the artist
"My practice has evolved into what I playfully and provisionally name ‘conceptual somatics’ or the dialogics of the thinking body. 'Body Thinking' for short. Planned interventions, ideas and signifiers are open to dialogue and mediated by surface, colour and other disruptions that access our sensory intelligence. The naming of this approach is a symbolic puncturing of the meta-narrative of the painter as a kind of shamanist with all meaning encapsulated in the 'expressive' gesture. This latter privileged viewpoint was a feature of the modernist period and lingers on. Some great works have been done under this rubric, but reflective also of repressive distributions of power and heirarchies in the art and wider world. These systemic constraints privileged certain formal parameters and material disciplines such as painting. The conceptual turn in all its variety reconfigured this hegemony.
Body Thinking is a reframing that collapses this myth of the material process artist, while not chucking the proverbial baby out with the bathwater. The precious baby being the communicative range of the sensory. I see this somatic reality as a revised energy that can inform present art practice and discourse in a post conceptual setting. The manipulation of material surface intuitively, to offer a sensory range of readings, is now released to work with a decentred cognitive input. The past subject auratic or 'I and they' of the artist voice is open now to 'you and I' or 'I with you', a negotiated space of representation for the art work.
This critical space of embodied communication is then no longer the preserve of the stereotypes of the high street gallery. Conversely, the often hermit like spaces of the contemporary white cube are opened up to the rich diversity of colour and material process. This productive move engages with the liberatory conceptual turn and the resulting post-conceptual new democracy in art modes, with a more focused re-engagement with sensory or somatic intelligence.
I don't think it is anymore about privileged modes of working, but more about how meanings are negotiated. This dialogue includes the artist, art work, participating viewer and any wider configurations of critical discourse. It is a kind of collaboration across all the resources available to us as artists."
Original 'Organic Text 1' - Started 24.04.09. Scroll for history of text
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OT 1 Change 08.05.09
In sequence:
Line 17 semicolon after 'bathwater'
Line 18 small t to replace capital T
Line 19 'somatic reality' inserted after 'Isee this; ''revised' replaces 'new'
Lines 20-21 'into some' deleted and replaced by 'helpfully informing some'; 'into some demarcations in art' deleted and replaced by 'art practice and'
Line 22 'absent' deleted and replaced by 'critiques'
Line 26 insert 'in the making of art.' after 'commodity fetishism'
Line 30 'leaves' deleted and replaced by 'results in'
Line 31 'in' deleted and replaced by 'being isolated in'
Line 34 insert 'or misunderstood by the lay public' after 'ignored'
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20.6.09
7th line 'some' replaced by 'a'
8th line on 'usually goes hand in hand with a straightjacket of style and ending with an object of self-serving meaning' replaced by 'This latter privileged viewpoint was a feature of the modernist period and lingers on'
11th line 'have been' replaced by 'were'
15th line 'proverbial' between 'the' and 'baby'
19th line Full stop after 'discourse'
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26.6.09
Line 24 "now released to work with a decentred cognitive unput in contrast to the subject auratic of a past period." replaces "still tinged with the brush of the 'expressive' shamanist narrative".
Line 26 delete "leaves this"
Line 27After "embodied communication" insert "is then no longer the preserve". Delete "of" after "preserve".
Lines 29 - 34 Delete "t is a kind of self-defeating puritan purging of the flesh that commonly results in contemporary art being isolated in the hermit like space of the white cube with its significant innovations and rethinkings ignored or misunderstood by the lay public"
Add "Conversely, the often hermit like spaces of the white cube are opened up to the rich diversity of colour and material process."
Lines 31-7Replace "
think a more productive move is to use the recent rich heritage of the conceptual in art to reengage sensory intelligence."
With "Conversely, the often hermit like spaces of the white cube are opened up to the rich diversity of colour and material process. This productive move engages with the conceptual turn and the post-conceptual new democracy in art modes with a more focused re-engagement of sensory intelligence.".
Line 33 Add "liberatory" . Add "resulting"
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28.07. 2009
Line 20 ", and is more and more, helpfully informing" replaced by "increasingly inform"
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01.03.2010
Line 6 'intelligence' replaces 'experience'
Line 12 'repressive' insert between 'of' and 'distributions'
Line 13 'and wider' insert between 'art' and 'world'
Line 13 'These systemic constraints privileged certain formal parameters and material disciplines such as painting. The conceptual turn in all its variety reconfigured this hegemony.
It is' In between 'art and wider world.... and 'a reframing'
Line 19 'The precious' (baby) replaces 'the....
Line 38 'I don't think it is anymore about privileged modes of working, but more about how meanings are negotiated. This dialogue includes the artist, art work, participating viewer and any wider configurations of critical discourse. It is a kind of collaboration across all the resources available to us as artists.' replaces 'I don't.... to 'artists.'
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5 March 2010
Line 2 Insert 'or the dialogics of the thinking body'
Line 3 Full stop after 'body'. Delete 'where'
Line 3 Insert '..''Body Thinking"for short' ..after 'body.'
Line 4 Insert 'and signifiers are open to dialogue ' after 'ideas'
Line 19 Insert 'Body Thinking' as start of sentence after 'hegemony'.
Line 28 Replace sentence after 'cognitive input' with 'The past subject auratic or 'I and they' of the artist voice is open now to 'you and I' or 'I with you', a negotiated space of representation for the art work.'
