On going places and never giving up

LOW PROFILE Never Give Up (2013) site specific installation at Exeter Phoenix

Plymouth-based LOW PROFILE staged their 12-hour performance DRY RUN part 2: How to save your skin when disaster strikes without warning last Saturday as part of their show 'Against All Odds' at Exeter Phoenix  (24 May - 6th July 2013).

During this performance, they read, learn from and test each other on the advice offered in a 1960's publication - The Book of Survival.  It all took place in a building decked out with a giant window work encouraging passers-by to "Never Never Never Never Give Up" and with a small, displaced safety curtain draped across its reception space.

I only dipped in for an hour but learned a lot about avoiding avalanches and escaping burning buildings. (And also, I guess, about surviving as an artist.)  The tone of the Q&A dialogue between the two performers veered from funny/absurd to calm/weary to nervy/hyper, recalling Forced Entertainment's Quizoola!  It was good to see a durational performance where endurance was essential to its meaning (rather than a masochistic/macho add on).

Down the road at Spacex, Layla Curtis is showing 'Antipodes' (18 May - 13 July), based around a curation of paired public webcams worldwide. Drawing attention to what's happening on opposite sides of the globe isn't a new idea, but there's something pleasing about the haphazardness of relying on someone else's live footage and the odd correspondences (and blips) that occur.  It's shown alongside an intense video piece Tong Tana with amazing binaural sound, filmed from an tiny HD camera sewn into the hat of a hunter in Borneo and showing you the forest from his point of view.  Borneo is antipodal to the UK and the contrast couldn't be greater.

Fund-a-mental findings

I've always considered working with funding organisations an integral part of professional practice, but my experiences over the past year are making me think again about how to negotiate this relationship.

I've been working on two projects in parallel. The first, Foreign Soil started out as a bit of an experiment, an unfunded diversion from my core practice. And it's ticking along nicely.  I'm not sure where it's headed but the journey so far has been a real process of discovery. Work is getting made, insights are happening and, as a result, I've been able to engage very widely with other people, including a range of generous collaborators.

The other, which has the working title Solid Air, is still mired in administration. It relates to my long-term core practice around transcription of bird flight. I've been developing this particular phase for over a year, pursuing funding, commissions and gallery shows in a more traditional way.

It's based on 3D printing, an expensive process, but one I had the chance to experiment with last summer and would like to use again.  It's the only way I know of getting the complex bird flight data I've sourced and modelled into a tangible form. I've now pitched the idea to various arts organisations at least five times - not including the presentations and proposals I've made to potential collaborators and sponsors.

I'm not saying this is unusual for a professional artist, but I am beginning to question whether it's good for the work - and for me. I've talked about and written about Solid Air relentlessly for 12 months but - apart from my first prototype and a few test drawings - I haven't been able to make any of it. Time and again I'm forced to describe the idea, the process and the likely outcomes. Worse still, although nothing much exists yet and I don't know what I'll discover when I do make it, I have to speculate on its likely critical context and imagine how I'll engage the public.

I'm determined to make this work - it's had a lot of interest and good feedback.  And the very fact that some people can't quite get their heads round it suggests it's showing them something they haven't thought about before. But I have to admit that the struggle for funding and support is destroying its momentum. By the time I've explained it for the umpteenth time, I wonder if it needs to be made any more.

I went to a talk by photographer Jem Southam the other week and he spoke a lot about finding meaning through making - using photography as process of discovery, rather than “trying to put things into the picture”. All good stuff, but it seems to me this is a privilege that's only afforded to established artists. Or those who opt out of the funding game.

I don't know which of these projects will turn out to have the most value or meaning in the long term. What I do know is that one of them is actually happening and the other is still only an idea. It makes me think very seriously about the way should approach my practice in the future.

Wolverhampton wanderings

A selection of works from The Library of Lost Books  is currently on show at the Bessant Gallery, Wolverhampton,  25 April - 23 May 2013.  The show includes my contribution Mutter Erde. http://gabriellehoad.co.uk/mutter_erde.php