Southside Happenings

Been searching for possible studio spaces in Glasgow and came across the Southside Studios which is a few minutes' walk from my flat. Checked it out recently and while they didn't presently have any available spaces (shame would have been perfect) they mentioned another place not far which I will be popping by to have a look at soon. Generally I'd say the average cost of studio spaces in Glasgow vary between £100-200. There are a variety of studio spaces around but there are also a variety of artists around too which along with cost make it more difficult to find and afford one. While I definitely am pinning for a studio space to have as a place to practice I have been considering how to go about continuing to be a practicing artist while I have no such place by simply shifting my attention to the possible exhibitions spaces being that very space to play and experiment in. Those empty shops and buildings laying vacant everywhere could be such useful extensions or replacements of the studio. There is a piece in the the booklet 'What is Installation art?' mentions the displacement of the studio in installation art practices among other things.

There are definite pros and cons but I guess whats first and foremost to any of this is actually having something you want to make in the space or use the space for but by not having a conventional artist studio you could put yourself at risk of leaving the critical grounding of your practice the conventional studio pertain. Although should we not be at a point where we should always have that critical edge ingrained into our very beings by now so that we can push forward our practices, tackle those risks, whether it be away and without the confines of a conventional studio?

What this post was originally meant to be about before I went on a ramble was a link to the Southside Happenings blog which shows whats 'happening' in the southside of Glasgow. Along with the Studio spaces, cheaper accommodation available in the area and good transport links this might just be me pushing the claim of the southside on all you would be movers and shakers when the time comes :) maybe

Kit

What is Installation Art?

Hi all,

Came across the cover of this in an installation in the CCA and upon further investigation discovered a pdf version of the booklet here think its quite a short but insightful and might be of interest to some of us.

Kit

David Dale Gallery

Hi all,

I heard about this place recently. Might try and pop over to it soon

http://www.daviddalegallery.co.uk/about/

Kit

Interesting....

http://www.designforums.co.uk/introductions/8521-free-design-space.html

Jen

Manifest 7; FAILURE

The 7th edition of the non-digital non-annual artists’ ‘zine Manifesto is soon going to print and is looking for submissions of new artwork. Please feel free to contribute.

This issue will explore concepts of failure and it’s various guises, whether that be dissatisfaction, disillusionment, difference, doubt, error, embarrassment, experiment, expectation, irony, idealism, ignorance, incompetence, incompletion, progress, repetition, rejection, regression, resistance, resignation, or tragedy. Failure is a state which is avoided with the utmost effort, despite the fact that it is unavoidable and ever present. We think failure as a negative, an opposite to success, yet when failure occurs it instigates far more thought, reflection and investigation of its causes, than does success. When we encounter failure, we should not stifle it or ignore it, but revel in it, and understand its motifs. Through an investigation of failure, we can open up possibilities for questioning and understanding the assumptions, structures and limits that shape the world.

Requirements of work: Size A5, non-digital work, preferably black and white print or photocopy. Work should deal with the concept of failure, on any level, in any walk of life. Other than this, do what you want.

Deadline for Submissions: Monday 22nd of August

Please send all submission to:

Michael Davis

Flat 2/1

49 Thornwood Avenue

Glasgow

G11 7PU

Mainfesto is produced as a photocopied, folded and stapled A4 booklet (Portrait) - each page/side is A5 and will normally be printed in black and white. Keep this in mind when sending work. We would prefer one page/side for each person’s work, but spreads across two sides might be accepted if the work really demands it.

Original works of art will not be returned, so unless you don’t want them back please send photocopies or duplicates.

Don’t forget to include your name, contact details and ideally SAE envelope for your copy of Manifesto 7 (You can sign date and title your work if you really want too.)

If you would like to see the back catalogue of Manifesto magazine please visit http://sam-smith.org.uk and find it under 'ZINE

Further Reading:

All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Samuel Becket (1983) Worstward Ho

.....

Failure, by definition, takes us beyond assumptions and what we think we know. Artists have long turned their attention to the unrealizability of the quest for perfection, or the open-endedness of experiment, using both dissatisfaction and error as a means to rethink our place in the world. The inevitable gap between the intention and realization of an artwork makes failure impossible to avoid. [...]  Who has the right to claim the wrongness of an image? What does it matter if a tree sprouts out of a head? This is the turning away from the authority of what is deemed to be right. Assumptions are where attention starts to waver: we can sometimes only become truly attentive when something is indeed wrong. [...] Embarrassment is a natural response to failure: you want to disappear when it happens, when the world looks at you and judges you for failing. What though, if being embarrassed is not so bad after all? We all embarrass ourselves frequently, yet it is fear of the judgement of our failures that endures.

Lisa Le Feuvre (2010) Failure; Documents of Contemporary Art

.....

In irony, since everything is shown as vanity, the subject becomes free. The more vain everything becomes, all the lighter, emptier, and volatilized the subject becomes. And while everything is in the process of becoming vanity, the ironic subject does not become vain in his own eyes but rescues his own vanity. For irony, everything becomes nothing, but nothing can be taken in several ways.

Soren Kierkegaard (1841) Concepts of Irony

.....

Rejecting completion in favour of a redeemed form of anti-climax or deferral, the endless ‘fail and repeat’ loop proposed within the myth of Sisyphus can be seen as a way to privilege the indeterminate or latent potential of being not-yet-there above the finality of closure. The rule or instruction can easily become the rules of the game, a generative device for creating infinitely repeatable permutations and rehearsals within a given structure of self-imposed situation, or the impetus through which to test or push the limits of a given situation in order that the rules might become malleable and redefined. In this context the Sisyphean notion of an unresolved, incomplete or endless action - or of a failed, thwarted or reiterated gesture - can be understood as a form of inexhaustible performance, a task without telos or destination which assuages the need to perform whilst deferring the arrival of any specific goal or outcome.

Emma Cocker (2010) Over and Over, Again and Again

.....

4.003   Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical. Consequently we cannot give any answer to questions of this kind, but can only point out that they are nonsensical. Most of the propositions and questions of philosophers arise from our failure to understand the logic of our language.

(They belong to the same class as the question whether the good is more or less identical than the beautiful.)

And it is not surprising that the deepest problems are in fact not problems at all.

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1921) Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

.....

                  sPirit of

   him for onE

        corporaTions

                arE

             failuRe

                   Know-how of

                 aRe

                idOls will

         free rePublic

       each thrOugh

                   Them in

              maKe

                   I to me

                 aNarchism

John Cage (1988) Anarchy, Poem 1

IDEA

Recent work that I have been toying with over the past couple of weeks has led me to create this. Would be interesting to know what the groups view on it is. It was actually an idea had just to fill the time it took for one of my signs to dry so I wasn't expecting to create anything worthwhile but as it turns out I find that this to be exciting and has more mileage than the most of the "proper" work that I have been making. It is very simple and literal but I like that quality recently it seems that I have to force myself into making 'real' work which has resulted in my work becoming very laboured. So any idea or feedback on how to take the work further or artists to look at would be much appreciated.

Craig

Glasgow Open School

Hi all,


Ciara very kindly sent me a link to the Glasgow Open School recently and I thought I'd pop it up on here. Its a "set of tools for the collective investigation" and it is quite what it says it is... open. You can add your own content through editable documents and statements onto the site or look at what others have done as well. You can also put up events/moments. With the current changes taking place in the high education funding and fees and the way that fine art courses seem to slowly be being strangled by the bureaucracy of the university systems, I think there's also something quite pertinent and radical with it being termed a school. Have a look and say what you think.


http://www.glasgowopenschool.com/


Kit