Surfing - a term that in this context takes on a new meaning - the
net last night, in search of images which reveal a popular sense of
the sub maritime, I came across a collection of photographs taken
by
Bruce Mozert in the 1930's of underwater tableaux. Searching
more widely the predominance of images of women in underwater
settings is striking revealing perhaps, in the fantastic character
of these exotic projections, a deep sense of association between
the feminine and the fluid along with a desire to colonise and
domestic such spaces. The later being evident too in the number of
underwater restaurants, shops and hotels that exist worldwide.
This footage was shot at the Ideal Home exhibition and then re-edited. I am still fascinated by the endless character of the swimmer's endeavour, something that connects to some of my earlier performance works exploring the nature of tasks, often domestic in character, which of necessity must be repeated time and time again.
The other aspect of this piece by which I am preoccupied is the design of the pool itself - shaped to enhance the artificially generated current against which the swimmer is pitted, it has a geological dimension to it and has I think subliminally influenced both the work I am now doing with sea bed mapping and also the architectural models that form part of the submersion series.
The approach of the crowd to the edge of the tank, conjurers up the image of a 19th century fairground attraction, featuring the 'maiden in the tank', or something similar.
Hellespont is the former name of the Dardanelles, the strait of water that separates Europe from Asia. Legend has it that Leander would swim across nightly to meet with his beloved Hero who would light a lamp at the top of her tower to guide his way. One night the wind blew out Hero's light and Leander was drowned. Hero threw herself from the tower in grief and died as well. The poet, Lord Byron became the first known person to swim the Hellespont in 1810.
The other aspect of this piece by which I am preoccupied is the design of the pool itself - shaped to enhance the artificially generated current against which the swimmer is pitted, it has a geological dimension to it and has I think subliminally influenced both the work I am now doing with sea bed mapping and also the architectural models that form part of the submersion series.
The approach of the crowd to the edge of the tank, conjurers up the image of a 19th century fairground attraction, featuring the 'maiden in the tank', or something similar.
Hellespont is the former name of the Dardanelles, the strait of water that separates Europe from Asia. Legend has it that Leander would swim across nightly to meet with his beloved Hero who would light a lamp at the top of her tower to guide his way. One night the wind blew out Hero's light and Leander was drowned. Hero threw herself from the tower in grief and died as well. The poet, Lord Byron became the first known person to swim the Hellespont in 1810.
This series of photographs was taken in Scotland in 2005 while I
was undertaking a research residency at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in
Aberdeenshire. For me the tidal character of the site is central to
its potency, the gradual erosion of walls which previously
contained and utilised the energies of the sea, seeming to
physically and conceptually question ideas embodied in its
modernist design; formulated in an era when drawing the lines
between nature and culture seemed possible.
<\p>
With hindsight this series marks a transition away from the
engagement with particular places and histories, evident in
the
encircling of a shadow 2001. While using a similar
approach of letting the site 'work on me' by spending extended
periods time there and. as in Newlyn, researching its history, I
found myself consciously avoiding interaction with the groups of
dog walkers, locals and model boat enthusiasts I met - many of whom
wanted to talk about their memories of the pool during its heyday -
seeking instead to understand it as a physical and psychological,
rather than social, space.
The use of the female figure extends preoccupations with presence
and absence, the liminal and interim, evident in earlier works,
conjuring a sensual relationship to landscape which never the less
carries a charge of danger.
Exhibited: National Review of Live Art, Glasgow 1994 and ICA, London 1995
Commissioned and Exhibited: Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall. 2001
Commissioned by Firstsite. Exhibited: The Minories, Colchester 1996
Exhibited: Dartington Arts, Devon. 1995
Commissioned: Beaconsfield. Exhibited:St Thomas' Hospital, London. 1996
Commissioned: Now 96. Exhibited: Bonnington Gallery, Nottingham 1996
Commissioned: Bluecoat Arts Centre and Visionfest.
Exhibited: Bluecoat Arts Centre, Liverpool 1997
Residency and screening: Irish Musueum of Modern Art, Dublin. 1999
Exhibited Spacex, Exeter. 2003
A selection from a larger body of images, culled from the internet using the word underwater as a search term, first presented as a slide show at Earth and Ocean Day at the National Oceanography Centre, March 09.
Ranging from 19th century illustrations of Jules Verne's 20,000.00 Leagues Under the Sea, to designs for the proposed Poseidon Mystery Island underwater resort, they chart the emergence of the undersea within visual culture, revealing an increasing drive towards its domestication and a loss of the awe and foreboding that initially characterised such images.
Also notable is the extent to which women seem to both figure within and comfortably inhabit the undersea world.
I have received a catalogue from an Australian artist friend,
Jo
Darbyshire, whose work shares my pre-occupation with undersea
worlds - she describes her floating worlds series as concerned with
the body in the landscape, sensuality, immersion and imagination
" Although abstract in nature, my paintings reference bodily
experience 'moving over' a landscape, …'flying' or 'floating' over
mountains or underwater reefs … a bodily 'letting go'; Pleasure."
Reading two downloadable essays written about her work I am struck
by Gall Jones's references in The Erotics of Immersion -
Responses to Floating Life to Calenture, a kind of fever
whereby sailors would imagine the sea to be rolling fields and
throw themselves ecstatically into it (a misrecognition she
understands in terms of sensual desire). So much so that I have
taken the term as the title of a new piece of work, produced as
part of Land Use Poetics a group workshop and
show in which I have just taken part at The Museum of Sketches,
Lund, Sweden, in which I jumped 'blind' from a diving board, in a
kind of homage to Yves Klein's Leap into the void