Delicate Instruments | Vitrine | 2023

 

Visitors to Delicate Instruments (Vibrating Stillness) at Vitrine, Exeter 2023

“A vibrating stillness like that in a vitrine”

Edmund de Waal quoting Rilke in ‘The Hare with Amber Eyes’ (2010)

Shifting between scientific and psychical thinking, Delicate Instruments suggests new ways to tune into hidden signals from the more-than-human.

Originally shared at the Devon & Exeter Institution as a public participatory event, this iteration was made specially for Vitrine, a shop display cabinet c. 1900 which hosts a series of occasional installations by UK and international artists in the Exeter home of artist and arts educator Sarah Bennett.

Obscured by a veil, the vitrine initially withholds its contents. A closer look reveals them as objects held in unstable equilibrium and sensitive to the slightest stimuli: from trembling paper cases balanced on the points of nails, to indigo carbon paper primed to register subtle touch. The cabinet also contains a number of found objects with the potential to make a sound in response to vibrations in the air – an oboe reed, a lead whistle, a tuning fork.

Some of these instruments are drawn from the realm of psychical experimentation, where they might have been placed in a sealed cabinet to isolate them from air currents and other physical influences. However, on the lowest shelf we set up a miniature electric fan that disturbed the air inside the cabinet sufficiently to cause lighter objects to tremble and spin. It also vibrated quietly, filling the room with a just-audible hum.

We took our title from a description of the famous medium Eusapia Palladino (1854 –1918). Oliver Lodge, who went to investigate her for the Society of Psychical Research, told colleagues it was better not to think of her as a person but as "a delicate instrument". The idea of “unstable equilibrium…sensitive to the slightest stimuli” comes from Richard Noakes quoting William Barratt (1867) in ‘Physics and Psychics’ (2019).

Delicate Instruments (Vibrating Stillness) was made In collaboration with Megan Calver. It was installed at Vitrine, Exeter 25th November - 21st December 2023 and shared with visitors by invitation and appointment on 25th November, 5th December, 9th December and 19th December, as well as informally with Sarah Bennett's family and friends.

What kind of an artist am I?

 

What kind of an artist are you? It’s a question people often ask me, and one I struggle to answer. These days I mostly make sound and moving image works, installations and publications - and organisations and funders sometimes even pay me for it.  BUT I have no one craft skill, no postgraduate qualifications and no studio. 

I tend to learn skills as I need them and if I can't learn them well enough to fulfil a specific project, I hire people to help me out. I did not do an MA, even though I have a research-based and critically engaged practice. Having an MA may suggest you’re more serious about your profession but, in my view, it’s an expensive and time-consuming way to make the point.

But now the question of artists and studios has come up. And that is harder to come to terms with. An artist new to my city has initiated a series of studio visits between Devon artists. It’s a great low-cost, easy-to-manage idea for self-development and networking. But what can I offer if I don’t have a studio?

The city of Exeter is well-known for its dearth of studio space, and it’s always concerned me because it makes it more difficult for artists to settle and thrive here. So, back in the day, I made a genuine effort to address it.  For two years I worked really hard with other artists on setting up a shared studio building in the city centre and a Community Interest Company to run it. But, after a strong start, the project quickly foundered and I didn’t have the energy to start over. I managed to secure space in the city’s only other dedicated studio building. But after about 7 years that was sold off and, struggling with my finances,  I decided I would have to manage at home.

Having no studio has now become normal for me. I work on location, on my computer and on my kitchen table. I’m lucky: I’m not in a tiny flat or house share. I have my own home and in it there’s a small spare room where I keep my materials, kit, research, stock, documentation etc but I have no dedicated space beyond my computer for working. 

The artist new to Exeter said ‘Why not share your inspiration shelf? Everyone has one of those, right?’ Er, no! (She was joking - kind of.) I have a folder on my PC.  That’s my workspace, my headspace.

But it made me think. Should I be content with my unconventional approaches (I seem pretty productive) or should I be concerned about disadvantaging myself?  Am I taking my practice seriously enough? Does the lack of physical space I devote to my art practice reflect the way I squeeze it in around earning a ‘proper’ living? Why do I beg other women artists to take up more space with their work in galleries when I can’t even find proper space for my own practice in my home?

Yes, really, what kind of an artist am I?