Piece for BA Fine Arts graduate show:
I got a small idea. It expanded but the idea itself remained the same size. Hello postmodernism!
Machines for switching a light on and off:
YEAR: 2014.
MATERIALS: Timber, motors, acrylic sheet, electronics.
DIMENSIONS: (H)140mm x (W)215mm x (D)250mm.
(H)1900mm x (W)2400mm x (D)1800mm.
CLIP DURATION: 4 mins. 57 secs.
Conversation I had with an ex-student (who had graduated from the same fine arts course I had just completed) who I bumped into at the pub after the graduate exhibition where this piece was exhibited. He was very drunk. I was not.
EX-STUDENT WHO I BUMPED INTO AT THE PUB AFTER THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION:
Chris Chris Chris. Mate. Look, mate, loved ya piece. Ruly good. Top notch. Up to your usual standard...
CHRIS:
Top notch! Thanks for your kind words.
EX-STUDENT WHO I BUMPED INTO AT THE PUB AFTER THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION:
Yeah, but, look mate. Wwwwwwhat’s go’n on?
CHRIS:
What’s going on, where?
EX-STUDENT WHO I BUMPED INTO AT THE PUB AFTER THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION:
What?
CHRIS:
What’s going on, where?
EX-STUDENT WHO I BUMPED INTO AT THE PUB AFTER THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION:
Where?
CHRIS:
You asked me what’s going on?
EX-STUDENT WHO I BUMPED INTO AT THE PUB AFTER THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION:
When?
CHRIS:
Just then, you said look mate, what’s going...
EX-STUDENT WHO I BUMPED INTO AT THE PUB AFTER THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION:
Sure, sure, sure. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. What’s go’n on?
(Long pause)
CHRIS:
Where? What? What’s going on where?
EX-STUDENT WHO I BUMPED INTO AT THE PUB AFTER THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION:
It’s a light yeah?
CHRIS:
My graduation piece!
EX-STUDENT WHO I BUMPED INTO AT THE PUB AFTER THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION:
It’s a light yeah? Yeah! YES!
CHRIS:
If you look at it like...there’s a small machine and a...well, technically, if we were talking conceptual metaphor...
EX-STUDENT WHO I BUMPED INTO AT THE PUB AFTER THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION:
Yeah yeah, I get that. Very clever. No. Look, what is it doing in the front room? It’s the brightest part of the space; light’s steaming through the windows like dog’s balls. Show it in the back room where there’s no windows. It’s pitch bloody black in there.
CHRIS:
Well, unaccustomed as am to speak out loud in narrative-informative dialogue in order to express conceptual scenarios; I think you should know the work in question addresses an interest I have in why things are the size they are, in tandem with modern technology’s preoccupation with miniaturisation. And while getting smaller and smaller and being able to do more by harnessing mind boggling computing power the technology involved reduces the consumer’s interest in what is happening inside the object. You can’t see what’s going on inside modern technology and even if you did it’s just a board of motionless components. In most cases the only way you know something is functioning is if a light goes on. My piece is not only a light for light’s sake, but it also brings ideas back to a time when you could see mechanical process playout in front of your eyes: time pieces, steam trains, bicycles, automata, whereas modern technology is zeros and ones pulsing through a cold miniature world which isn’t nearly so interesting to those with a visual bias. And allow me to go on to say that I think with the modern world’s obsession with miniaturization and utilizing the latest technology, it’s nice to bring things back to earth with a piece that invites the viewer to see a cause and effect process and perhaps quietly, in a broader life context, contemplate why things are the way they are.
(long pause)
EX-STUDENT WHO I BUMPED INTO AT THE PUB AFTER THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION:
You ever thought of writing for Neighbours?
CHRIS:
No.
EX-STUDENT WHO I BUMPED INTO AT THE PUB AFTER THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION:
CHRIS:
They won’t return my calls.
EX-STUDENT WHO I BUMPED INTO AT THE PUB AFTER THE GRADUATE EXHIBITION:
Bloody post-modernists.
THE END
Two machines for switching a light on and off.
