Part one
Notes and
thoughts in two parts from interactions with Edgar Schmitz’s Hubs and Fictions, A touring forum on
Current Art and Imported remoteness, curated by Sophia Hao which traveled from the Cooper Gallery Dundee, to Baltic Center for Contemporary Art,
Newcastle terminating in Goldsmiths, London.
“Sited. Orchestrated.
Experienced.
Performed. Remote.
a choreography.
Props. Stand-ins. Cameos.” [1]
Throw words at
a wall, and see which sticks, it seems this is often how we learn, how we build
our narratives and points of view. This tool was often the prompt we were
given, in English class at school, as a starting point for creative writing. It
is meant to give us agency, and often gives
so much, without the usual framework, the paragraph around the word gives,
we are left confused, disorientated, and so go off in our own terrible and wonderful tangents as we ourselves build a narrative of understanding into something or nothing.
I have been
asked on many occasions during the course of facilitating for these events,
what is the exhibition about? What is the point? It’s all a bit vague isn’t it? These
questions I regularly found difficult to answer, so without a hard fast
manifesto attached to the work, I would revert to my own narrative of connections.
Drawing on my own points of interest which I read from the work; such as how we engage with art, art and reality, art and knowledge, the process of exhibition
making, the processes of thoughts leading to an artwork and the numerous collaborations which this
entails - collaboration that contentious word.
This idea of
a semi fictional hub, as discussed during the forums, was never at the
forefront of my mind while describing this event, although asserted as being
the central concern – one of the few assertions. However I found this to be most
interesting in the work. In Hubs and Fictions, we see the often intangibility
of an artwork which sets your mind off in your own direction of interest, only
to bring you around again to form new conclusions. Or not if you so choose. So
I began thinking about fictional hubs, or hubs in general. What is an artistic
hub? A cultural hub? About how contemporary art for good or for ill, connects
those who are geographically remote, in smaller spheres of the art world with
those in the massive - within global and personal scales.
Tom Morton:
Contributing
Editor of Frieze magazine works include 'Man in the Holocene' with Catherine Patha
Girl:“She’s pretty”
Boy:“You think?”
‘Tom Morton
– Cubitt Gallery ¬ Junction:
North London
Cultural Consortium
Walks around
rings cross’
‘London
is now a truly international city, home
to a global array of artists and curators who effortlessly draw on modes,
styles, technology and influences from across continents in the creation and
“the beat of destiny yeeaaah”
mumble mumble mumble mumble mumble
mumble
click click BANG
presentation
of art.’
London in 6 easy steps.
“Do you want to buy some....I’m not from around here you
know?”
“Got any spare change?”
“Want to buy a phone?”
...shifting
relations that make up the city from their particular perspective’ [2]
Then of
course there are those sphere’s in which we inhabit, in which we dwell, those
which we draw from in order to make. Our personal social structures, our
environment, our lives – fictitious futures
and memories.
A cultural hub is a
fictional thing. Something decided to be by a group of people, believe yourself
to be something, convince others and then it will be so - Always subjective and
liable to flux. Hubs move, evolve and change, go bust and so emigrate elsewhere.
It is the infrastructure which enables a hub to develop. Intellectual and
monetary - it is a nomadic thing, always interchangeable.
So
is there the potential within art to imagine the sphere in which you produce as
a component of a larger cultural hub, and utilise that, though you may be
geographically removed from a supposed physical hub. In doing so do you create
a new hub in your own sphere? Or equally does this mean within your
own modes of working, where people meet and communicate, either with or without
a particular physical area around them, become a Hub – a facilitator for the
production of work.
Is a hub a place where work is produced? This suggests the Hub as a place, and the cause of the production of work. The term Hub is frequently used in a technical sense to describe a device that connects a computer to the internet, or a computer to another computer. Connecting the remote - therefore borrowing this definition you could suppose that remoteness is an inherent component for the function and maybe a constant re-invigoration of a supposed Hub.
A hub
- a device for complex remote connections.
Title note; taken from comments made by Edgar Schmitz, Hubs and Fictions Forum, Goldsmiths, London 06/12/2012.
[1] Edgar Schmitz: List of adjectives
often used by Schmitz in describing Surplus Cameo Decor and Hubs and Fictions; final Hubs and
Fictions Forum, Goldsmiths, London, 06/12/2012.
[2] Research notes made in preparation
for the forum Hubs and Fictions, in Leyton Library London. Points of speech made by others using the
library, which interrupted the writers train of thought are indicated in blue.
A former MFA student at DJCAD, Sinéad Bligh is an artist currently based in London. https://twitter.com/SineadBligh
