Fig 1. The Practice Exchange 6 - Practice Makes Practice
In attendance: Elisa Alaluusua, Marsha Bradfield, Robert Luzar, Aaron McPeake, Ana Laura Lopez de la Torre, Angela Hodgson, Sam Burford, Ian Brown, Kimathi Donkor.
Apologies: Scott Schwager, Ken Wilder.
Presentation by Elisa Aalusa: Sketchbooks
Elisa introduced her presentation with an interactive activity, when we were handed some anonymous sketchbooks and provocatively asked to decided which ones were “good” and which “bad”. This prompted a discussion on the motivations and uses of sketchbooks, that set the tone for Elisa to move on to present her work / research using video interviews with professional artists who use sketchbooks as an important element in their practice, comparatively with observation of art students sketchbooks. From these, she makes drawings that gradually evolve from visual compositions copied from the original sketchbooks sources, to more autonomous drawings focused on mark making.
Fig 2. Elisa Alaluusua, Robert Luzar, Angela Hodgson and Marsha Bradfield.
Fig 3. Notes on "good and bad" sketchbooks.These are the key points arising from Elisa presentation and the discussion:
Practice as repetitive, as iterative, doing and doing and doing again. In this iterative process there is a tension between repeating (or copying) what was previously thought of as successful whist at the same time deviating from it, and following through by navigating what “feels right” and what doesn’t.
How do we judge practice? How much information do we need about the context in which the wider practice takes place, to be able to make value judgments on the quality of individual art works. What kind of frameworks do we bring to bear when we attempt to judge practice? Practice is entangled in hierarchies of production and reception. In production, there is a sense that some aspects of practice - some media or formats - especially those associated with process might command less attention than others. At reception point, to what extent the status of the artist – as student, professional, amateur – conditions the way we might read and interpret the outcomes of the practice.
Practice as aspirational, with artists articulating their desired position in the art landscape through literal and implied links to other artists’ practices.
Practice as responding to institutional demands or expectations. To what extent do art institutions determine the form our practice takes? Whilst in art school students are clearly instructed to practice in a variety of ways and assessed on their ability to do so, can we honestly say that so-called professional artists are any less “instructed” by the institutions of art needs and their demands – from the auction house to the public commissioning body? A hypothetical scenario: If the art world disappeared overnight, what kind of work will you be doing tomorrow?
Practice as embodiment. As an artist, where are you in the work? What are the marks or traces of your body and / or your subjectivity? Does it operate through absence or presence?
A Workshop on Practice – Part One
At TPE 5, our previous session at the BFI – see notes in blog – someone in the audience made the point that despite its supposed focus on practice, there seemed to be a lot of talk about research. This is an issue that we as facilitators of TPE, had discussed many times at our post-seminars debrief meetings. How could we maintain the focus on discussing practice, when the very nature of being engaged in practice-based research prompted us all the time to think “research”.
We also realised that there was another obstacle to talk about practice that perhaps had to do with the difficulty to articulate what practice means, both in a general sense, and in the particular instances of our own work. We were keen to take on this challenge, and decided to use one half of the next TPE to do a workshop on “practice”.
These are the summary the notes. We are hoping to do a follow up workshop at a later date in the academic year, to dig a little big dipper into our ideas on practice. Many thanks to everyone that took part in the workshop and contributed their ideas, questions and insights.
Fig 4. Verbs of practice.Exercise 1: Write up three verbs that define or describe your practice. Stick them up on the wall next to each others' list. Read them aloud to the group.
Drawing / Writing / Talking
Observe / Compose / Engaging
Talking / Editing / Emailing
Oscillating / Modelling / Provoking
Falling / Pointing / Smudging
Looking / Talking / Listening
Draw/ Ponder / Struggle
Materialising / Transforming / Reflecting
Writing / Mark-making / Walking
Thinking / Discussing / Living
Casting / Filming / Installing
Thinking / Printing / Discarding
Fig 5. Sam Burford and Elisa Alaluusua introducing their practice to each other.Exercise 2: In pairs, introduce your practice to your partner, taking no longer than 4 minutes each. Then present your partner’s practice to the group.
Points raised:
- Practice is bigger than yourself, how can you define it and what is the point, especially if we are not sure what is it that we are doing (transition moments, moments of confusion).
- Scope of practice. Practice involves a wider understanding of art making that also contains the context. Could we perhaps be able to define practice by “talking around” it?
- Social realism. We are accountable to others, to “the public” and part of this, is to define and articulate the intentions of our practice. Who is the audience for our attempts to define or articulate notions of practice?
- To arrive at a definition of practice can be terrifying, it can feel like fixing it. Accepting the fact that it is an ongoing process, that you need to articulate and re-articulate your “statement of practice” continuously. Looking at the history of our “statements of practice” can reveal how much we have moved on, but also what is the sediment. It is easier to practice, than to “declare practice”. This seems to be related to the fixedness of language.
Fig 6. How can we begin to define practice?Exercise 3: Have a go and try to write in a sentence a general definition of practice.
Here are some of the suggestions:
- A singular model and way(s) of working.
- Practice is a way of working that elucidates and manages meaning and causation in a contained environment.
- Embodied thinking in the hope of response.
- Practice is a range of activities, including thought, that you use to create meaning.
- Doing stuff in order to reflect one’s interest which also provides for the opportunity to escape from one’s interests.
- A process that produces.
- Stuff you do: it’s a verb thing, active, ongoing, changing, processing, organising, in effect more than just a sentence.
- Practice is the work we do, considered in its context.
The date for Part 2 of the workshop will be announced in due course. If you would like to be invited, please email us at thepracticeexchange@gmail.com
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