me dad is currently making new cattle barriers for over wintering of said cattle and he has done this drawing to plan them
its a thought proccess, a great thing and a representation of the finished barriers
I just wondered about this in reference to steves third breakfast.
Also was wondering about how when we play, imaginative games, make believe stuff in the fields or where ever,
we use what ever is around to represent what we need.For example a bent over twisted opened up willow tree in the field opposite our yard , was for days over a summer a house we climbed in it had a bed , a table and all the other stuff we needed, twigs were knives and forks and grass our food. It grew out of our heads, we built imaginatively in response to dwelling

the third breakfast

So spent the day making and discussing breakfast with Barney. It was all very philosophical we discussed the nature of reality a lot but this was underpinned by lots of practical stuff about making. I recorded our conversations which sound vaguely ironic as if we couldn't take ourselves seriously enough but this somehow allowed us to be very serious. I have 4 hours of sound which I'm thinking of getting transcribed. I suggested that we were the only people at that point in time trying to cast a Hyper real English breakfast at which point Barney put a plate on his head and said he could guarantee that we were the only people casting an English breakfast with one person with a plate on his head. He then told me a story about his dad putting a realistic plastic chicken on his head and telling him that at that moment he was the only person in the world with a synthetic chicken on his head (I think his dad should of stood on one leg just to be on the safe side) so it was deep man and it was good to make breakfast and discuss the archetypal sausage and cast an egg and start to grow a thing and see it change and realise that I need to cast the plate and worry about the third breakfast -
draft
by Steve
08:47:00

well this was my photo in response to the image we chose from the archive, although i was planning a trip to get another tommorow , but for now this is it, i went to Burghley House at the weekend and these were in the shop, a memento of a stately home like the first reproduced image which is of gawthorpe leeds. I have been thinking lots about the landscape and how we represent it and what that means and does, .........

Phone link Exhibition

As this blog has just got a bit more public I thought I should stop writing in such a coded way so I'm going to explain a strand of the work at Artemis. Me and Kate felt a bit sad that lots of the paintings in the picture store never get out. This is because of loads of issues around hanging and PFI schools and stuff like that. When I first started going into schools and saw the kids doing work around Lowery, Wharhole or Kandinsky I thought this was great as they are all great artists and their work provides fantastic starting points. 8 years later I realised that schools actually only do work around these three artists and consequently their status is raised to amazing heights - the only three artist who ever lived. Anyway there is some great stuff stacked in the racking at Artemis and we thought it would be good to get some of it up on the wall at Westpark.

We had an idea to link pictures to the outside world by taking pictures on our mobile phones - quite random things inspired by a motif or colour or idea - this picture would then link to our next selected picture which would send us back out into the world to find the next link. We decided that the show should have no written interpretation and we would print our phone pictures up phone size and have them hung between the pictures. This idea came quickly and was easy and we didn't argue about it and it evolved from both of us - just like when we work on a joint community or education project - it is a collaboration and may need tweaking here and there but is strong clean and doable. This is interesting for the project as it demonstrates another way of working for us and helps us to reflect on the personal and the shared.

Anyway the first picture was chosen as it reminded me of Kates dissertation I'd just read about growing the countryside and it was about imposing order - which is what we do. My phone picture is from a Map found in the house of a friend who is a dry stone Waller the bit in read is the section he is repairing next week - it made me think about maps and the way we can interact with the landscape.

Drip Catcher

Found this in the gents at a conference it's a drip catcher made from a water bottle chopped in half - funnel and drip tray combined - big enough for water to evaporate so ne need to empty allowing it to remain fixed - TOPS

resonances and echoes

Just talked to Steve and realised how all of us are theorising what surrounds the objects, the resonances and echoes, whether they are with or without provenance. Their aura is what we are looking at. Perhaps we should make this the focus for our proposal for the Boston event?
here are some quotes to get you thinking:
…

I could mention the chapter of 'Mimesis' entitled, “The Brown Stocking” in which Eric Auerbach (1953) evokes a passage of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, and the representations or, better, the repercussions that a minor external event triggers in Mrs Ramsay's consciousness. This event, trying on a stocking, is but a point of departure which, though it is not wholly fortuitous, takes value only through the indirect reactions it sets off. One sees well, in this case, that knowledge of stimuli does not enable us to understand much of the resonances and echoes they elicit unless one has some of the idea of the habitus that selects and amplifies them with the whole history with which it is itself pregnant.’

(Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 124)

Basically what this means is that we need to understand the way of being and doing in the world, the habitus, in order to understand the object and its reactions.
Habitus is a set of structuring structures, it is the way you live your life in a house. Objects and their meanings are all subject to the logic of the habitus.

I read the concept of habitus as a heuristic, as a point of departure and reflection. In The Practice of Everyday Life de Certeau’s argued that habitus is a metaphoric chimera, a dwelling pace (like Kate's dwelling) which nevertheless, is generative of research (de Certeau 1984).
Anyway, what do you think?

here is the draft proposal as it stands:

How do objects get transformed by narratives and how do they become divested of narratives? This presentation will interrogate what we call ‘the systems around the object’ drawing on a year-long research project, funded by the Arts Council UK, involving 2 artists and 2 researchers, and a collection of artefacts for schools in Leeds. It aims to develop theory around how objects can sit within systems, stories and places. Drawing on auto-ethnographic discussion about the relationship between artefacts and their context, this paper seeks to uncover and unsettle this relationship. In particular it will ask the following questions:
How do objects move in meaning, or move from function to meaning?
Does it matter if an object has no provenance?
What happens if there is a narrative and no object (the case of the disappearing object)
Are objects merely taking their menaing from their form and function or do they acquire new identities as new resonsances and echoes take hold of them?
What does everyone think?

floaters

Was thinking about Steves writing / ideas and was going to comment in the comment section, but then it got too long.
i have also found the objects difficult in the collection, partly because im not connected to them, in a dwelling sense [ so will spend more time there] and also because of the lack of provinence. Part of me wants to stop them floating, but im also interested in how ive come to try and get them to be more than "just stuff" [raymond delivery mans quote. He is right they are just stuff serving a function as objects -thats it, i wonder is that interesting to make work about]. I want to fix them, or is it value them more? I feel i have tried to do this to some by finding out the artemis peoples favourite and why. Which gives them gives them a kinda provinence if only from their artemis lives.
In terms of becoming pseudo scientists, im not sure, how can we seperate out or disregard the emotional response? This is central to how i work, intuitive connections, like the fraction apple story. If not it becomes like the idea of pretend collecting at leeds fest -horrid and not authentic.
I collect stuff to remember my moment, an act of continuity. But also to remember someone elses moment, skills etc. But also they might be usefull.

These apples are in the artemiss collection. I decided after yesterday that I've not really looked or interacted with the stuff in the collection its more the idea of the stuff being there rather than what it is- it's meta -stuff. So if I deconstruct my thinking and feelings about objects as becomings perhaps all the objects in the Artemiss collection are lost as they have no recorded provinence - perhaps this is what Benjamin means bv ritual. When we scored the stuff on the aura pro-forma it seemed to be about the point where the object meets the self the moment of interaction the material and the mental or as me and Kate now call it in honour of plane language the thoughts and the stuff. I spent many nights cutting up apples to try and teach my daughter about fractions. I once cut an apple into 56 equal pieces these apples have more aura for me because they remind me of this so I give them more value - do we have to make ourselves into psudo scietist and disregard the emotional or is this work about plotting the space between the personal and the outside. The inner and outer spaces and our relationship to the physical world through physical stuff. I collect stuff which I think may come in handy in the hope this will make me usefull.

sticks for moving cows

hello , i have just returned from leeds and a day with steve, which was good, we discussed many things and looked at aura scoring, which made me glad i dont do science and stats and maths properly and all the time. Although in a doing it under the guise of a "bit of what you fancy" as steve and i have now unoffically called the project, it seems ok. I really enjoyed thinking and talking about this and feel that its helped me, although i cant tell you how just yet, as i cant put it into words.
Steve accused me of being cagey of talking about my work -which is not true, i think, more its a case of not quite knowing how to say it, and also until its further on than it is at the moment, i cant tell you.
What i am trying to do though is listen properly when steve is talking about his work, think and then respond , but maybe not at that moment but later, on here or wherever. I like to listen to others this helps alot in my thinking, although i realise it could mean i do alot of listening and not much saying, so i have to watch for that.
But anyway i have put up a new photo. I was reading the blog and realised kate and steve had said what they like and are interested in regard to objects so i thought i would say what i am interested in; both in a non cagey and a this is my thing kinda way. so here goes - i like objects where the narrative does not drive the object. Where the meaning , form , function, are all equal, nothing is more important than the other. Which allows for the viewer to place his thing on it and read / take whatever. Which then is kinda what kate was saying about it being just stuff. Although obvioulsy i make a selection and put together a collection so i do manipulate this also. Its also in the ambiguity, the potential, the possibleness that the object offers through the three fold form, function, meaning being equal together. i also like the ingenious objects that have grown out of a implicated relationship, out of dwelling. i could go on but maybe for another time.

Also currently still thinking about measuring and man as measure. although got to get my head around him not being the dominant elemant in the relationship to the outcome of his measuring, so in fact its an implicated act blaaaaaaaaaaaaaah....................stopping .

wheel barrow

Tim wants a wheelbarrow. at leeds fest people dragged their belongings around on blankets they were like wheeless wheelbarrows or perhaps just barrows. Done a lot of thinking over the past few days mostly about images and objects and I keep going back to an earlier idea about strippping away physical context and provenance. I am going to spend next week experimenting and try and produce something with the leeds fest stuff for discussion next week.

Our Blog

Just looked back over the Blog and really like it. I have had a day clearing out all my shelves and emptying files of long dead projects. It sort of makes you feel happy to be rid of the junk but sad that you made such a good job of recording every aspect of everything because at some point someone suggested doing a case study but really all they wanted was a couple of soundbites saying how the arts had changed their lives and how everybody had really enjoyed it.

Anyway can't afford to be cynical so early in the year. I'm on the brink of deciding to revise my sausage egg chips and beans to a full English breakfast. this is triggered partly by the fact that Barney suggests we will have to cast individual beans but mainly by the idea of a full English breakfast been a thing people only eat in artificial situations like hotels or greasy spoons also it's the only breakfast which you can get "All Day" which is so directly link to breakfast as a meal that it can't become lunch or tea - the medium is the message it's a signifier which is not changed by temperol shift even late night after eight pints a breakfast bap from greasy vera's still remains breakfast. Actually I think it was about 4 am when I ate that so I suppose it was breakfast. So an iconic meal for an icon plus the fact it will be much easier to make which links to what I was saying about actually having to make something and when your directly involved in the materialisation of the materiality the judgements you make are affected by a different set of value choices.

Following on from

Kate's father's wheelbarrow, here is my grandfather's wheelbarrow.
He must have made it in the 1950's, and he painted it marroon which was his colour for everything he made.
I am interested in Kate's post about objects being 'the thing itself, just stuff' but am puzzled as to how she removes the stories from the artefacts.