Observation 5.

Invisible Presence.




Searching for the visual of an invisible force. The draft of a blueprint. Or an imprint of an environmental force impossible to capture and carry.

This observation continues on from Observation 3.

Observation 4.

Absence.






Alone in the studios, it became increasingly apparent how absence is present. No people; does art happen without people, without a presence. Absence has made room for a reconfigured presence. Absence has created a new environment.

I found myself noticing the effects of absence. The darkened spaces, the absence of light, the inanimate objects left as insignificant objects, and the decay of the world. While my perception of absence is completely compromised by my presence, it makes me wonder then what really is absence? Must it be specified? Illustrated? Pondered upon? Or is it felt? How does absence exist? Is my experience of absence the experience of dulled or absent senses, or simply the understanding of the circumstance I experience while noticing the absence of a particular factor within a space?

In the absence of our presence, new composition is found. How is it possible to understand these spaces fully, when we are only privy to their intimacies while we are effectively changing them with our presence. What mood do they become without us, and what significance does a presence make.

Observation 3.

Works by Kári.



Kári is Icelandic for wind, and the word is personified.
Without touching the paper, I threw ink into the wind, the fierce Kári carried the ink to the paper and made it's marks.
He ripped one page.
It was the search for an influence, or an imprint of that influence of an ephemeral and invisible force.

Observation 2.

Our windows have been covered in snow and ice for days on end... this experiment with melting and freezing, fluidity and colour, water moving through snow and the effect of ephemeral intervention is continually changing in our kitchen window.

The most interesting parts are where the ice and snow take on it's own initiative with the colour and you see it intertwined in tiny frozen icicles, or the colour being soaked in and moved around, or the light from outside shining through to give a glow and colour depth that changes with the sky. The snow sometimes melted away with the colour and left coloured ice formations in it's place that reflect light and change with the weather conditions also. The pockets of coloured water held underneath the ice hold their fluidity and you can see them moving sometimes. It will be interesting to see how the weather moves the work and changes the window over the coming days.

Observation 1.

Observation of ephemeral drawing and interactions with wind and snow. I used ink and paper to observe the environment and the evidence of presence or marks. The act and paper was not the objective or finished work, but the evidence left behind after the paper had blown from it's position to leave traces. The lines and colours in the snow were what I enjoyed seeing once the paper had left.

Of course it no longer exists. The snow on the paper changed the remaining ink markings on the paper before they blew away. I collected them as after the fact art-i-facts.

30 observations

This is me. Very cold. Thrashed by wind daily in Iceland.

This is my blog. It is an extension of my blog SPATIAL MUSE and documents the 30 observations project: I have decided to record the 30 experiments or observations. I am starting this now, in January/February 2011, while I'm at Nes Listamidstod Artist Residency in Skagaströnd, Iceland.

Some days, like today (i.e snowstorm), the weather will greatly influence what I can and can't do. So the following month here will also be an experiment in existing in a different environment and how I can use that environment in my experiments. I will be intervening with the weather when I can to accentuate natural forces or to see things differently; recording ephemeral or invisible factors in the world. Making something that is invisible, visible. A kind of spatial inquisition.