The raw and the cooked exhibition

Elle

Ashvini (sorry if I spelt it wrong)

Georgie

Michaela

Lachlan

Rosie

Hayley

Reuben

Alex

Becky

Verena

Tenille

KK

Sally

Amy

Chris

Mr G

Group of hot artists

I have to say that I am so sorry to Imogen as I didn't get your work's photo. I thought that I had. Could you upload it?

Cheers, Hales

Art & Nature and Technology Review

WIM DELVOYE

Win Delvoye is a Belgian artist whose elaborate artworks exhibit a wicked sense of humour. Delvoye’s Cloaca artworks are relevant to the field of Art & Nature and Technology, in that they are essentially machines that exhibit human characteristics (Heartney, 2008). Cloaca is a valid manifestation of Heartney’s bio art with the artworks exhibiting a collision of technology, which is demonstrated by the machines, and nature, which is illustrated with the human characteristic of digestion. Cloaca is a gigantic machine that performs one human, bodily function, that when confronted, the viewer can shockingly, identify with. Cloaca challenges the modern condition of uncertainty, concerning “where human life begins and ends” (Cameron, 2008).

Visually, Cloaca is an assembly line of machines and computers that resemble a scientist’s laboratory. At one end is an opening that is fed prepared, gourmet meals periodically, which then progress though a simulated process of human digestion. Eventually, at the other end of Cloaca, the machine dispenses of several samples that have been tested to be almost human. The excreted matter is then individually packaged and sold (Criqui, 2001).

Delvoye’s Cloaca expresses a provocative statement concerning “our ultra-consumerist society” (Amy, 2008). Humans utilise technology to make objects that are desired, only to dispose of them shortly after.

Wim Delvoye, Cloaca New & Improved,  2001. Mixed Media, 1000 x 75 x 200cm. Migros Museum (25.08 - 14.10.2001).

 

Wim Delvoye, Cloaca Turbo, 2003. Mixed Media, 826 x 128 x 200 cm. Casino Luxembourg (30.09.2007 - 06.01.2008).

 

Wim Delvoye, Super Cloaca, 2007. Mixed Media, 1470 x 211 x 307 cm. Mudam, Guest House (13.10.2007 – 26.11.2007).

 

Bibliography

Books and articles:

Amy, Michael. “Wim Delvoye at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst.” Art in America 89.5 (2001): 185.

Criqui, Jean-Pierre. “Eater’s Digest.” Artforum International 40.1 (2001): 182.

Delvoye, Wim. Cloaca / Wim Delvoye. New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art in association with Rectapublishers, 2001.

Heartney, Eleanor. Art and Today. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2008.

Images:

All images reproduced from http://www.wimdelvoye.be/ (accessed April 20, 2009).

Websites:

http://www.wimdelvoye.be/ (accessed April 20, 2009).

http://www.cloaca.be/articles.htm (accessed April 20, 2009).

Art, Nature and Technology- Ned Kahn

Fire Vortex- which is a cointained spout of fire



Subducted Landscape- in which glass is forced around a chamber with compressed air.



Tornado Machine- in which the vortex of a cyclone, complete with a still "eye" is created

Ned Kahn's work is semblance of scientific experiment. He is both the choreographer and student of nature and has created an extensive survey of the efects of the elements. The genius in containing of the pure forces through such tangibly tactile scrutiny is a scientific process as much as artistic, as the kinetic works are allusion and representations of the forms and equations only, they are a synthesis, that the audience is to explore from the safety of Kahn's objectivity.

Kahn's work is as spectacular, at first hand as seeing the earth turn. Kahn creates Pyrotechnics to rival Star Wars with the philosophy that THE TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION.

The earth is changing with out a solid perspective of really why or how, it is from the vision of Ned Kahn that the fears and concerns with be extrapolated and ratified.

http:// www.nedkahn.com

Art , Nature and Technology - Theo Jansen

Theo Jansen calls himself a 'kinetic sculptor'. He has a background in science and engineering and has for many years been developing wind reliant technology, creating creatures that will eventually be able to exist in the natural beach environment. They have the ability to store the wind generated power to walk as well as being able to sense water and movement around them. I thought this was an interesting cross over between nature and technology and in many ways art.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcR7U2tuNoY

( His research is sponsored by BMW, that is why they are included at the end of the video)

Essay Reading / Reference OCTOBER JOURNAL

Please take the time to look through the OCTOBER Journal article prior to preparing/writing your essay.

You access the article via the Sydney University Library Journal Database. 

USE this link

Choose the second catalogue entry - for OCTOBER ONLINE

Follow to the appropriate Database that covers the correct dates for the article:

Artist Questionnaire: 21 Responses, October, Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002), pp. 6-97.

AND VOILA!

Review: Art & Time - On Kawara

On January 4 1966, On Kawara painted the first of what would amount (for now) to over two thousand paintings collectively titled the Today Series (Figure 1). Often referred to as date paintings, each is a painting of the date on which it was made. Each date painting is executed in accordance with strict directives imposed by the artist upon himself. Four or five layers of acrylic paint in dark hues are applied to a pre-stretched canvas in one of eight possible sizes to create a monochrome background, with the date drawn freehand in the centre of the canvas in a san serif type font and painted with six or seven layers of white acrylic paint. Kawara, a frequent traveller, paints the date in the language and convention of the place in which the painting was made. If the painting is not finished by midnight on the day it was started it is destroyed. Each painting is then recorded in a journal and stored in a specially made box with the date marked on the lid. For years Kawara would also store a clipping of that day’s newspaper with the painting, though in recent years he has often forgone this element. Kawara continues the series to this day.

Figure 1: On Kawara , OCT. 68 1968, 1968. Liquitex on canvas, cardboard box, newspaper, 20.5 x 25.5 cm.

On Kawara is an artist concerned with time. His interest is time as it pertains to existence and to consciousness, and to these mortality is inextricably linked. The date paintings that comprise the Today Series make time their subject. Upon completion, the “today” of each painting is irrevocably doomed to the past, as the painting becomes a relic, a marker of time spent. With each new addition to the Today Series, Kawara is simultaneously counting down. Kawara’s art is one of process. A date painting typically takes eight or nine hours to complete, the fastidious workmanship evident on close inspection of the final product. The surface of each date painting speaks of each moment passing in its creation.

In 1970 Kawara began sending telegrams to friends and colleagues bearing the message “I am still alive” (Figure 2). I am still alive is perhaps the most overt of Kawara’s work in terms of its explorations of time and mortality. Though largely superseded by electronic communication, the telegram remains synonymous with the delivery of urgent and often bad news. Receipt of a telegram frequently meant that someone had died. Kawara’s stark message is deliberately redundant in that the sender of a telegram is necessarily alive in order to send the telegram in the first place, and that due to the lapse in time between composition and arrival, the validity of the message as still holding true is brought into question. As much as the message is one of life, it is simultaneously one of death. In informing us that he is still alive, Kawara is actually reminding us that he might not be, that eventually time will catch up with us all.

Figure 2: On Kawara, I am still alive, 1970-. Telegram.

I got up (Figure 3) is a series of postcards on which Kawara has stamped the date and the time at which he got up on that particular day. Kawara began sending these postcards, two a day, everyday, until the stamp he used to create the messages was stolen along with his briefcase. The humour of the piece arises from the sending, in postcard format, of a solemn piece of information that logically is not of much interest to anyone. A postcard is typically sent by a tourist and detailing the activities of time spent in a foreign city. It serves as a sort of proof that at a particular time, a particular person was in a particular place. Kawara’s postcards document not the activities or thoughts of a particular day, but the time that he got up, the moment when he once again entered into consciousness.

Figure 3: On, Kawara, I got up 1968-. Rubber-stamped postcard.

One Million Years (Past) (1969) and One Million Years (Future) (1971) each consist of ten volumes of leather bound books listing one million years into the past and future respectively. In these works time is in a sense condensed into a palpable entity that conversely only serves to emphasis the intangible nature and overwhelming immensity of time. A lifetime is less than a paragraph; the whole of civilization is just a few pages. For all its coolness, seeming simplicity, and formality Kawara’s work speaks poetically about existence, mortality and the inescapability of time.

Image References:

Figure 1: Kawara, On. 21 OCT. 68, 1968. Liquitex on canvas, cardboard box, newspaper, 20.5 x 25.5 cm. Reproduced by Johnathan Watkins, On Kawara (New York, Phaidon Press Inc. 2002) p80

Figure 2: Kawara, On. I got up, 1968-. Rubber-stamped postcards. Reproduced by Johnathan Watkins, On Kawara (New York, Phaidon Press Inc. 2002) p97

Figure 3: Kawara, On. I am still alive, 1970-. Telegram. Reproduced by Johnathan Watkins, On Kawara (New York, Phaidon Press Inc. 2002) p88

Bibliography

Lippard, Lucy, “Just in Time: On Kawara” In Whole and Parts, 1964-1995 / On Kawara, edited by Xavier Douroux & Franck Gautherot, 359-362. Paris: Les Presses du reel, 1996.

O’Connor, Teresa, “Notes: On Kawara’s I Am Still Alive” In Whole & Parts 1964-1995 / On Kawara , edited by Xavier Douroux & Franck Gautherot, 475-477. Paris: Les Presses du reel, 1996.

Watkins, Johnathan, On Kawara. New York: Phaidon Press Inc. 2002

wolfgang staehle @ postmasters gallery NOW

see: wolfgang staehle 

Volunteer Opportunity @ the Performance Space

Performance Space is looking for gallery invigilators for the exhibition There Goes the Neighbourhood which opens Friday 22 May 6pm in Bay 19 @ CarriageWorks and runs until Saturday 27 June. The gallery is open Tues – Sat 12 – 6pm (unless there is another P Space event on and then the gallery will be open until 8pm) and the cost is FREE. There Goes the Neighbourhood curated by Zanny Begg and Keg de Souza is an exhibition, publishing project and forum for dialogue investigating the politics of urban space. Drawing on the immediate experiences of Redfern, local and international artists explore the complex life of cities and how gentrification is altering the relationship between democracy and demography around the world.

Volunteer responsibilities will include; inviting people into the space, managing the flow of traffic, relaying information and helping patrons interpret the works, selling catalogues, opening/closing the exhibition, starting up/shutting down the exhibits, and supervising and maintenance of the works.

Further information: http://www.performancespace.com.au/

Performance SPACE

Hey there,

Thank you all for a great class yesterday - and thank you for the great BLOG entries below for our TIME week... sorry we ran out of TIME and couldn't discuss as usual.

I have checked 'whats on' in sydney exhibition world and we are spoilt for choice... so, i am hoping you will all make an effort in the break to see as much art as possible!

I agree Lachlan - Carriage Works is an amazing space so lets head down there for our final class. 

'there goes the neigbourhood' will be the exhibition showing at that time (those interested / living nearby might like to head over for the opening on Fiday 22 MAY at 6pm).

Other must see exhibitions:

AGNSW: Justene Williams

KALIMAN GALLERY: The KINGPINS...

Jane and Louise -'Space Base' is focused on a space-training facility for cosmonauts in Moscow.
Built at the height of the Cold War during the 1950s, for many years the facility was a‘hidden city’. The work travels through time to capture the very essence of the space race and the Russians determination to dominate.Through skillful photography they capture the importance of the machinery and science that took priority, most of which has now been replaced and the old space suits left abandoned like corpses on shelves.

Double Blog - Artspace Exhibit + Art and Time

Kosloff, L. Roller Disco. 2005.Super 8 film transferred to DVD (Accessed on May 12th from www.artspace.org.au)

Laressa Kosloff's documentary-like video piece is currently being exhibited in Artspace until the 23rd of May. The work is captured using Super 8 film (creating, from what I can only presume based upon the still frame of her work, a seemingly dated, grainy brown film), depicting the actions of groups of people and organised gatherings within varying contexts. The work draws attention to humanity's interaction with any physical environmental space and other beings within that space. Among the variety of activities she films, Kosloff captures laughing clubs and living statues, raising the ever-present question of social and environmental boundaries and the extents to which they are pushed.

Artspace - Gallery Projects - www.artspace.org.au

Art + Time

Today in Concepts (Sculpture), we had to bring in our ideas (in the form of dioramas or written word) or physical works for assessment. I brought in a diorama that featured miniature replicas of a microwave cooking popcorn, black coverings and black curtains to eliminate light from entering the room and an air conditioner supposedly set to the lowest temperature it could reach. The aim of my work was to jar the senses; to tempt and retract. Upon entering the room, one would feel incongruent sensory responses; the dulling of vision and inability to engage in a gustatory experience, heightening the viewer's 3 remaining sensory responses to the auditory experience of the popcorn and the vibrations of the microwave, the tactile experience of the cold and the olfactory experience of the smell of the popcorn. One guy suggested that instead of maintaining a constant state of popcorn being cooked, I could allow the popcorn to cook and eventually burn, altering the smell in the room and hopefully reaching the point of smoking. By doing this, Michael suggested the work would become a "set" work; one that I took to mean a set period of time; a process work in which time was a key element to the development and progressive viewing of the work.

Art and Time- Roman Opalka

Roman Opalka 1965- Current day
500 x 375 cm
Photograph


Artist Roman Opalka has painted “time” exclusively since 1965.
He was born in France in 1931 and is a true cosmopolitan as he has lived in France, Poland, Berlin and New York.
Many of his works are in the collections of the MOMA, The Guggenheim Museum, New York, The National Gallery, Berlin and other such noteable institutions. Opalka’s retrospective exhibitions, participation at the XIX Biennial of Sao Paolo, and the 1995 Venice Biennial, as well as his writing published in several languages brought him world-wide recognition.
When i was reading Art and Today i found it interesting how Opalka has been photographing himself since 1965. It states "The artist takes a photograph of himself at the end of each day. (And when) placed together sequentially, these self portraits form another record of the passage of time..." I find this concept incredibly interesting as it is not only an artist creating his self portrait but it is a clear approach to represent the irreversibility of time. The unavoidable ageing process that we all must endeavor; it is quite confronting but extremely beautiful at the same time. I really love this idea!

ART, TIME and WOLFGANG STAEHLE

Wolfgang Staehle was born in 1950, in Stuttgart, Germany.
He is a recognized pioneer of new media art, art.net and the creator/director of 'The Thing' - an interactive web arena for artists and curators to challenge, express and define ideas about art. The Thing is a concept of modern Art, based on forms new media and techonology to create connections between artists, curators, people and ideas.

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/the-thing/images/1/

Wolfgang's work are founded by the idea of technology as a centralizing or situating force that makes interaction with far reaches of the world possible.
In works such as Empire 24/7 1999 and Untitled 2001 the audience is offered with a disorientating connection to parts of the world that are not immediately tangible to them, by means of the internet.

Philosopher Martin Heidegger discusses a concept of being-in-the-world, which is the idea that no human being can be taken into account without acknowledgment that they are 'there' in relation to all the other elements that constitute the world.
For heidegger the world 'is', it is 'now' and everywhere around us, we are contingent on it and it on us.

In Wolfgang's 1999 work Empire 24/7 this idea of place and object as a relational entity is made apparent through his video projection of the Empire state building, streamed live from New york to a gallery at ZKM Center for Art and Media Technology in Karlsruhe, Germany. The projection is constantly updating itself every four seconds, showing the audience a constinuous 'real' time projection of the building that they are presently disconnection from, demonstrating what technology and the Internet has done to object availibility.It is also a reference to Andy Warhols 1964 silent Black and white film Empire, which is focused of the activity of the Empire State building from dusk till dawn. Warhol's film explores 'real' time as a naturally unfolding event, much the same as Wolfgang's Empire 24/7 which is offered as a constant producted convienantly offered to the audience 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/the-thing/images/2/

http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/empire24-7/images/3/

His works are an exemplification of the ability we now have to connect simultaneously to all different part of the worlds through the use of modern technology and media, while displaying them as he does calls to question our conception of time, what the idea of 'REAL' time means, and our roles within this constant NOW, TODAY, HERE of real time.

The 2001 project Untitled further illustrates these new abilities we have to connect and experience that which we cannot physically grasp simultaneously.
The work was comprised of three live video feeds projected onto the walls of the Postmaster Gallery in New York city, each containing a image of places that without the use of technology we could never see as a synchoronous event.
On one wall was an image of a tevelvision tower in Berlin, another featured a monastery in Comburg and the third was a diptych image of Lower Manhattan - including the World Trade district and Twin Towers, all images were live web feeds that were, as with Empire 24/7, still shots updated every 4 seconds to give a constant seemingly unchanging documentary of each individual place.

http://www.artnet.com/magazine/reviews/moore/moore9-29-01.asp

http://www.artnet.com/magazine/reviews/moore/moore9-29-01.asp


http://www.artnet.com/magazine/reviews/moore/moore9-29-01.asp

The three images also reference three major element of the modern world; telecommunications, religion and commerce.
The exhibition ran from the 4th of September to the 11th of October 2001 and was meant to be a panorama of eventlessness - eventlessness when observed in frequent intervals over a small period of time, as opposed to the linear compression of history which is fraught with turmoils, prominent moments and 'happenings'.
However we are all aware of the jarring and tragic events that unfolded on September 11th, which of course inadvertently transformed the exhibition, although how or what into is not a question one could fully answer.
The uncanny thing about this work is that by the sheer coincidence of over lapping events in time, that were once unknown to each other, it captured and embodied exactly that which it stands for - life, our perception of 'The Real' and the idea of time as a never ending NOW.
How could one explain or even try to digest the event they had just witness, let alone if you had witnessed it as a live projection on the wall of a gallery space.

In all staehle's works there is a powerful suggestion of both the rapidly changing modern world and the slow, constant natural world that, dispite all the technological advancements, is still powerful over us. For no matter how many towers we can build, how many places and things we can see, how many buildings we can destroy, at the end of the day the sun we still set and we will still be governed by nature to rest.

Bibliography
History Asks, "What Then?" - Alan Moore, 2004 artnet
http://www.artnet.com/magazine/reviews/moore/moore9-29-01.asp (accessed 08/04/2009)

Empire 24/7 - Wolfgang Staehle, 1999 Media Art Net
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/empire24-7/images/5/ (accessed 10/04/2009)

Real-Time Futures: Five Noteson the Work of Wolfgang Stahle - John Menick
Last updated: 2008-07-01 04:07:03
http://www.johnmenick.com/writing/realtime-futures-five-notes-on-the-work-of-wolfgang-staehle (accessed 07/04/2009)

Art & Time YINKA SHONIBARE

Yinka Shonibare who recently exhibited at the MCA, although mostly references culture and identity can also be viewed under narrative and time. His films tend to be a repetitive series of events featuring vaguely historical characters. When i watched his film Odile and Odette and Un Ballo in Maschera at the MCA as a viewer i found i lost all sense of time and felt quite disorientated after. Through the slow movements, repetition and lack of any coherent narrative I became wrapped up in the minutest details of the film and was forced to notice what i otherwise might have missed.

THE SLOW PASSAGE OF TIME [5]

I didn’t start to understand this chapter fully until about the third page because there were too many differing expressions about the ambiguous topic of time. It really got me thinking about the exhibition Crying Men by artist Sam Taylor-Wood, in particular, the installation of David Beckham sleeping but I didn’t know why. However, when I reached the part on Bruce Nauman, the chapter became clear. Sam Taylor-Wood, like Nauman has redirected our attention to the minute events that occur when seemingly nothing is happening.[1] Taylor-Wood has captured reel time and real time together, the unedited and the unmediated by surveilling.[2] Famous sportsman, David Beckham is shown, in her installation, at his most vulnerable. She has cleverly made the uneventful, tiny event become magnified.[3] There is ofcourse, nothing new about this approach- see Warhols’ Sleep.[4] The entire exhibition is focused on the subject of time and I think we are all fascinated by it. Time is something we cannot control but would like to very much and perhaps, this is our way of pretending we can.

---

[1] Eleanor Heartney, Art and Today. (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2008), 160.

[2] Eleanor Heartney, Art and Today. (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2008), 160.

[3] Eleanor Heartney, Art and Today. (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2008), 160.

[4] Eleanor Heartney, Art and Today. (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2008), 160.

[5] Eleanor Heartney, Art and Today. (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2008), 160.

Art and Time

Douglas Gordon’s is a Scottish video and installation artist who’s work has been considered to be about memory and various forms of repetition. He uses material from existing films and explores elements of time. His work is often based on a ‘disruption of perception,’ by attempting to make the viewer conscious about how movies and films use the ordinary procedure to attract them. One of Gordon’s most famous works is the video projection 24 Hour Psycho (1993) which deals with the concerns of memory and perception. This work is an installation of Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Psycho, slowed down so that the video lasts and entire 24 hours. Gordon tries to focus the viewer’s attention to the small details of the film. “While we can experience narrative elements in it (largely through familiarity with the original), the crushing slowness of their unfolding constantly undercuts our expectations, even as it ratchets up the idea of suspense to a level approaching absurdity.” (Russell Ferguson, Trust Me)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1jkoMfPa40
24 Hour Psycho (1993)

Art and Time

SPIRAL JETTY FILM STILLS

1970
black and white silver gelatin prints
3 panels: 25 1/4' x 43 1/2" each
Collection: Museet For Samtiskunst, Norway

SPIRAL JETTY

Rozel Point, Great Salt Lake, Utah
April 1970
mud, precipitated salt crystals, rocks, water coil 1500' long and 15' wide
Collection: DIA Center for the Arts,
New York


I thought the work "spiral jetty" related to art and time as it is a representation of time and the passing of time. The spiral jetty film deals with the issues of time and space. Robert Smithson at this point was reformulating his ideas with his relationship to the land. These endeavors in the land enabled Smithson to explore chaos and order-how natural forces such as wind, rain, heat and cold, would effect the work over time. This work changes with the land as time changes. As Eleanor Heartney says photography makes time literally visible the film and photographs of this work makes the passing of time in this work clear to his audience.

Art and Time

Even before I read the Art & Today chapter on Art & Time, my brain skipped to the devastating, Australian film, ‘2.37’. The title is the time of day in the afternoon, and it is also the time of day that one of the characters will commit suicide. The plot is based around several characters, all of whom have good reason for giving up, and the momentum building up to the last, unfortunate scene is incredible. I saw this at the cinemas, and the movie had that much of an emotional pull that I don’t remember much for the rest of the day; I actually lost time.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472582/

Anyways, time…art wise…
I found a ‘Time-Based Art Festival’, that is unfortunately in the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, which is running from Sept- 3-13 2009.
http://blogs.wweek.com/news/2009/04/27/pica-announces-2009-time-based-art-festival-lineup/

The above mentioned website, announces the line up thus far. There are a load of You Tube videos to view, with short descriptions of some of the pieces.

Art and Time - Darren Almond

Tide, 2008

The theme of time is present throughout the majority of Darren Almond's recent work.  Eleanor Heartney suggests that advancements in technology  have given us 'a sense that we can control the flow of time'. I think that Darren Almond in his installation Tide,  2008, is attempting to take away this false sense of control. In this work approximately 600 clocks are mounted on the wall, all of them synchronized,  sounding in unison every minute. You can imagine the click, the noise enveloping the viewer as it echoes around the space, reinforcing the inevitable nature of time itself.

Art and Time - Mee-Ping Leung

Leung began producing the installation work, "Memorize the Future", in 1998. Leung has collected hair from more than 10,000 people through hair salons, the Internet, street garbage cans in the US and by placing advertisements (and is still collecting). The owners of these hair strands are from more than 100 countries and belong to different geographical regions, races, age groups and sexes. Leung mixed, reconstructed, kneaded and wove the hair into thousands of child-sized shoes. When I think of art and time, i relate Leung into this catagory as the concept of space, time and purpose comes into play. The question of the future as well as the process of remembering become part of the audiences's journey when observing the shoes. The direction of the shoes symbolise the future and the beginning to the end of life and hence time itslef. Leung also uses repetition as a time representatoin by constantly adding to the peice, the work seems to have no end and therefore becomes in existance with time and space. Apparently, to this day, there is over 3000 shoes, and is still growing.

"Memorize the future"

1998 - till now, human hair, 7000 square feet

http://www.mpleung.com/Leung_Mee_Ping_-_Contemporary_Artist/Home.html

Art and Time

When I think of time-based art, I think a perfect example for me is a work a friend of mine did who was in my art class last year. Jethro got a toilet duck bottle, attached a reverse vacuum cleaner through the bottom of it, turned the vacuum cleaner on and documented the process of bubbles coming out from the top of it. He didn't intend for it to have any conceptual aspects other than commenting on time, however, you couldn't avoid noticing the sexual connotations the work had. He ended up with a series of photos showing the bubbles gradually overflowing and then stopping. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of the work but I think it would be quite easy to imagine.

Art & Quotidian - Ai Weiwei

Because i didn't blog for the Quotidian week, i am catching up. (sorry if this confuses the order for anyone).

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei explores Chinese cultural and historical issues in most of his works. In "Forever Bicycles" Weiwei celebrates the bicycle itself as being much a part of Beijing's streets and background. They are soldered together so that they go around in circles with no end. His piece evokes a complex image of a structured space by assembling real – utilitarian – bicycles. Their intricate connections produce an interplay of form, changing as the viewer takes different positions.

Ai Weiwei
"Forever Bicycles"
2003