Land Grab

I'm half way through Writing Urban Space, a Zero Books publication edited by Liam Murray Bell & Gavin Goodwin, which, as the cover-all tagline states is an exploration of "the relationship between imaginative writing and the built environment". It's a compilation of short, digestible chunks of essay texts, that meanders gently through the subject matter, until I got to Can Writing Shape Place? by Sarah Butler, writer and director of UrbanWords - a consultancy setup "to explore how writing and writers might intersect with the process of regeneration". Oh dear.

Whilst Butler tries to allay my fears around the use of terms like consultancy and regeneration, I'm not convinced. It all feels like a physical and metaphysical "land grab". The property developer/ council/ regeneration agents has the monopoly on the physical land and it's planned architectural development with artists/ writers subcontracted (through a consultancy agency) to lay claim to the more ephemeral spaces that occupy the soon-to-be-developed site. In the case of this short essay, Butler's projects are "participatory, community-based projects, which look to explore, unpick and articulate communities' relationships to their environment." Oh my.

I'm perhaps coming down too hard on this idea of a consultancy/ agent working with communities to help articulate their sense of a place/ space through writing or any other creative forms, as this is something artists are often parachuted in to do. However, it is the motivations of those retaining the consultancy's services that I question and their ability to "harvest" the creative outputs of a community for their own gains. The allusion of "control" extended to those within a community in such a situation, again, unsettles me greatly - "We're knocking down your town centre, but as you've indicated you'd "have a café with huge sofas and bottomless coffee pots..." therefore we'll lease the new prefab to Starbucks". Butler certainly wants to challenge the artists being "'used' as a tool"in these circumstances but the examples given in this very short text completely undermines the conclusion that the artists' role is anymore than that of 'tool' (both as instrument and person).

Despite appearances to the contrary this entry is not a 'cheap shot', as Butler's essay has raised a lot of interesting considerations when dealing with place/ space. Specifically around the term 'ownership' (and similar terms like authorship, control, etc.) and the simultaneously empowering and powerless act of reigning over conceptual place. Perhaps we can define these places/ spaces as 'property', aligning the terminology more closely with terms used in Andrea Phillip's essay Art and Housing: The Private Connection (in ArtSocial Housing-Housing the Social: Art, Property and Spatial Justice, 2012). This allows us to draw out the sense of ownership or implied ownership aspired to by unsuspecting Community D who sees Artist C descend on them with creative writing groups, drawing sessions and all other manner of conceptually camouflaged psychoanalysis employed as a control and feedback mechanism for Consultancy B under the employ/ instruction of Property Developer A - I imply a linear hierarchy starting at A moving through to D in order to highlight possible power structures inherent in such relationships.

My thoughts have dried up, so until I've mulled over it a little more I'll end this post here.

The Dreaded New Years Blog Entry

So, I've put off long enough, it's time for my gargantuan post-Christmas Break/ New Year blog update. As you would imagine, a lot has happened in the (almost) month I've been back at university. I have been working, just not blogging, and as a result getting into a self-destructive cycle of daily accumulating more blog-worthy information but still putting off actually blogging it. The ironic thing is, I do find blogging useful, as it charts my thought process during Masters, but like that coffee (or tea in my case) you were meant to have with that old friend, you can so easily put it off - "I know we were supposed to meet up but...": "I have a hand-in due"; "I've got to go to the moon"; etc. There's no excuse, so here we are, updating my blog, which is a step towards actually meeting up for that cup of tea.

Ok, so now we're back on track, I will try and give as brief a possible overview I've undertaken since the last post, and where my practice is going.

St. Bride's and Magnificent Modernism

The modelling of St. Bride's coming along nicely, albeit slower than I would like. I'm spending time trying to capture the sculptural details which were (in my opinion) of critical importance to Gillespie, Kidd & Coia's visual language they developed for what I like to call The New Catholic Church. I'm moving towards projection tests of the model by the end of the month, which give me a feel for how I want to take the concept of Virtual Modernism forward. The delay has primarily been caused by a new focus of work I intend to undertake this semester, in short, the understanding of the modern social interactions present day users have with modernist structures.

Space Syntax

One thing my previous work lacked, was the social impact of modernist buildings on those who used them (who I will rather cleverly refer to as "users"). This was in part due to my regard of the social issues surrounding modernism giving birth to the stigmatism that often surrounds the movement, but it also was not knowing how to address the sticky goo that is human interaction with space. Space syntax may provide the answer to my woes. Understanding how a space is currently used, will allow me to compare and contrast the architects vision against the reality. Obviously the modernist utopia did not come to fruition, but there are still tangible ideas within modernist spaces that are often overlooked when the movement is shrugged off as a "failure".

I'm still in my very early days of research into space syntax, but I have been afforded the opportunity of a placement on the SerenA Project, based in the VRC, at Dundee Contemporary Arts. In effect I intend to use the DCA as test-bed for the theories of space syntax, and attempt to visual the outcomes in a conceptual manner. Like with St. Bride's, I intend to create a work that enters into a conversation with the viewer. In the case of the DCA, the viewer of any outcome may also be the user of the space, and as such the connection between the work and viewer becomes more profound.

Space syntax is a very well research area, and I'm not attempting to bring new theory, but instead, at the very least, enhance the visualisation possibilities of current space syntax visualisation. I would like to marry the ideas formulated from my concept of Virtual Modernism, and perhaps use more immersive installation based work to present space syntax data.

I'm equally fortunate (through involvement with SerenA) to have the opportunity to interact with Space Group, University College London (a leading voice in space syntax theory), who will no doubt will have a profound impact on my own artistic practice.

Now, I'm back on the blogging band wagon I intend more frequent updates with a greater focus on specifics. Right now, this is a general overview of where I am, and where I am going. No doubt over the coming weeks I will back-reference anything I've missed, and expand on anything I've not made clear.