos, Kirsty for her abiding support and amazing cakes at the opening...thanks all for coming along too!

If you feel inclined we hope you might like to write us your ghost story or experience in 50 words at the message board of our website, here's a few fabulous contributions to get you thinking:

The television is full of dark men again. Circling, eyeless, mouths are stitched. One time I caught them doing a pentagram and I lost respect. I prise invisible hands from my neck and slap at the remote for Eastenders. If Peggy loses the vic tonight it will not auger well.

By Kirsten Hinks

She lay down to sleep. But the back boiler was burping rhythms into the night. Surrounded by socks and tops, she rolled into her duvet and hid her head. But skeletal trees scratched the window in time and forgotten friends danced ahead. Pass the ectoplasm on the left hand side.

By Dan Anthony

Sitting in the corner of the empty nursery, still here I listen. Tonight no starlight pierces the black rain clouds, but I still hear their static hiss. Mother in their bed, more unconscious than asleep, father downstairs sits with an unopened book in his lap not drinking his cold tea.

By David Kilvington

Écoute le temps

Écoute le temps - Directed by Alanté Kavaïté - seen here

Part of the project I am working on for The Last Gallery in Llangadog, Absent But Not Forgotten, has been to watch lots of films and TV within the horror/ghost story genre. We have especially been interested in the way that the aesthetics and methods of the media has informed its own development - art-imitating-life-imitating-art. One of the films I have found particularly beautiful is a French thriller called Écoute le temps - the English Language distribution title is Fissures.

Following the murder of her clairvoyant mother, a young sound recordist returns to her home in the French countryside. She begins to unravel the mystery of the killer through realising she can intercept the voices of the past with her sound equipment. She creates an extraordinary web of threads and markers as she attempts to plot the locations of the sound and discover the truth.

Here is a links list to some of the things we have been watching.


Mark Z. Danielewski - Cover of House of Leaves

This idea about the house as a container for its own histories has been an abiding theme for me in recent years, I was deeply effected by the book House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (2000). It is a hugely ambitious book which uses footnotes, type and design to reinforce the plots within. It is a kind of physical version of hyperlinked text. The use of a number of narrators creates a claustrophobic, neurotically tense story. This book was picked up in a similar way to The Blair Witch Project (1999) by Internet promotion and rumours of its alleged authenticity.

Absent But Not Forgotten

This is the publicity image for my forthcoming show Absent But Not Forgotten a collaboration with Jacob Whittaker at The Last Gallery in Llangadog, it opens on Friday 19 March.

This is what it's about: "Belief in the paranormal can be controversial; but there is a strong human desire to find pattern and meaning in the unexplained. This multimedia exhibition uses video and sound experiments, textiles and technical objects to evoke the world of ‘ghost hunting’. The project visits the territory between belief and parody to explore the technological, psychological and aesthetically self-referent influence of TV and films on the phenomenon.

The Last Gallery is a contemporary art space showing work by artists from across the UK. Housed in a former Victorian cobblers shop in the village of Llangadog in west Wales, the building retains its original features. The gallery is un-manned, so visitors can experience the artworks completely alone..."

I'm busy finishing the works for the show as well as working with Jake on the technical elements - that's his expertise.

“The idea for this project came about on a drive from west Wales to Bristol. I was working with the idea that I wanted to use an old armchair that Jake had previously given me to make a kind of ghostly telephone/chair hybrid object. At this point Jake began to relate the tale of his Grandfather, Bernard, an inventor who had experimented with EVP techniques to make a telephone to speak with the dead. Just to seal the deal, we spent some of the journey driving on the M4 motorway alongside the black hearse used by Ghostwatch Wales.” Kathryn

“Aspects of the exhibition are loosely based on some of my Grandfather's research into EVP. As an electrical engineer and inventor he was convinced he could make a telephone that would communicate with 'the other side'. Oddly enough, he, like me, had a barn full of semi-working and broken Hifi and TV - interesting that we both share a fascination with what might be found in the broken, silent or noisy portions of recorded media.” Jacob

Buy One Get One Free

Exhibition poster - seen here

I went to a symposium today at West Wales School of the Arts about artist collaborations. Organised by Contextual Studies duo Helen Lindsay and Marilyn Allen (a dynamic duo in their own right!) the day featured presentations from Tracey Warr, Anthony Shapland from Cardiff's g39, Sean Edwards from WARP and Secondeditions

It was a good day, looking at the ways in which visual artists collaborate and some of the issues that are brought to light when they do. Tracey Warr gave an excellent introductory talk sweeping through art historical collaborations from Modernist groups and pairings to contemporary work. She talked about artists she has worked with, collaborating essentially as a curator/writer and the nature of equality in such scenarios. She highlighted the different dimensions of collaboration, the many varied ways in which people come together to make art and the peaks and pitfalls that can be encountered. Warr has published a series of conversations about collaboration - ‘On Collaboration: Interviews with Heather Ackroyd & Dan Harvey and Phelim McDermott’, Doubt Guardian. In press. 2008.

I have collaborated with other artists and technicians on various occasions and have run into many of the difficult territories discussed. Ideas of ownership, attribution, financial allocation, divergent ideals to name a few. I have also benefited tremendously from the generous and productive aspects of sharing with and learning from other practitioners. It's always a sensitive negotiation and requires a lot of grown up skills to bring the best out of the situation. I was personally a little relieved to find that other artists' collaborations are as individual, particular and potentially contentious as those I have engaged with - phew! I'm normal!

I like the idea Tracey Warr discussed of The Third Mind that can be created through the process of collaborating. A kind of reflexive entity that lets the work find a less ego-bound outcome; an autonomy outside the grasp of the individuals involved.

We heard from Anthony Shapland about the genesis of the hugely influential artists run gallery, g39, its unfolding story and current developments, including WARP, the resource service headed up by practising artist Sean Edwards. The network-style ethos of the project was celebrated at their 10 year celebration exhibition If You Build It They Will Come in 2008.

There were a few interesting suggestions as to why artists working currently have embraced this mode of practice. Perhaps a reaction to a current lack of any genuine political agency; or a compensation for the loss of communism and socialism; even an obfuscation to political action, a muddying of incisive action. My own feeling is that it mirrors the paradigm shifts in all other areas of our lives towards network orientated systems rather than hierarchies - the Internet being a primary expression of that idea. It is perhaps an inevitable outcome of Roland Barthes ideas in Death of the Author. The flip-side - the birth of the reader/viewer becomes a further collaboration, the participating audience. Marcel Duchamp in his 1957 lecture The Creative Act says: "All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualification and thus adds his contribution to the creative act."

I am engaged in two collaborations at the moment - a forthcoming show with Jacob Whittaker, Absent But Not Forgotten opening in March at The Last Gallery in Llangadog. In May I will show a piece at Rhôd at New Mill, Drefelin on which I will have collaborated on construction and technical issues with Bristol based Marcus FitzGibbon. Two very different types of collaboration. Jacob and I have worked conceptually on the show together from the beginning bringing elements to the project as a whole, the result is conjoined. Marcus is helping me realise my own concept through his construction skills, we've worked together many many times and have an aesthetic shorthand which allows things to emerge quite fluently, he will help me bring my idea into reality and inevitably bring some of his own aesthetic to the project.

I like working with other people, I like the way it forces me to let go control of my entrenched ideas. When it works well the expansive sense of realisation is sublime.

Here's a video clip about the collaboration between Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat in 1986 - collaboration or Oedipal face-off...? Fascinating.

The Invisible Blanket - Louise Bird

Louise Bird - The Invisible Blanket - seen here

Louise Bird explores ideas about science and scientific philosophy through her artistic practice. She draws parallels between the actions of crochet and the continual creation of matter. She articulates science and mathematics through the processes of making and "...investigates the relationship between the invisibly small and the unimaginably huge."

Experimenting with unusual materials such as fishing line, Louise's pieces grow painstakingly slowly, sometimes taking up to a year to finish. She uses film and photography to animate and experiment further with her work. Here's a fantastic film made during an installation project in collaboration with Jacob Whittaker, Loopholes shown in The Tannery, Machynlleth in 2009.

The Invisible Blanket is currently coming into being....

Nine Artists' Films

Jacob Whittaker - Tying Tone Arms - seen here

Tonight we went to see the screening of Nine Artists' Films at Theatr Mwldan in Cardigan, part of the 2010 Film Festival. Seven locally based artists, working with film showed a series of nine short films.

The show was really well attended and it's been a topic for conversation today. The filmmakers were invited onto the stage after the showing for a Q & A session with the audience, this really helped to give some context to the works.

Simon Whitehead's work Anemos was commissioned by the BBC. Sean Vicary's Sea of Glass was commissioned as a response to music in an audio-visual performance. Rueben Knutson made his film 1000 Days as the outcome of a residency in the haematology department of a hospital. Jacob Whittaker and Penny Jones' Taith Cranogwyn operated as a documentary. The other contributions were made as art films. One possibly needed this background to interpret the films in relation to each other; the different approaches made the dialogue between the selection a little problematic.

I am easily seduced by classy production, and in this vein I enjoyed Anemos, a visually rich film of a choreographed performance which personifies the element of the wind and the production of wind energy. The choreography was compelling and worked beautifully with the costume of grey-blue silk dress and coat, the rich lighting created narrative. Some of the small gestural hand movements in the piece were exquisite . Sean Vicary's Sea of Glass was similarly classy, a sophisticated stop motion piece animating out sized shells spinning against the Cardigan coastline.

My personal favourites were Jacob Whittaker's Three Vinyl which "...uses found (Hi-Fi and sound equipment) objects, and my aim is to use them, as much as is possible, in the state in which they are found. Basic repairs are made merely to achieve some sound, with any problems leading to their being discarded playing an important part of the composing process. With turntables (the artist) often intervenes further by tying the tone arm back in order to interrupt normal play. The work is then produced live without headphones or post-production, using randomly selected loops from often randomly selected records."

Of the three pieces I had seen Tying Tone Arms before, an aesthetically beautiful, slightly voyeuristic, nostalgic film of decks backed with the drones of stuck vinyl; cacophonous music that develops its own rhythms and tensions. The middle film Shaky uses a faulty record deck that shakes and shudders the needle across the vinyl making a bizarre visual effect as the tone arm vibrates alongside the boings, scratches and tremblings of the sound track. It has a peculiar tension and a curious sense of passive-aggression in the juddering malfunction of the machinery and the fate of the vinyl it reacts with.

I enjoyed Penny Jones' Rant, a silent short of the artist in various outfits and in various locations raging and ranting at the camera about unknown grievances. It is important to know that Penny is an older woman because it completely alters the contexts of the work. A young woman behaving in the same manner would convey completely different signifiers. It was uncomfortably comical and had resonances with the inflential Carmarthenshire filmmaker and photographer, Peter Finnemore.

Rowan O'Neill's Menyw a Ddaeth o Gatraeth / A Woman Came from Catterick had some lovely motifs within it, a nostalgic, symbol laden film utilising props and film techniques that took the piece into the realm of folk tale. "My Grandmother moved from the area close to Catterick in the mid 50s to settle in rural West Wales. In my Grandmother’s suitcase I keep the relics of a long forgotten strife…” Rowan references the militaristic contemporary and historic roots of Catterick with a repetitive sequence showing a soldier rhythmically cutting a huge pile of carrots with her Grandmother's kitchen knife - a beautiful but disturbing vignette.

Well done to Theatr Mwldan for the initiative, more please!


Left to right: Penny Jones, Jacob Whittaker, Simon Whitehead, Rueben Knutson, Sean Vicary, Ruth Jones, Rowan O'Neill

Synchronicity...

tactileBOSCH, Cardiff


tactileBOSCH, Cardiff

I had a synchronous moment at tactileBOSCH yesterday, you'll see what I mean when I post more about the work Jake and I will be showing in March at The Last Gallery...

The Last Gallery, Llangadog

The Last Gallery - Llangadog, west Wales

I visited The Last Gallery in Llangadog yesterday with friend and fellow artist, Jacob Whittaker. We are showing a joint project in March 2010 in the gallery (...watch this space for news!)

The gallery was originally a cobblers' shop (hence the name) and retains its delightful original features - a really beautiful little space. Artist, Julie Ann Sheridan and her husband, upholsterer Mick Sheridan own and run the space. Open at specified times in the year, some artworks are offered for sale, but the emphasis is on the experience of viewing art rather than looking to buy it. Since opening in 2007 there has been a consistently interesting programme of shows including Marcus Coates' film Dawn Chorus and Wales based artist Louise Bird's Hyperbolic Spiral Crochet.

Currently Julie is showing a series of her own miniature landscape paintings of the village of Llangadog.

Julie Ann Sheridan - Village View

Loopholes

Visited Machynlleth in mid Wales today to see a collaborative installation by crochet artist, Louise Bird and sound and film artist Jake Whittaker - Loopholes. It was installed into the Old Tannery, a semi derelict building next door to The Tabernacle (MOMA Wales) which is hosting temporary art pieces until building work begins to convert the space into an extension for the gallery.

The project was the result of an Arts Council of Wales development project to explore the connections and correlations between the artist's work. Louise's crochet incorporates ideas about science with traditional crochet techniques. She currently uses deep sea fishing line to make intensive, repetitive objects. Jake uses "...found objects, music, video, photography, performance, and interactive networks/processes to explore themes of memory, nostalgia, aesthetics and perception". Both artists use repetition as a theme.

The Old tannery is gloriously run down, a gently decaying space full of crumbly lime dust. It has three defined spaces. On entry you hear a monotonous, stuck record - a turntable on the floor with its arm tied playing looped vinyl from the local charity shop - Telyn Cymru/The Harp of Wales. Louise's "Iota" crocheted piece - 60 metres of fishing line punctuated by little rosettes of crochet connects to the turntable and then leads off to draw us into the rest of the exhibition.




Next, a darkened narrow space, a convex mirror with a spooky, green, swirling image of a crochet piece projected onto it. Mesmeric and slightly mandala like. Little disembodied hands pepper the image, sliding in and out of the frame, crocheting-crocheting-crocheting, constantly making. It's a lovely piece, and the droning from looping sound either side of the space accentuates the hypnotic quality.



In the last space Louise's huge Fabric of the Universe piece - a circular piece of fishing line crochet - is on the floor. Four old fashioned decks with tied tone arms are playing drones. Fascinating choices of vinyl - from BBC sound archive of bird song to Esme Lewis Productions disc of 'Dawnsiau'r Twmpath 2' by 'Band y Meillion'- all sourced in local charity shops. The old fashioned equipment roots the experience into a context of place and history. Projected on the wall is a close-up image of the transparent crochet on the floor. It blends serendipitously with the stone and lime wall behind to make a rippling, ephemeral texture.



The transparent but slightly scintillating nature of the fishing line expresses something profound about the process of making. The continual activity of the crochet...the constant creation of the universe - big/little - all the same activity. It has resonances of all those myths where women spin up reality, Arachne, the Norns et al.



I left buoyed by the sensitivity and gentle balance between the artists work, the subtle inhabitation the space, the skillfully understated aesthetic. Exquisite.



Find out more: Louise, Jake