Situation

situation

vaughn sadie

contents introduction Marcus Neustetter

essay

Rike Sitas

conversation Greg Streak, Vaughn Sadie and Bronwyn Vaughan-Evans

thanks

Light, through illuminating the spaces we occupy, affects our social reality. The nature of light is such that it can be manipulated and altered to illuminate objects and spaces revealing only the aspects that are deemed suitable or necessary. Situation, an installation by Vaughn Sadie, explores the relationship between artificial light and space. Our sense of place is constructed by the relationship between objects, space and artificial light. In this installation the perceived passive nature of this relationship is brought into question. The objects on show not only illuminate themselves and each other, but are also complicit in altering our perception of the spaces we occupy as well as ourselves. The use of artificial light as a metaphor also raises crucial questions about power and ideology.

Sadie, a Durban-based artist, is completing his MFA at The Durban University of Technology. Sadie has participated in several public art events such as Red Eye and Negotiate at JAG. In 2005, Sadie was a participant in KO Video Festival and the Young Artist Project 2005 at KZNSA gallery.

He has participated in several group shows nationally and in 2007 facilitated light workshops with Jay Pather in the Spier Contemporary Performance Workshops and 2008 co-curated Light Show at Bank Gallery. He is currently completing his first large-scale public commission at the Durban ICC and is a lecturer at Vega, The Brand Communications School in Durban.

introduction When I first entered Vaughn’s exhibition on the day before the opening it gave me an immediate sense of joy and I looked forward to speaking about the artworks. The more time I spent with the work the more I realized that I did not want to talk about the work individually, but rather wanted to reflect on how the works engaged with the space and with one another. I wanted to reflect on the experience they created.

As I was trying to make sense of the experience it struck me that this was not just an exhibition of a series of art objects, it was closer to an installation in the way it related to the space as a whole.

Once I started to make sense of the work as an installation however, I felt that this classification was also limiting. The spaces between the objects hold as much meaning as the objects. This creates something quiet unique, something intangible.

I could then relate to the title of the show situation.

In my reading of the experience there are five observations that I would like to share about situation.

The artist and situation Sadie is not only embodied in the work as the author, but is evident through his steel cut-out shadow, a label on one of the screens and in the hand-made marks and titles.

The viewer and situation Walking through the show I am constantly confronted by questions like: Do I save the dying light bulb by hitting the switch? May I hit the switch? Did I trigger the sensor?

Can I climb the ladder? Is that my shadow? What if I lift the latch? Is the work going to unwind?

The space and situation Existing technology and architecture is highlighted through the lighting and shadows. Carefully placed cables and plug points become details which are personified objects in their own rights. Every aspect of the space seems to hold some sort of dialogue and has been carefully considered.

situation and imagination The objects have personalities, they have a life-span which is dictated by the life of the bulb, they elicit a sense of nostalgia which takes one back to a place of considering ones own history and relationship to the redundant media that occupies cupboards and storerooms at home.

situation and new work The space as a whole holds potential for the viewer to construct narratives which the artist hasn’t necessarily considered. Shifts of light qualities, shadow games and varying perspectives allow for endless framing possibilities.

This situation should be afforded the time it deserves, to make the connections, appreciate the detail, contemplate the many possibilities and enjoy the unique views.

Marcus Neustetter

untitled (sleep state)

28 x 600m 1/l ip65 fluorescent fitting, day light fluorescent tubing, 335 m of 0.73 x 3c white pvc cabtyre, 25mm x 1,6 mm aluminium squared tubing, integrated circuit 24 hr clock unit with switching relay dimensions variable

2009 Sleep state is the term given to the function of a computer’s operating system, which in a bid to conserve its energy appears to shut down. The fluorescent daylight tubing employed in the construction of this work is predominately used as part of uniform lighting strategies, such as those found in office blocks and parking lots. In the case of untitled (sleep state) the light fittings are positioned to tell the time, with their visibility changing according to the level of surrounding daylight. This work serves to comment on our response to the divide between two realities: the workplace and the home environment. Our inability to fully engage in either space, keeps us in a kind of sleep state: while one aspect of life is active, the other must remain dormant.

untitled (folly in failing)

metal tripod, theodolite stand, 40 w clear incandescent lamp, 7 w compact golf ball globe w/wht and 10m of 0.5 mmsq x 2 co black twin flex dimensions variable

2009

untitled (folly in failing) is a reflection on the rapid evolution of technology and our inability to keep up with the selfperpetuating cycle of consumerism; a cycle that tends to estrange us from our present while making us nostalgic for the past.

untitled (distance to the ground)

ladder wooden A frame 8 step 240 cm , ladder wooden A frame 10 step 300 cm, ladder wooden A frame 12 step 360 cm, 3 x found lamps, 3 x par 38 18 w compact fluorescent, 30m of 0.5 mmsq x 2 co white twin flex, 12 x 75 swivel rubber castors with 60 x 60mm steel plate and mild steel dimensions variable

2008 untitled (distance to the ground) looks at the point where objects shift from being functional to sentimental. The ladders are mass-produced and bought directly from a hardware store, but owing to new quality and safety regulations (and the introduction of sturdier aluminum models) are in the process of being phased out. The lamps were bought from an antique store and have not been in production for the past fifty years. The third element, energy saver light bulbs, are currently in production, yet are precariously held in place by the two other out dated objects. This positioning of the bulbs suggests their inevitable redundancy or replacement.

untitled (risk posed to waiting)

infra red lamp, 150w motion sensor halogen light with 5mm of 0.5 mmsq x 2 co white twin flex, art deco lamp stand with twin flex, hose pipe storage device, mild steel, and 500m of 2mm galvanized wire rope wall lamp with bulb, twin flex and supa wood dimensions variable

2007-8 untitled (risk posed to waiting) Investigates the way in which artificial light shapes and alters our domestic space. Each light in this piece performs a specific function yet together in the installation serve to comment on illusions of comfort, wealth and security. This work, in traversing the space, sets up a tension implying that an action in one area has implications elsewhere.

untitled (converging at this place)

7:39 minutes (loop) optima EP 706 video data projector, phillips DVP 3146 K DVD player, mild steel and supa wood dimensions variable

2008 untitled (converging at this place) looks at how our understanding of place is created through intersecting elements, namely the electricity pole and banks of clouds.

In the work our understanding shifts as these elements become imperceptible with the dissipation of daylight. Both the digital video camera and projector are no longer able to capture and sustain the specific details of this place.

stills from video

untitled (uncertainty of knowing)

3.6 x 4.1 m large format photocopy and 6mm mild steel dimensions variable

2006

untitled (uncertainty of knowing) looks at the use of technology as a means of shifting the materiality of the objects that surround us. The work highlights the inherent difference in the properties of each technology to reproduce an image or object accurately. In this work both the digital technology (laser cutting) and analogue technology (photocopying) employ light in their process of reproduction.

essay Markus has spoken of how Vaughn has created a whimsical, yet nostalgic installation, and asks us to spend time pondering how we experience the spaces that have been created throughout the gallery, and what this means in terms of our own history and relationships to various media.

Bronwen, Greg and Vaughn have spoken at great depth about the construction, intention and art historical context of the installation. I would like to expand on these discussions and argue that Vaughn’s installation is also a melancholic critique of contemporary capitalism and consumerism.

Through the situation(s) Vaughn has created, the relationship between object/s, space and time is explored, and suggests a reflection on capitalist modes of production and consumption. The installation challenges us as the audience to reflect on our relationship to these objects, to our perception of time, our experience of space and ultimately the dominant ideologies implicit in their construction.

Vaughn does this firstly, through his choice of materials. As can be seen in the meticulous recording of every component of the installation – every object, bracket and light source – Vaughn sets up a myriad of relationships with and between materials. This carefully considered process serves to challenge the normative use and understanding of these seemingly everyday materials.

Secondly, through the assembling of these materials into his situation(s), the meaning and function of the objects are subverted. These subversions critique and highlight inherent tensions

in contemporary capitalist society. Thirdly, he uses light as a literal, metaphorical and theoretical tool to build a body of work, and an argument about consumerism – in effect, illuminating the complex and contradictory relationship we have to the objects and spaces we are surrounded by.

In this piece I have decided to use primarily three examples from the exhibition to illustrate how Vaughn has developed a narrative socio-economic critique throughout his installation. I have chosen to explore: untitled (distance to the ground); untitled (sleep state); and untitled (passive separation). untitled (distance to the ground), three modified wooden ladders with wheels lurk ominously in the centre of the gallery, characterised in a conversation of sorts. 3 found lamps with energy saver light bulbs stare blindingly down into a pool of light in the centre.

The use of the materials here opens up a discussion on the production and consumption of specific kinds of technologies. Both the lamp and the ladder are in most contexts seen as objects with specific functional qualities: the lamp to light, the ladder to lift. The lamps were salvaged from a car boot sale and are a combination of found objects (lamps) and ready mades (bulbs). The lamps resemble those found in the stereotypical apartheid-era 70s South African (predominantly ‘white’) homes. This already situates them within a particular nostalgic context – one imbued with an apartheid and colonial history.

These lamps have been modified to hold energy saver light bulbs. The image is somewhat jarring as what in some of our memories would have been a low wattage reading lamp seen from above is now an imposing and bright light seen from below. Through this, a nostalgia for a mythical past is challenged. The light can no longer be seen merely a passive, functional object, but as both a symbol and a source of (re)production of specific ideologies.

Despite an ongoing fetishisation of ‘vintage’ household paraphernalia in second-hand-car-boottrawling circles, there are many who see these lamps as defunct and turf them in exchange for newer and increasingly cheaper models from a variety of mass produced home and hardware stores. These ladders sit somewhere between the new and the old as they are becoming increasingly obsolete, being exchanged for light weight and often less durable aluminium alternatives. Increasingly, organic materials are being replaced by cheap synthetic ones that more often than not have some form of built in obsolescence. Vaughn is highlighting an inherent irony – on the one hand we are rejecting organic tactility in one product, and on the other we are making symbolic gestures towards preserving this (somewhat distanced) notion of the natural environment by installing another in the form of energy saving bulbs.

We can see in these collection of objects, corporate ladders that Vaughn has made near impossible to climb. Their sheer scale is intimidating alone, but the wheels will never hold us for very long and we cannot move them further than the cable will allow. The relationship between the almost obsolete ladders, the discarded lamps and the new energy saver light bulbs opens up a space to not only critique contemporary capitalism and liberal individualism, but to consider its unsustainability and inevitable collapse. The title – distance to the ground – suggests an opposite to the type of aspirational ascension usually associated with the language of capitalism.

Unlike the analogue clocks usually found in European public squares that are part of monumental architectural structures, untitled (sleep state),Vaughn’s digital clock installed over the entrance to the gallery, barely visible during the day, monumentally lights up Florida Rd at night. Florida Rd is littered with eateries and entertainment spaces – a playground of (the often debauched) middle to upper classes in Durban. The fluorescent tubing, usually found in workplaces (including domestic kitchens), take on an entirely different functional and symbolic form in this site.

Our usual association with digital time pieces is in wrist watches and alarm clocks. Although the fluorescent display on Vaughn’s clock spans several meters across the exterior gallery wall, the mechanism controlling it still remains of the household variety, setting up a dialogue between the functionality and its display, as well as our perceptions of work time and work space.

The notion of time in contemporary society is socially, culturally, philosophically and theoretically contested. Some see time as a process, a journey, while others sees it as a destination, an end point. Some see that with new technologies of mobility, the notion of time has changed – where communication is instantaneous, money can be shifted anywhere in the world at the touch of a button, and people can cross continents in a matter of hours. This notion of time does fundamentally shape society in numerous ways. Our working, schooling and much of our entertainment are defined and controlled by units of time. Much of consumer capitalism is based on the notion of time as a commodity. Many of the products and services that have become part of our daily lives stem from this notion of saving time – as if it is a thing.

There are others that believe that time cannot be understood without understanding the context of space and place. Here time is as dynamic as space and needs to be understood in a broader context of social relations. Time is therefore part of a complex set of processes. Vaughn’s clock reminds us that time is not just the ticking over of numerals. The fluorescent lights do not seamlessly move from minute to minute as if there was nothing in between. The fluorescents flicker as they endeavour to keep up with their controlling mechanism. Sometimes they cannot keep up. Instead of punctuating the passing of time, this clock performs the passing of time. This reminds us to question the dominant capitalist ideologies associated with time as commodity, and prefers us to see time as a movement.

untitled (passive separation) is the only readymade work on Vaughn’s show – a flickering, dying compact fluorescent light in the vault of the Bank Gallery. Vaughn describes it as reminding us of our own mortality through its eventual demise. I would argue that it does not only ask us to think of our individual mortalities, but questions the nature of that which we produce (objects, spaces and relationships). The work is situated in one of the old vaults of the bank, from the days before it became a gallery. Unlike the projection in the other vault untitled (PLEASURE OF FEELING IN CONTROL), which illuminates the room using an old slide projector, this vault is dark aside for the flickering of the dying light. It is an eerie reminder of where you are standing. Positioned in the vault it speaks directly to its location – a decaying consumer product in the vault of what was once a guardian of the financial bureaucracy of capitalism.

This mass produced light is usually used for lighting in parking lots and passageways. We seldom notice these lights as they illuminate the spaces we have normalized as predominantly transient spaces – we take them for granted yet they shape much of our experience of our urban landscapes. Unlike a reading lamp which has both a practical and often an aesthetic function, these lights are not fetishised in the same way. They have a lifespan and are endlessly replaced.

Positioning one in a gallery reasserts its importance as an object that shapes our reality. The nature of its decay, like all of Vaughn’s work in this installation, reminds us to question materiality, production and consumption in that the technologies we have built to construct our physical spaces, also play part in constructing the way we perceive the spaces we live, work and play in and between. As each light dies it gets endlessly replaced in an eventually unsustainably cycle of capitalist production and consumption.

The spill light emanating throughout the gallery starts conversations within and between the works that expects us to start thinking critically about the spaces we inhabit on a daily basis. It is not only about a renewed look at the objects of light around us, but what these objects and spaces ultimately say about how society is constructed spatially through dominant ideologies.

Finally, as a summary, untitled (100m sprint) asks us to engage this relationship between space, time and light by challenging us to move rapidly, unravel 100m of cable and imagining what happens next. This encapsulates the accelerated movement forward – often called ‘progress’ – implicit in consumer capitalism, but what happens after the plug is pulled and the lights go out?

We continue moving in any variety of directions. It is up to us to imagine alternatives.

Rike Sitas

untitled (100m sprint)

2 push bike, 2 600mm 2/l ip65 fluorescent fitting, day light tubing and 200m of 1,5mmsq x 3c white PVC cabtyre electric cable dimensions variable

2006 untitled (100m sprint) uses readymade objects to playfully challenge the audience’s perception of the functionality of objects and how spaces are activated / manipulated by light.

untitled (PLEASURE OF FEELING IN CONTROL)

slide projector, slide, Perspex, mild steel and supa wood dimensions variable

2008

untitled (PLEASURE OF FEELING IN CONTROL) is a meditation on the banal and the complacency with which we conduct our lives. So often we take the infrastructure and technology that mediates our daily existence for granted, such as turning on the television or switching a light on, with little thought given to the source of these luxuries and their possible future absence. Our reliance on these everyday comforts remains unnoticed until they are no longer available.

untitled (imitate the real)

drafting light box, 15 projection screens, 995x797mm duratran print, 30a nwi d/p isolator, 20m of 25mm PVC sprag tubing, 20m 0.75 x 2c cable, fluorescent light and galvanised wire rope dimensions variable

2007-2008 untitled (imitate the real) is a comment on the banality of the everyday and the disparate relationships between certain objects. When combined, these objects interact making us question our own mortality and the transience of our existence, thus moving us further from the certainty of the everyday.

untitled (forbearer of light)

wood light box with twin flex, retractable pot plant stand, supa wood, found letter, iodine and fine liner dimensions variable

2006

untitled (forbearer of light) explores the relationship between object, narrative and place. Our immediate environments are filled with objects we instil with personal value and significance. By nature we construct narratives/analogies around these symbols to rationalise our existence, our choices and our personal relationships. The particular interest in this work is the idiosyncratic way in which we arrange and display these reminders and how these are read as signifiers of us.

untitled (passive separation)

2D 16watt 2pin compact fluorescent and 4m of 0.5 mmsq x 2 co white twin flex dimensions variable

2007

untitled (passive separation) looks at the concept of mortality, through the intentional use of light bulbs- objects that illuminate our daily lives. Their relatively short (and predetermined) lifespan forces us to remain aware of their imminent expiry and in doing so we are compelled to think of our own.

conversation This is a transcription of a conversation that was recorded during an informal walk about at BANK GALLERY on 1 May 09. The participants were Greg Streak (G.S.), Vaughn Sadie (V.S.) and Bronwen Vaughan-Evans (B.V.E.). Greg Streak is an interdisciplinary practitioner working in sculpture, video, installation and documentary filmmaking. Bronwen Vaughan-Evans lectures Senior Painting at the Fine Art Department of the Durban University of Technology. Her work is included in corporate, public and private collections both locally and internationally.

B.V.E. Can you tell me once more what the difference is between a readymade and a found object?

V.S. Readymade is an object that is currently in circulation and in mass production. A found object is an object that was once in circulation that is no longer in mass production.

B.V.E. Ok, so a found object has more nostalgia.

V.S. Baudrillard talks about the functional object and the antique object. The functional object is mass produced and has no value beyond its function. The antique object is no longer functional as an object but we collect it because of its associative and historical value.

B.V.E. Do you think a readymade should be interfered with at all? In other words you take it out of one context and merely place it in another?

V.S. In the Duchampian tradition there is the readymade and the assisted readymade. For instance, the Urinal is an assisted readymade because it was altered by the signature. So in the context of the installation most of the pieces are assisted readymades and not a pure readymade. untitled (passive separation) is the only pure readymade, it hasn’t been affected at all. Everything else would be an assisted readymade, the ladders because of the brackets and wheels. In terms of art terminology most would be considered assemblage. Lets start with untitled (folly of failing).

B.V.E. So it is a battle in which one party is dominant?

G.S. I think that’s the thing about it. It’s either two lovers or two people fighting (I’m maybe being a bit literal). It’s kind of conflict or a little embrace.

B.V.E. But conflict and intimacy often go hand in hand. The quality I enjoy here is that the more vulnerable one is the domineering one. I mean this little one is going to survive; it is going to be fine. It is made out of alloys and steel and it is functional. The dominant one isn’t going to survive, it is already out dated, but it is fighting its demise. Often it is this shift of power that makes us so brutally human. It is this loss of control that leads to the abuse of what little power we have left.

V.S. I see the strength in the work as the ambiguity of that relationship. Like you were saying, it could be one or the other. What I enjoy is when you spend more time with it you start to focus on the smaller details.

G.S. Yes, you do. It’s the thing of being able to see the one in the other, like each one is reflected in the other - literally...

B.V.E. ...and they’re connected to each other. The one cannot actually survive without the other because of the way the piece is wired.

V.S. Here the choices of the materials were important. The theodolite stand with the ceramic light fitting and a 40 w tungsten light bulb speak of old technology or old manufacturing processes.

The metal tripod with the brass fitting and the 7 w energy-saver starts to speak of new technology or state of the art manufacturing processes. This lover’s tiff, or battle of two powers is the battle between new and old technology. And at any point, depending on your vantage point, if you were nostalgic you would root for the old technology and if you were pro progress and advancement you would support the new technology.

B.V.E. It is a cyclical story really, because at some stage the now seemingly modern will become outdated.

V.S. Completely, the title starts to speak of that notion. The irony or the humour of the situation is that inevitably the bottom one is going to win but ultimately it too will lose one day.

G.S. The irony is that this could never get to where it is without this. That’s how it works. It’s a continuum and …

B.V.E. And then ultimately once the newer one is defunct, the older will exist as a more beautiful object. Because at the end of the day, once an object is defunct, its value lies in its inherent beauty. Ironically the older ceramic light fitting will outlast the newer metal one.

V.S. True. The other thing I was interested in was how many people would come up really close and investigate the little details.

G.S. No I don’t think a lot of people will. But I think that’s just the nature of work. You make it with these layers and for the most part most people will pick up on the obvious. Like, they see the tension between these two things: “Look at that thing, it could be this…”

B.V.E. But just looking at it again, it is almost like a parent/child relationship: the older generation imposing a set of outmoded structures, the younger generation still attached by an umbilical chord that runs from one to the other.

G.S. The interesting thing about new technology is it’s made to break.

B.V.E. Yes, it is made to self-destruct.

G.S. That’s the irony: that because of the time in which the ceramic bulb holder was made, it was made in a way to last. The developments that have been made are about making it smaller, cheaper, faster, whatever… So that makes it more accessible in financial terms, but it also means that it’s not going to last. When you buy a new laptop now, in two years time it is defunct. Look at the way old cars were made, you get a beautiful old, Mercedes Benz with the wooden trims.

That thing just doesn’t break.

V.S. Well, it’s craftsmanship essentially.

G.S. New stuff, plastic, breaks.

B.V.E. A lot of your work makes reference to the late modernist period in history. The individual elements in your works were generally manufactured between the late 1960’s and the present day, the period of your life. The nostalgic objects thus become symbolic of childhood, (your childhood?)

V.S. I think they pre-date my birth.

G.S. That’s another irony is that you say, “That guy’s going to outlast that guy because he’s made of steel”, but the reality probably is that if this wooden tripod is looked after it will outlast the steel.

V.S. I think that conversation that you are having now about the idea that things are manufactured to become dysfunctional is exactly the sadness that underpins the installation. Everything here at some point will deteriorate, become dysfunctional and completely obsolete. I think untitled (passive separation) in the back starts to say this in the most succinct way.

B.V.E. It is strange because they are such whimsical pieces, but when one first walks in to the gallery this whimsy is not immediately apparent, specifically if the viewer is unfamiliar with the way you’re working.

G.S. The work presents itself in a very cool way but the reality is that they’re very personal, all of them actually.

B.V.E. In this next piece untitled(risked posed to waiting), this fragile looking cable connects one “being” to another “being”. The functionality of one is dependent on the other. I love that, but it is not really what you see when you first enter the space.

V.S. This work deals with that in that way as well but I think what it starts to speak to me about is the shift in the function of the objects. The muscle heat lamp is supposed to soothe aches and pains but here it becomes something that alarms. It’s a different comment to what you’re making about the work.

B.V.E. There are many ways of reading it. If the hosepipe roller was allowed to perform its function (i.e. unravel the cable) the opposite and connected piece would fall apart, it would fall from its track as there would be nothing holding it in place. This relationship mirrors the fragilities and tensions in human interactions, we literally keep each other on track.

G.S. I think again the thing with the heat lamp - on the one hand it’s warmth to soothe and

protect but exposed to it long enough - too much heat and it has the opposite effect.

B.V.E. I really like the juxtaposition of materials in this piece, the high-shine, high-tensile wire wound around the rusted hosepipe roller.

V.S. I do think it’s a nice contrast. One element altered to preserve and the other left to deteriorate.

The galvanized wire rope has been altered to last longer than it ordinarily would. This process was extended to all of the fittings and attachments within this work. The brackets, safety hook and raw bolts were galvanized to show that the mechanisms and the structures holding it all in place would potentially outlast the objects. With this work the potential that the hosepipe roller could rust is implicit, and suggests the fragility of the structures that support us could also corrupt and fall. If this could be a metaphor for ideology, it’s pinned to the wall and held in place. It is also not allowed to move and this starts to speak to the way that society is engineered and structured.

Then personal relationships become a way of mediating that structure, so it’s exactly that what happens.

B.V.E. Well it depends on which piece is seen as the individual and which is seen as the power structure. They do seem to depend on each other and therefore could just represent two individual bodies interacting. What I really like is this shadow line drawing that is created on the wall. A lot of your work has these beautiful ‘drawings’ made from shadows. I think it would be really nice to document the ‘drawings’. They invert the cliche that an artist makes drawings or sketches of pieces and then executes them; here it is the other way around.

detail from untilted (risk posed to waiting)

V.S. With the domestic security lamp untitled (risked posed to waiting), my thinking was that normally it would alert us to intruders. How do you both respond to that?

B.V.E. When we were talking about your work in the more formative stages there was a suggestion that the audience would be able to physically interact with them, however this seems to be the

only work that has continued that idea of interactivity.

G.S. I think that the thing with these sorts of security lights is that it’s not always about an intruder.

It’s also about safety and I think in that respect it works with the duality of the works, because on the one hand, the reason for these is when you drive down your driveway the sensor detects you and puts a light on to make sure that you can see when you get out the car and go into the house. So it’s also therefore your own comfort and security. It’s not just about alerting you to someone else.

B.V.E. Yes it looks after the individual. The light alerts us to the structures around us. So in a way it’s about the individual within a space, the individual within a society.

V.S. While we’re talking about this work we should talk about the wallpaper untitled (uncertainty of knowing), which is one of the oldest works on this show.

B.V.E. Yes, it’s strange that it was very compelling when it was first made but in relation to the more recent works one can see that it is in a sense now dated. Here the human intervention is the drawing.

G.S. But there’s the drawing there. There’s the intervention: you. There you are. There’s the shadow, right there. If someone walked past this clean, clear wall of just a shadow that moves, it’s like a shadow puppet animation, as people move through the space.

B.V.E. Even if you just kept the laser cut shadow because it talks about a presence and an absence.

G.S. Exactly.

V.S. In relation to other works it starts to mimic what happens in real life once again, which is key to this work. Everything is mimicking what it should. It’s a drawing of a street lamp that no longer illuminates. The lamp still casts a shadow but the shadow is permanent now. In the representation of each of the elements they lose a fundamental property, but now are made permanent.

B.V.E. Well, it is a functionality that gains an emotionality.

G.S. I think the other thing about this piece is that it’s one of the only works where there’s human intervention. You’ve actually drawn this. Everything else is a photograph, a video, an object, and the laser profile cut out. You feel it; the bleeding of that mark.

V.S. Key to this work was the use of the large format photocopier to make the drawing bigger, the original was fifteen by fifteen centimetres. It’s a similar process for the laser cut shadow, the hand drawn shadow was photographed then traced digitally and I made it a laser cut. The human intervention is still inherent in the work but the technology has removed it.

I would possibly like to talk about untitled (converging at this place) because there’s a nice relationship. It’s that these two are essentially similar.

G.S. I was thinking that from a distance when you look at it, it’s just like a little Dutch painting, a Dutch landscape; the theme, composition and intimacy of it.

B.V.E. I really like the way the structure (projector and bracket) interferes with the piece. It shifts the focus to its means of existence.

G.S. That’s also what I had said to you before. On the one hand, of course, you confront the construction, but the reality is that in order to see the image you need to get closer. It’s asking you to come up and view it. Once you become involved in the projection, you no longer “see” the construction that is now either next to you or behind you. It’s out of your peripheral vision.

B.V.E. Your head is next to the projector and you become aware of another presence.

G.S. But it’s not something that interferes with your vision of the piece. It’s not like a lot of video pieces that are projected really big and someone walks in front of the beam. You can’t really do that here. In order to do it here you would have to be too close.

B.V.E. It also deconstructs the notion of the clean white Modernist cube, where all means of production are hidden from view. Here a more brutal bracket and projector structure interrupts the aesthetic.

V.S. The fact is that each piece is held in place by its own structure and illuminates itself, not requiring the gallery’s lighting. What I’ve been thinking about is: how does bringing your own lighting strategy into a gallery subvert or question the ability of the gallery through its structures to legitimize, to validate and position work?

G.S. It’s an interesting thing because for the most part galleries are set up in controlled way.

V.S. They become generic spaces.

G.S. This is the space; it’s like this. It has white walls, a concrete, grey floor and this is the light track

and these are the lights that we have. Then you can say, “ now I don’t want any lights on. I want spotlights. That spotlight is not right. I need something with more focus.” So you have to start tailor-making your space for contemporary work. It’s not good enough that these are the tracks and you put them on every work, and that’s what we’ve been used to in this country. You walk into every show and you get the feeling of the same.

B.V.E. Absolutely, it is the fact that you made them take the lights down and put your own lights in.

V.S. The only things that are still left in the gallery are the surveillance cameras, the motion sensors and unused plug points. Marcus Neustetter pointed it out during his address at the opening. They start to speak back to the work and feel like part of installation.

detail from untilted (distance to the ground)

B.V.E Once again there is an interesting dialogue between untitled (converging at this place) in the main space and untilted (pleasure of feeling in control) in the vault. Both pieces have the bracket and projecting device (modern projector and antiquated slide projector) in prominent focus. It once again talks about the varying levels of redundancy and nostalgia.

G.S. What I find interesting about the relationship (and sorry to talk about me), but when I made the video piece with the blood coming out of the guys mouth, Dream’s in red, there was a lot of discussion about how much it looked like a Caravaggio painting and in the same way we’re looking at this as some sort of a Dutch landscape or old painting. The interesting thing that I found about that statement when I was making that work, and about this, is that isn’t it strange that it’s achieved through the contemporary means of video projection and with very contemporary ideas. It’s an illusion because that’s what a video is – turn the projector off and the image disappears. It doesn’t have any weight after that.

B.V.E But when you think about the Dutch masters it is all about light.

G.S. Exactly. It is because of the quality of light. So the irony is that you get this feeling, this nostalgia of a seventeenth century painting achieved through a video projector.

B.V.E. Also the intimacy of scale plays an important role here because, despite being exposed to the Dutch masters primarily on a large projector screen, they are, in the flesh much smaller than one would imagine. This small-scale projection subverts our expectations of projected images.

G.S. I think just on a formal level that’s what’s really nice about this piece, is that we’re so used to in this country that every time someone makes a video it’s got to be projected on the biggest wall that they can find without thinking about the image.

V.S. I think for me the interesting thing with the connotation of Dutch landscape painting is then the idea that the work is converging at this place. So, for me the conscious choice with this was the idea that there are so many things that construct the way that we understand a particular place, and then here you have these clouds and electricity pole that is located somewhere but is quite generic. I love the way that this is shot at dusk as well so there’s also a failing light, failing daylight.

B.V.E. All of your works are about light and yet it is often the light that causes the viewer to look away. Generally one cannot look at them for too long. In this piece, the image is clear at first but as it gets darker it starts to disappear and there’s a sense of frustration around not being able to hold the image. In fact one cannot hold any of these works in the mind’s eye for very long because of the blinding light that obscures the image. Thus the light is the work’s very essence of being, but it is also the element that destroys its memory.

I think this a good place to talk about untitled (PLEASURE OF FEELING IN CONTROL) because we’ve got similar structures making images. What I liked so much about this piece is that it is just slightly off scale.

G.S. It’s three quarter the size of…

B.V.E. The image is being portrayed and yet betrayed.

V.S. I think also the sense that it’s not where it normally is. It becomes a thing that’s now at eye level. It forces you to engage with it differently. At my office the power skirting is always spitting its contents out onto the floor, and that’s partly where the concept for this work came from.

G.S. Again, Bronwyn was talking earlier about these coincidences of your work and then there’s these ceiling plug sockets above where the slide projected image is. These things are so charged.

It’s almost like you’ve put it there. It doesn’t have any cables in it and it looks like it’s just been placed there.

detail from untilted (imitate the real)

V.S. And the relationship between the two. We still have slide projectors but this type of slide projector was definitely not around when the first power skirting was made.

B.V.E. Again, I think it’s a generational debate. It’s almost like a cyclical passing on from one technology to another, an absurd kind of education. Just as we try, in vain, to equip our children for the world to come.

G.S. I think the thing with this work is that it’s like one of those things where you want to tell everyone, “go up, go up”. You’ve got to know that the engraved perspex mounted flush into the wall is there because otherwise it just feels like in a way its part of the projection.

B.V.E. I enjoy the fact that even when technology fails there is still something left of us that remains behind, almost like the engraved tombstone. It becomes an epitaph to how we existed in a certain time and place, and that at that moment we felt in control.

G.S. What’s interesting in the show is how we all know you’re a car boot sale slut. But the interesting thing is how you’ve taken things that are seen as obsolete. The whole nature of car boot sales is people think, “this is crap”. They want to get rid of it. Buy a screen for ten bucks, buy a beautiful lamp for five. They think there’s no value in it because it’s old, but what you’ve done is you’ve resurrected these things and you’ve re-imbued them with value and you kind of recreate the significance within the discarded, the thing that’s disvalued. You’ve given them a place and space and you’re making them important. I think what’s interesting about these works is that you’ve given back life to these things that are seen as obsolete and no longer necessary.

B.V.E. It is quite relevant in the South African context where there is such a big focus on cultural origins and acknowledging the past. These pieces talk about a connectivity between generations.

They speak of the pull between the nostalgia of the past and the need to break away from that past in order to survive in a technological world. untitled (distance from the ground) is a good example of this. The fragility of the filigree lights placed precariously on top of the wooden ladders alludes to a technological redundancy to come.

V.S. For me in untitled (distance to the ground) there’s an emotional buy in, as in all of the works.

An element that you feel you can connect with.

G.S. For me these are not so much found objects. It’s more like a family portrait.

B.V.E. Exactly, it definitely refers to family as well as gender (well feminine and masculine).

G.S. It’s almost animal-like. A giraffe… It’s imbued with a humanness.

B.V.E. There seems to be a struggle between the structure (the ladder: which could signify a mine shaft or a power line etc) and the individual (the light). However this struggle could be between the masculine and the feminine, or mass production and craft. In this way the piece does allude to the work of Kentridge in that he deals with the structures of power and the individual getting

lost or being defunct within that structure.

G.S. It is also that Kentridge has a predilection towards the old, the nostalgic. The phone is an old bakelite phone – not something we’d associate as contemporary.

B.V.E. By using these nostalgic objects he alludes to the era in this country where the dominant power structures were put in place. There isn’t a huge connection, but it is a nice connection.

V.S. We were talking about the found object and the readymade and this also starts to talk to the hosepipe roller. It is about structure holding something in place. The conversation about the found object and readymade is far more concise in this work in relation to what I’m trying to explore. The lamps themselves are found objects, because they’re out of circulation. They hold in place a readymade, and energy saver PAR 38, new technology. The ladders sit on the cusp, shifting from readymade to found object. The ladders are currently being phased out; in five to ten years they will be nostalgic objects. Unlike the battle in untitled (folly of failing), here we reflect upon the cycle or evolution of objects. The wheels make it more precarious, make it more awkward and start to deny the fundamental function of the ladder.

B.V.E. We as human beings have this sense of function or purpose, but it only lasts for the seventy year period that we exist.

G.S. I also think that it is the wheels that give this work its humanness. The legs on a typical ladder are just about anchoring it, but now with the wheels it has legs that can move. It gives it a sense of being some strange human entity.

details from untilted (risk posed to wainting) and untitled (distance to the ground )

B.V.E. Another thing I really like is that the shape of the lamps on the ladders echo the shape of the lamp in untitled (risk posed for waiting). There’s a nice link from one technology to another technology.

V.S. It is already extinct; it is a three-prong bayonet. The light bulb in this instance is a found object.

Once it blows the work will no longer illuminate and function. Coming back to untitled (distance to the ground) the cables become a vital part of activating the work, they are overpowered by the structure. If we look around the gallery, there are these bits of cable that fall or gather, suggesting excess.

B.V.E. They are both masculine and feminine. They talk about individuals, power structures, entrails and mortality.

V.S. untitled (100m sprint) is one of the older works on the show and was the work where I realized I could use only the light fitting. What I enjoy about the manifestation of this work is the placement, which creates a greater tension of the cables pulling out.

detail from untilted (100m sprint)

B.V.E. It talks about the sprint. It talks about the fact that these bikes have moved, are able to move and want to move.

V.S. It also talks about the tension of wanting to get one of these bikes to get really quickly to 100 meters and that jolt. You feel that tension. Each of the bikes has 100 meters of cables attached, making it 200m meters in total. So if you were willing to unravel the knot, you could do the 100m sprint. Lets talk about untitled (imitate the real).

B.V.E. The open coffin-like structure suspended in the empty space was incredibly potent. I feel that the potency of this fragile life and death has been diluted by the screens. I feel the screens as viewers make me feel less lonely.

G.S. What I do find interesting is that this is once again a found object. You came home and saw this pigeon in the pool. You found it as it was.

V.S. For me untitled (imitate the real) speaks most poignantly to the title of the installation. There is an immediate link to the situation, the interaction of the three things at play: the Kreepy Krauly, water and the pigeon creates a dynamic that will impact on all of them.

B.V.E. The different sizes and ages of the screens do allude to a family.

G.S. It is like a funeral or gathering and then here is the coffin.

B.V.E. The journey through life.

G.S. It is such a powerful image and of course your choice of the plastic sprag as opposed to the steel sprag makes it the Kreepy Krauly pipe, but again it is the entrails that come out of the centre of the box, spilling its way round into the bigger space…

V.S. The interesting thing for me is that people forget that this is a light box. I was in the space yesterday with somebody who asked, “If this is a light box where does the power come from?”

My suggestion was to follow the piping that comes out of the bottom and see where it takes you.

B.V.E. I do think that this is one of the most powerful pieces on the show.

G.S. Me too.

B.V.E. Not just the light box but the screens as well. I am beginning to understand why you clung to the screens, however their placement relative to the light box is important.

V.S. When I chose to include the screens I wanted something that was a different process of engagement, because you see everything when you walk into the first space. I didn’t want this to be immediately present when you walk in. I wanted a sense that there was that shift with a little bit of red/yellow light spilling through to that blue light.

B.V.E. In a way, but the subtle decisions that you made where you have this very fragile looking

cable holding up a very heavy thing, gets diluted by the screens.

G.S. I think it is the advantage of the space. This wall would become your screen, because you don’t see it immediately. You don’t, when you walk in from the front, know that there is a light box at the back. You have to come around here and then you get it. That’s the screen because you don’t have a clue what you will see behind it.

B.V.E. What I do like about having to weave between the screens towards the glow of ‘the coffin’, is that the surprise is not immediately revealed.

V.S. I don’t know if people notice that the pigeon’s eye is dry. This for me talks of time passing.

As much as the screens have their own sense of time, the pigeon has been in the pool for more than a day.

B.V.E. What I do like in all your pieces is that there is this sense of imposing structure that goes beyond the individual, which could be a society, a space or a government.

V.S. This is the outcome of untitled (risk posed to waiting). The objects that make it up, much like the pool, become a signifier or metaphor for a very particular space: suburbia. To go back to the screens, they are the things that should hold the image but all that they are left with is this reflected light from the roof.

B.V.E. But they illuminate as well because the material the screen is made from is designed to reflect light.

V.S. If we understand that the image is a message. The image/message is diluted through the reflection, which is then mediated by the different surfaces. It is almost like these structures start to edit and dilute information to make it consumable. The screen at the back then gets this washed out version of what has been happening. The screens closest to the light box get the true essence of what is happening with the others being left in the dull light that is watered down. If we are talking about structure, the drafting light box here was used to design suburbia and the infrastructure that keeps order.

B.V.E. Beautiful use of the found object and assemblage.

G.S. Absolutely.

V.S. Lets talk about untitled (passive separation).

B.V.E. There isn’t that much nuance. The power lies in its simplicity. It is dying, it is sad and it is terrible to watch.

G.S. I think it is the kind of work where if you talk about it you kill it. You destroy the poetry. It is the kind of thing where you don’t want to state the obvious. The power of it is having that sense of something struggling; it’s on a life support system. You know it’s going to go but it’s still there. You want to hold it. It is also like when you wait for a fluorescent to come on - and you’re hoping for that here even when you know its not going to. The work has pathos and melancholy.

V.S. Maybe this is the best place to start talking about untitled (sleep state). The clock essentially starts to do that; you sit and wait for the digits to come on.

G.S. That is what I was saying I like about it. It is not an L.E.D clock where when the two goes to three its fluid. This goes two, and stutters to three as the fluorescents find their way on and off respectively.

V.S. I enjoy the way that technology in the clock starts to impede the accuracy of time.

B.V.E. It refers back to the first digital clocks. They were as rudimentary as this piece, but as fascinating. What I did want to say about all of the works on show is that there is a sense of ‘big brother’ somewhere in each, and specifically in this work. It monitors all the time, even when the individual is asleep. When we are cognisant and rational we don’t see it due to the drowning daylight. It talks about the surrender of the individual to the greater system. But it also alludes to the fragility of the system or the bureaucracy.

G.S. The one thing that I like about the clock is that because it does take so long by the time that it hits thirteen minutes past, its about thirteen minutes past and fifteen seconds when all the segments are on. It is struggling to keep time.

V.S. This is the only work where the aesthetic choice around the cable is more considered and I wonder what dialogue that sets up for people.

G.S. I think in this instance, the reason why it is bunched up is because you don’t want to make something of it. The piece is about the clock, it’s not about the cables. As you walk in you know that there is a connection with the box that is driving the thing.

V.S. I did want to set up a contrast to the installation in some way just in terms of that. It’s not a very sentimental piece in terms of its structure, but in relation to how it switches on, it is.

B.V.E. It transgresses the inside and outside space and illuminates the street, the actual space in which we live, in which we experience all of the things that we have brought in here in order to understand the work.

V.S. We have such immediate associations to these objects, because we use them everyday. It requires an emotional and intellectual investment from the get go.

B.V.E. It requires the individual to be active not passive.

G.S. Ya of course.

V.S. For me this is what the installation speaks to. These things: objects, light, space, structure and ideologies have the potential to move yet they require us not to be passive.

END

thanks Marcus Neustetter, Rike Sitas, Greg Streak, Bronwen Vaughan-Evans, Bronwyn Lace, Dean Henning and Neil Coppen.

Gordon Baxter, Darren Murray, Patrick Lettman and Magic Lighting.

Vega The Brand Communications School and The Durban University of Technology.

BANK GALLERY Henrietta Hamiliton, Robert Fraser and Katherine Hamilton.

Photography Andrew Griffin and Vaughn Sadie. www.vaughnsadie.net