Oliver Braid - 'I'll Look Forward To It"

Oliver Braid I’ll Look Forward To It: A Visual Essay on Expectation. 2011.

As part of his contribution to New Work Scotland 2011 Oliver Braid has orchestrated ‘I’ll Look Forward To It: A Visual Essay on Expectation’. th

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The Visual Essay, now on display at Collective from November 18 – December 19 , was composed as follows: 1.

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4.

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An invitation extended to all unsuccessful applicants to New Work Scotland 2011 to still get involved through a system of re-application. Reapplicants were encouraged to submit images, a statement and a written response to one of the following themes: Instrumental optimism vs. intrinsic happiness // The impact of positive thinking on productivity // Intelligence in relation to platforms or exposure // The pleasure and alchemy of making mistakes // Open-endedness and its capacity for control.

All re-applications were reviewed by a panel of experts in Art Therapy, Positive Psychology and Contemporary Art during Oliver’s residency at Studio Voltaire. The panel included:

Dr. Philippa Brown, Director of Art Therapy at University of Hertford // Rae Chapman, Artist and Director of the Higher Academy of Happiness // Dr. Daniel Hale, Positive Psychology Research Associate at University College London // Christine Wong-Yap, Artist working Optimism & Pessimism.

Five final artists were selected from the pool of applicants. The final five artists were: Rachel Barron // Ellie Harrison // Katie McCain // Joanna Waclawski // James Stephen Wright

Each of the five final artists were then invited to produce a new work in response to an essay written by Oliver, again during his residency at Studio Voltaire. Over five chapters the essay focuses on the role expectation plays in art production. Each chapter was subsequently annotated by a second expert, chosen for their existing relationship to New Work Scotland 2011. The annotators included: Steven Cairns // Kate Gray // Fiona Jardine // Dr. Anna McLauchlan // Professor Neil Mulholland Over a twelve week period the five final artists developed their new works in response to Oliver’s essay to be presented at Collective. The works were subsequently displayed in a bespoke exhibition design by Camille LeHouezec, again in response to the themes of Oliver’s essay, to become ‘I’ll Look Forward To It: A Visual Essay on Expectation’.

Digital versions of the annotated essays are available to download online throughout the exhibition period on the Collective gallery’s homepage www.collectivegallery.net

Supporting Materials: Also available to download from Collective’s homepage (www.collectivegallery.net) is the personal Skype conversation between Oliver Braid and a friend that inspired the entire project, and a sound piece made in response to this source material by Bloodtears & The Moral Highground feat.

Jim Colquhoun and Andy Hopkins. th

Oliver will also present an evening of live musical interpretations of this source material on December 15 , 7 - 9pm at Collective. Performers include: Panda Su // PET Band // The Maple-leaves // Cuddly Shark // Snide Rhythms // Teen Canteen

To close the project and to lead positively into 2012 Oliver will also co-operatively design this year’s Collective Christmas Window Project. Oliver will design and produce this element alongside a group of skilled friends including: Mable Cable // Amanda Dobbratz // Tom Harrup // Alice Maplesden // Kate Moross

Oliver Braid

I’ll Look Forward To It: A Visual Essay on Expectation. 2011.

As part of his contribution to New Work Scotland 2011 Oliver Braid has orchestrated ‘I’ll Look Forward To It: A Visual Essay on Expectation’.

The Visual Essay, now on display at Collective from November 18th – December 19th, was composed as follows: 1. An invitation extended to all unsuccessful applicants to New Work Scotland 2011 to still get involved through a system of re-application. Re-applicants were encouraged to submit images, a statement and a written response to one of the following themes: Instrumental optimism vs. intrinsic happiness // The impact of positive thinking on productivity // Intelligence in relation to platforms or exposure // The pleasure and alchemy of making mistakes // Openendedness and its capacity for control.

2. All re-applications were reviewed by a panel of experts in Art Therapy, Positive Psychology and Contemporary Art during Oliver’s residency at Studio Voltaire. The panel included: Dr. Philippa Brown, Director of Art Therapy at University of Hertford // Rae Chapman, Artist and Director of the Higher Academy of Happiness // Dr. Daniel Hale, Positive Psychology Research Associate at University College London // Christine Wong-Yap, Artist working Optimism & Pessimism.

3. Five final artists were selected from the pool of applicants. The final five artists were: Rachel Barron // Ellie Harrison // Katie McCain // Joanna Waclawski // James Stephen Wright 4. Each of the five final artists were then invited to produce a new work in response to an essay written by Oliver, again during his residency at Studio Voltaire. Over five chapters the essay focuses on the role expectation plays in art production. Each chapter was subsequently annotated by a second expert, chosen for their existing relationship to New Work Scotland 2011. The annotators included: Steven Cairns // Kate Gray // Fiona Jardine // Dr. Anna McLauchlan // Professor Neil Mulholland 5. Over a twelve week period the five final artists developed their new works in response to Oliver’s essay to be presented at Collective. The works were subsequently displayed in a bespoke exhibition design by Camille LeHouezec, again in response to the themes of Oliver’s essay, to become ‘I’ll Look Forward To It: A Visual Essay on Expectation’.

Digital versions of the annotated essays are available to download online throughout the exhibition period on the Collective gallery’s homepage www.collectivegallery.net Supporting Materials: Also available to download from Collective’s homepage (www.collectivegallery.net) is the personal Skype conversation between Oliver Braid and a friend that inspired the entire project, and a sound piece made in response to this source material by Bloodtears & The Moral Highground feat. Jim Colquhoun and Andy Hopkins.

Oliver will also present an evening of live musical interpretations of this source material on December 15th, 7 9pm at Collective. Performers include: Panda Su // Maple Leaves // Cuddly Shark // Snide Rhythms // Teen Canteen To close the project and to lead positively into 2012 Oliver will also co-operatively design this year’s Collective Christmas Window Project. Oliver will design and produce this element alongside a group of skilled friends including: Mable Cable // Amanda Dobbratz // Tom Harrup // Alice Maplesden // Kate Moross

Joanna Waclawski (l) Ziggy, Analogue c-type photographic print on aluminium. 57 x 41 cm. (r) Hawaii Blues, Analogue c-type photographic print on Perspex. 46 x 46cm.

…Oliver Braid’s exhibition at first appears to make similarly kitschy assertions in its pastel walls and chintzy flowering plinths. The saccharine surroundings, although designed by Camille Le Houezec, one of over thirty collaborators invited into the project, indicate the consenting, prodigiously positive and inclusive nature of the work. Braid’s project searches for pleasure in failure, appraises optimism and happiness and, as its title I’ll Look Forward To It suggests, utilizes open-ended modes of production. Existing as constant transformation of material, the exhibition in its current form was preceded by a ‘Salon des Refusés’ of sorts, an open-call to unsuccessful applicants of NWSP2011. However, whether this was an act of generosity or a more misanthropic turn is left up to the viewer.

This seems indicative of the ambivalent position of authorship given by the artist.

Throughout the work, Braid enacts a series of appearances and withdrawals. The artist mitigates his position, with each layer of the project supplemented by auxiliary collaborators: a panel of art and psychology professionals reviewed the (re)applications, with the materials provided to the subsequently selected five artists footnoted by additional ‘experts’. Yet Braid’s presence is stamped on every element of the presentation, with works made both in response to the essay authored by him during his residency at Studio Voltaire and in mock-homage. Artist James Stephen Wright‘s surprise toast to the artist was delivered via a policeman at the private view, while Katie McCain’s installation of books ‘relevant to the essay’ perhaps offers a portrait of the artist as much as of the text: Alain de Botton ‘Architecture of Happiness’, Derek Acorah’ ‘Extreme Psychic’, ‘Caravaggio and his followers in Rome’.

An ‘essay’ on potentiality as much as expectation, I’ll Look Forward To It broadly considers the parameters of artistic labour and authorship. By acknowledging both precarity and failure, Braid advises us on the urgency for alternative strategies of production, be they networks; dispersed, horizontal structures of collaboration; or positive psychology.

Nicola Celia Wright is a curator and writer based in London

Rachel Barron There are as many universes as there are minds, 2011. Ink and coloured pencil on Japanese paper. 60 x 90 cm each.

Click here to read Tom Harrup’s account of designing and building the ‘Hydraulic Counterweight’ mechanism!

I’ll Look Forward To It was originally commissioned in 2011 by Collective Gallery, Edinburgh for their New Work Scotland Programme.

NWSP is a Collective initiative recognised as giving Scottish based graduates their first significant visual art project or commission. Through an annual open application NWSP identifies and supports some of the most promising new practitioners working in the visual arts in Scotland - providing them with the opportunity to make new work and bring it to the attention of a wider public.

Front poster image photograph: Alice Maplesden Front poster image editing: Deniz Ăœster www.oliverbraid.com www.collectivegallery.net