Day 1 (11/02/20)

As recommended in the introductory lecture, I looked through my previous sketchbooks and workflow entries to pinpoint ‘the seeds of my proposal’ and the possible starting points for my enquiry. Locating the outcomes that I have found most intriguing, due to the methods or themes I considered, has revealed the foundations of my practice.

The Collection project in Part 1 prompted my investigation of smell and led me to discover how incorporating the senses can further engage and connect viewers. Since then, I have explored multisensory pieces as part of my independent study, testing smell’s relationship with objects and memory and exploring how we react to familiar smells that ‘slip out of our consciousness’. Although smell and my research into its properties has consequently fuelled a large proportion of my work, I do not want to focus solely on this sense in Part 3. I fear a subject this specific would be too restricting and rather challenging, given that smells are hard to create and moreover contain. I would therefore like to concentrate on a project that combines smell with the other senses. Touch is a particular area of interest as my recent experimentation with frozen pva glue has made me realise how a texture can effectively create a feeling of unease that contrasts to the satisfaction also felt. Creating a jelly sculpture brought in the prospect of an audience interacting with a piece revealing how touch can also alter the power dynamic and hierarchy within the gallery space.

After listening to BBC 4’s radio programme ‘Filth’, I am considering using my knowledge and fascination for the senses to bring other issues to light. Zac Denfeld and Kat Cranmer’s air pollution merengues and Ilana Boltvinik and Rodrigo Viñas’ collection and labelling of cigarette butts reveal how getting people to taste or smell makes the severity of air pollution and waste more potent. Even though I may not comment on environmental issues by using the senses, my research into these artists’ work has made me willing to connect with other subjects and themes within my multisensory approach, and keen to consider the sustainability of the materials I use throughout the process.

Since every sense was used so effectively by the artists in ‘Filth’ I want to keep my project open to all of these, even though I feel like this may make my subject too broad. Although I decided to get rid of taste, as incorporating this brings so many health and safety concerns with allergies, I am struggling to make my PPP less vague. At the moment, my draft commits to using touch, smell, sound and sight which makes it lack a focus. My plan is to talk to a tutor so I can find ways around this problem.

Day 2 (14/02/20)

Discussing my ideas with Gary has helped me break down my project’s concepts and aims into sections, so I can now specifically select what I want to do. He agreed that one sense made my focus too narrow and felt that exploring the tactile offered the most opportunities and could allow me to continue valuing and analysing materials. The questions that he asked, concerning whether I would focus on documenting touch (film of someone touching material) or consider dematerialisation (no sight) revealed that I wanted my audience to directly touch my outcomes and also see them. This will allow colour and appearance to add to a piece’s discomfort, which I realised I was interested in when Gary described experiments with blue and yellow goo where no one wanted to touch the yellow mixture due to its associations with pus and bodily fluids. Researching this experiment later reminded me of an idea that I had for the Being Human project in Part 2. I had aimed to create fleshy blobs which, when squished, would force unknown liquids to come out, conveying the lack of connection we have with our internal bodies and how we are almost fearful of what is inside us. Since this was a project I had enjoyed and explored with some success, I have decided to focus on touch and how this connects us to our bodies, especially since feeling is a very intimate thing that involves the whole body.

Artists and ideas recommended:

Mohri Masahiro

Ernesto Neto

Karla Black

Gabriel Orozco

Fingering fruit

Day 1 (18/02/20)

I am thinking about how I could make a park project that caters to animals as well as humans. I have come up with an idea where I will play the harmonica in the park as a live performance and make the dogs howl. I realise that is idea is very unrealistic, but think this may prove as a useful starting point in creating a visualisation that can include the animals and residents of the park. 

Day 1 (24/02/20)

The lecture we had on the park project today has helped me form some new ideas on what I might like to propose. I have started to consider the function of the park to me personally rather than merely the people and animals that occupy it. As Waterlow is my local park, I have visited it frequently throughout my childhood, finding it a place to play and be adventurous when I was younger, and more recently a place to relax and gather my thoughts. Often my friend and I would leave the stress of school to go and talk in the park, enjoying its quietness. I am keen for my piece to adapt to these concerns and hence be engaging to an audience of many ages. This has led me to start considering a piece that is texturally comforting but also tensile and malleable, maybe a work that can be squished and altered but sat on?

I have also spent the day finalising my PPP and trying to bring down the word count. Hannah suggested that I add an explanation as to why I want to investigate touch in section two, so I will try and do this concisely.

Day 2 (25/02/20)

I have been thinking of possible materials that might allow a participant to connect with their bodies and a shape that would invite a passer-by to play or relax and sit on my sculpture. I am drawn to this idea of having a clear goo like blob in the park, as there is something very somatic about jelly-like textures. When I worked with this material in Part Two, I found it oddly addictive and pleasurable to touch. Similarly the movement of goo or resin and its ability to respond to the way it is touched and yet slowly bounce back to its original form is likely to engage a younger audience, as many of the ‘How to make slime’ videos on YouTube are aimed for this age group. Something squishy and of this colour may remind humans of their own bodily products or other creatures (species of jellyfish) perhaps connecting them to the nature surrounding them. I would be interested to see how people would react to something like this, would they want to touch it or feel repulsed or intrusive if they did? Moreover, I think the transparency could respond well to a park setting, showing the people and plants surrounding its location, and changing appearance and visibility due to the time of day.

Day 3 (26/02/20)

It has become clear that the ideas I considered yesterday will not be possible in a practical sense. Although I am keen to explore clear goo-like materials in another aspect of my project, having this material be able to hold and withstand a persons’ weight or people tugging at its surface seems unrealistic, especially since I want my viewers to engage with my work freely. Jelly and goo would also melt when being outdoors for a long period of time, whilst the urethane resin that I discovered is expensive, even to buy in small amounts. I contemplated just having a thin layer of this material over a stuffed shape, but this brought up concerns on whether people could pull parts off my sculpture getting residue on their hands and potentially consuming dangerous products.

Due to this, I have turned my research elsewhere, thinking of materials that respond to touch through colour. This led me to discover a medium known as oogoo (silicone and cornflour) which is used to create robot skin, and with electricity can react like human skin does when it is touched. The electric side of this seemed too complicated but prompted my investigation into thermochromic pigments that change colour due to the temperature. I was engaged by the idea of a piece that would react to the participants’ touching and make the viewers aware of their heat, their breath and consequently their bodies and its functions. When one realises that they can alter a piece’s appearance, they begin to test out which parts of their body can do so and begin to inhale a little deeper becoming aware of their breathing by controlling and responding to it.

Day 4 (27/02/20) Independent Study Day 

To start my visualisation, I went to Waterlow park to take photos of the possible places where I could install my sculpture. I realised it was important that my piece had a lot of space around it so people coming to touch it didn’t trample on nearby plants in doing so. Since I aim to create an interactive work, it seems plausible to have a location that is flat and near the walkways so people can easily access what I present and feel obliged to get up close and touch it. This spot is also located near a long line of benches where people look at the view and relax, possibly making my potential piece more inviting to sit on.

Day 5 (28/02/20) Independent Study Day

Taking part in the ‘Dialogue in the Dark’ exhibition in Hackney has provided me with a lot of material to fuel my project and idea development. The whole experience was set in complete darkness and because I went alone, I was with strangers who knew one another. This made my time there even more daunting but being completely thrown into an unfamiliar and rather unnerving situation made it more memorable. Because I was left to find my way around different settings (bus stop, park, market…) with people I didn’t know prior to the exhibition, I was able to perceive how touch plays such a different role in our functioning when sight is removed. Although still rather awkward, it became acceptable to be pulled along by an unknown person and rubbed on the shoulder and head by someone you couldn’t see. We had to have physical contact with each other to gain an understanding of the space and not get left behind from the group, touch that would have been regarded as inappropriate or embarrassing in the sighted world.

Touch similarly became crucial in our understanding of the objects we were holding. Since I couldn’t rely on my sight, I found myself feeling the whole surface of the objects I picked up, getting a sense of their volume and shape to help me identify what they were. When thinking back on the experience I remember the textures of the floors in immense detail, for example the porous planks of wood in the coffee shop. I thought it was interesting how we mostly focus on the feeling of things on our hands when actually the feet experience so many different textures and surfaces on a daily basis. It makes one realise how much we have been conditioned to favour the optic as a society, and how this results in the visually impaired, our tour guide Simon for example, feeling rather excluded. This became clear as Simon refused to leave the dark rooms and be seen by us, instead preferring his appearance to remain a mystery as ours did to him.

Although I would still like to create pieces that are visually engaging, I will aim to create works where the haptic experience is equally as exciting, and focuses on how the whole body feels a space and environment, rather than just the hands. After this exhibition I am also keen to create sculptures that instead touch their viewers, making them feel vulnerable or lacking control.

Day 1 (02/03/20)

In order to make my park sculpture feel more alive and have certain human qualities that both comfort and disturb the viewer, as Mohri Masahiro’s uncanny valley hands experiment reveals, I have become keen to make my sculpture breathe, in the sense that it rises and falls. Getting a sculpture to do this would obviously be a huge challenge but I have started researching any possible equipment or mechanical objects that perform this movement and could consequently make a stuffed shape move in this way if placed inside. Sadly, there seems to be nothing that I had in mind and Gary has suggested that I move away from trying to engineer a park piece, especially since park is not a crucial part of this project. He thinks I should focus on quick and small experimentation, possibly with small moving gadgets, so I have decided to go and source some toys like this.

Day 2 (03/03/20)

The moving toys idea didn’t really work. I managed to find some chattering teeth toys that open and close with a sharp clapping noise, but whenever I placed a material on top of them (dough or fabric) so a mini sculpture could merely take on their movement, the teeth went still, as their sequence depended on them not having any additional weight. When I attempted to dismantle some of the toys the teeth couldn’t move at all, so I instead focused on creating stuffed shapes that might help me develop my park proposal.

For one cushion I experimented putting wrapped tape pieces inside, so the surface was somewhat lumpy, feeling almost porous like the textures I noted in Dialogue in the Dark. With the other piece I tested looping single hair strands through the threads in the fabric so when stroked softly, the pillow had a very animal or human feel that tickled the skin. I enjoyed how the type of touch applied changed the piece, as more forceful pressure meant the hairs were not felt at all, whilst the hands became aware of the bounciness and the compression of the stuffing inside. This experimentation has made me keen to give my stuffed thermochromic sculpture a more bodily and skin-like feel, by having subtle hairs poking out of the sheet I use.

Day 3 (04/03/20)

Deciding the right shape for my park sculpture was my focus in the studio today. I have tried to create a plan where my piece seems playful and inviting, with long cylinder-like shapes to be pushed and swung, and yet slightly uncomfortable due to its level of humanness with the fleshy colour, thermochromic responsiveness and sprouting hairs. The middle section of my sculpture visualisation that links the cylinders can be sat on, although I’m not sure if this would be clear to an audience and particularly comfortable. I may revise this aspect of the piece. The pegs that I have drawn on my plan would hopefully hold the structure down in the soil allowing it to be securely fastened from all sides.

As my tutors have advised me to start actively working in the studio, I also attempted to make a clear goo with some shampoo and pva glue. I ended up with more of a dough as I had to add flour as a thickener, but was still able to explore how materials like these respond to the kneading of the hands and are constantly indented by the way they are held and manipulated. Materials that show their history of touch and leave marks of the nature of their touch may be an interesting route to consider.

Day 4 (05/03/20) Independent Study Day

Adrian has sent me feedback regarding my park proposal. I am pleased that he likes the general idea, but it has become clear that there are some pitfalls in my visualisation. Firstly, the shape will need to be adapted for safety reasons, as currently the large surface area to volume ratio would make my sculpture likely to collapse in windy conditions. The thermochromic pigment may also pose an issue as I am unsure how it will operate outdoors, especially since this paint can be sensitive to UV light.

Although Adrian has suggested that my proposed piece may work better indoors, I am keen to try and make it more appropriate for the park. Being able to have a variety of age groups interact with my work would be an invaluable experience, especially since I am keen to observe who would chose to play and push the fleshy blobs and who would enjoy sitting on them. However, I am aware that my whole project is not centred around Park and in the end my visualisation may not be accepted into this project.  For this reason, it is important that, while making the necessary adjustments to my proposal, I concentrate on building other ideas.

Day 1 (09/03/20)

My progress tutorial has highlighted how I need to physically test out my ideas and the materials I aim to use, rather than attempt to resolve and develop work solely in my head. Kaori agreed that although my idea for Park would be exciting, the shape and the properties of the thermochromic pigment need further experimentation, for example how the paint would react to long term sunlight exposure. She suggested that small scale and more immediate exploration will help me find solutions to these problems, and at the same time allow me to produce a larger body of work to analyse and document.  

In response to this feedback I have begun ordering materials to test out. The thermochromic pigments all seem to come in bright colours and turn clear when heated above a certain temperature. I had initially aimed to have a fleshy coloured sculpture but due to the options available it seems the red pigment will be the most appropriate. Although I also like the black pigment, I felt this colour may be too harsh in a bright springtime park setting, and rather uninviting for an interactive piece. I also had to focus on buying a pigment with a suitable temperature range;  I decided on the product that changed colour at 31°C and above, so my piece would not be affected by the April weather and would most importantly respond to the human body and its touch (the participants).

Day 2 (12/03/20)

Since my last attempt to make goo failed, I have decided to try again, this time adding sugar to the mix and giving the finished result some time to cool in the fridge. Whilst I had originally planned to create little goo-like blobs and explore how the skin can interact with them, I have become interested in seeing how these bodily forms can engage with a door handle. The current coronavirus situation has heightened the public’s awareness of hazards and how to avoid contact with virus particles and droplets in a daily routine. Videos on how to properly wash your hands flood the internet and I have noticed in the studio that many more people are using hand sanitiser. I was keen to create a piece in response to this change in behaviour and wonder how soon, when the situation eases, the majority will go back to touching surfaces without a second thought. I thought that by placing sculptures in areas with frequent human contact, making someone notice the surface before touching it or at least become aware of it by feeling a different texture, might draw attention to our usual touch habits and how many of us do touch our surroundings very freely. Has coronavirus permanently changed our relationship with the objects we often interact with? (door handles, phone screens, chairs and furniture) Should we collectively aim to stay this aware of the cleanliness of our skin even post corona crisis?

Unfortunately, the goo didn’t work and was just a sloppy liquid, despite being put in the fridge and freezer for many hours. I decided to test out my idea with what I had, as the air bubbles in the mixture made it look like spit, the key thing that is spreading the virus, via an infected cough or sneeze. The photographs managed to depict the goo dripping off the handle and the oily and slimy nature of the object. When I went to open the door, the sensation of the material immediately made my skin feel contaminated as it spread across my palm and wasn’t absorbed due to its thickness. As clear goo drizzled on surfaces is not very obvious in a visual sense, I enjoyed how the material’s feeling and its touch made a participant keen to wash their hands and get away from the object. A texture is key in making our bodies set off alarm bells.

I then explored this with some dough, which I made yellow with a combination of spices and herbs, guided by the article that Gary had recommended about yellow making people wary of touch. I decided to use spices instead of paint so smell could also contribute to the body responding to a threat, or at least an unknown object in an unexpected place. The combination of spices I used smell slightly like human sweat, making me envisage armpits and its pores. Using this smell made me feel like I was intruding on something intimate and bodily when kneading the dough, although I am unsure if an audience would feel the same. Whilst experimenting with the dough, I noticed how I was unable to create a form that didn’t have a fingerprint or mark from where I had touched it last. This had happened when I ‘d tested this material in the studio so I began to explore how I could make the indents I created a part of the piece. I realised that, by squeezing my hand around a long cylinder of the dough with quite a bit of force, I was able to get a very obvious imprint of how I would have held the door handle to either open and close a door. This was the most successful shape I had created, as I feel this outcome could make the viewers’ fingers sink into the shape of the previous hand print, and through sight as well, become aware of the amount of people that have touched the surface. Moreover, my sculpture seemed to blend in quite well with the door handle, visually becoming a part of it rather than an addition, which was a positive given that my piece took on the function of the handle. I am pleased with this outcome which aimed to respond to ones’ behaviour surrounding the way we touch objects.  I would like to explore how I could make this work in a gallery space, maybe having a door handle that feels normal but has a sensory detector that makes people become aware of how many had touched it with a large screen documenting the number in the next room. I would find it interesting to see how an audience would behave after performing an action that they would usually carry out, when they are aware of the condition of the object that they have just touched. Would people go and wash their hands or avoid touching their skin?

Day 1 (17/03/20)

With the university closed and the public beginning to avoid unnecessary contact, it seems like our projects will take a very different course of action. It was announced today that no exhibitions will be taking place, including Park, which is of course a disappointment as I was keen to have another dimension added to my work by having a public audience. My project also planned to utilise the workshops and materials that I now will not be able to access or sculpt with on such a large scale. However, it has become evident that my project’s concepts are very relevant to the global pandemic. More than ever people are aware of their touch, how they touch themselves and their surroundings, how others touch them and crucially how the skin is a potential place for pathogens to enter. Previously people have been aware that touching the mouth or eyes is contaminating but now we are being advised not to touch our face if our hands aren’t clean. I feel that suddenly Mark Paterson's 'The Senses of Touch', about flesh being a sculptural form that connects the inside and outside of our bodies, is increasingly pertinent.

I started to consider how our bodies are not armed well enough to protect us in a situation as dire as this. Stelarc’s risky hanging performances that put a lot of tension on the skin, consider how we as humans are being left behind in the world, and are not quite suited for the technologically advanced environment that we have developed. He physically pushes the boundaries of his body, exploring if it can become more efficient and adaptable. Patrcia Pucinini’s ‘Graham’ has a similar focus, by showing us what a creature that could survive a car crash would look like. This piece really brings to light how our own inventions as a species are too complicated for our bodies and crucially, which is becoming clear in this crisis, how we, as humans, are indeed vulnerable. The rising number of deaths that are being reported at the moment has made me so much more aware of our fragility, we like any other species can be wiped out by something out of our control and unexpected. I started to explore how an extra layer of skin may be necessary in a pandemic and how this with two metre sticks around it could make our bodies able to survive this virus and the social distancing guidelines.

Day 3 (18/03/20)

Given the tensions and anxiety that people currently feel when they are close to each other, as any person is a potential carrier of the virus and consequently a possible health threat, I was keen to experiment with the notion of sculptures being really close to touching but still having a gap in between. I noticed that Lucio Fonatana’s works have a certain energy due to the vigorous splicing of the pieces, which give a greater sense of the internal part of a sculptural form. I experimented with this idea with dough once more, making my outcomes nearly touch or merge into each other.

I found the results exciting but felt that they didn’t really capture the panic of close distance, maybe due to their static nature. For this reason, I decided to use my originally sculptural idea to create a performance or photography piece, using humans coming as close as possible without touching, as my starting point. Having living organisms (humans) meant that the tension between the performers could be felt more to a viewer, as they were aware that they could move and change the current lack of touch.  For this reason, I feel this piece was more successful than the dough experiments.

Day 4 (19/03/20)

I received feedback form Kaori today which was very useful as she gave me some artist references to look into and advised that I consider thinking about traces. She suggested developing a system of fingerprinting with pigment, pencil shavings or dough, which may be an interesting idea to consider next week. Maybe I could think about staining, using materials such as germ gel or the hygienist tablets that show the plak on teeth? Thinking about materials that reveal what we have been contaminated with and track how they spread to other surroundings.

Day 1 (24/03/20)

As discovered with my previous research, latex may be a useful starting point in creating a skin-like surface (its rubbery and elastic properties mean folds and creases can be fabricated). I had been wary of using this material previously, given that some people go into anaphylaxis when touching it. However, given that none of my work will physically be presented to an audience, I will let my ideas and experimentation run freely without getting too bogged down with the practicalities. The liquid latex that I have ordered is fairly easy to use, I started by using a brush to apply thin layers onto a surface outside. For my other tester piece, I simply poured out some of the mixture and then peeled this off its drying surface after many hours. The second method required less working time but resulted in a more fragile piece of rubber. The piece applied with six brushed layers had a fleshier appearance as the stiff brush that I was using gave it a texture and varying colours.

I will now try and create a bigger sheet of latex rubber, using the brush method, and aim to utilise this material in creating skin-like blobs and structures, perhaps using this material as a layer of textural importance on top of stuffed shapes.

Day 2 (25/03/20)

My attempt to increase the size of the latex sheets came with some problems. I decided to brush the latex on the tiled floor in my garden as this would allow me to apply the material at any size. However, although the latex was easily peeled from this surface, the material had picked up all the dirt and moss on the ground, resulting in a piece that looked more like a dried crocodile skin. Although this wasn’t intended, I felt that this material collecting the dirt and responding to the marks in its surroundings linked to Kaori’s idea of traces. Maybe this piece of latex could stand as a work on its own?

Fortunately, I managed to find a clean loose tile that would be a better working surface for a fleshy outcome. Now that I have a larger piece of latex, I have begun exploring how this material could be wrapped around stuffing and sewn together to create different shapes. At first, I was disappointed that my most recent rubber sheet was more of a pale yellow than the pinky colour of my first tester piece. However, I noticed that over time the latex changed colour and became more skin-like after a couple of hours. My first samples seem to have faded over this week, maybe due to being exposed to sunlight, so I will store my latex outcomes in a dark place.

Day (26/03/20)

Kaori seems excited by my progress and has suggested that I explore making edible sculptures with the dough. Given that people are not being able to buy food as frequently, it may be interesting to use every aspect of the materials I use and experiment with how the body responds to my creations.

I have already started exploring this notion when working with the latex. I am noticing that the material really smells of stinky feet and how this could be utilised in a piece to make an audience feel uncomfortable and overpowered. I started making a visualisation where sheets of latex hung in a gallery. I made the sheets close to each other so the audience when walking through would feel overwhelmed by the human smell and almost feel entrapped by the skin. I enjoyed this idea of forcing a viewer through a small space within a sculpture.

Day 1 (31/03/20)

I continued to explore how a latex piece could interact with an audience, in both a gallery and park setting. I became interested in adding latex to something that is usually sat on (a park bench or the rocks in the playground), changing a familiar sitting experience through texture, as the hairs I could sew through this material and its folds, could make someone feel like they are being surrounded by something human or alive, and intruding on another creature by touching it.

This idea of ‘alive’ is fuelling my process. In recent news it has become clear that the standstill in the economy due to coronavirus is improving pollution levels. Diagrams such as this prove how we are constantly working as the dominant species in our environment, only now, when we are being threatened by a virus, do the conditions of our planet begin to recover. I think this situation is making us realise that we, as a species, are just as vulnerable as everything else, and similarly have finite lives. At this moment, I have become much more aware of how I operate to live (the MRS GREN that I learnt in biology about how all living things move, respire, have sensitivity, grow, reproduce, excrete and rely on nutrition). There have been numerous new articles about people with the virus struggling to breathe and valuing their breath when recovering. I became interested in this natural process that we share with everything living suddenly becoming the focus of the media and the way we function. I started planning out sculptures that breathe, something that I would struggle to achieve in real life, by warping latex blobs and putting them into a video.

My key area of interest with these pieces was how the sculptures were neither specific to humans or animals but were considered to be alive due to their breathing. I found these visualisations particularly worked in the Waterlow park setting, as this allowed the fleshy blobs to connect with the living and similarly breathing surroundings or wildlife and plants, making all breathing beings viewed as equals. I feel this idea breaks down what we are as living things to the very core and yet crucial processes – we all share breathing and as Rafael Lozano Hemmer ‘s work ad this crisis reveal, we can all become more aware of it.

I tested out these ideas in a gallery layout as well, wondering how an audience would react to a piece that seems somewhat alive. Getting feedback from my household proved useful, as my family stated that they wouldn’t feel comfortable sitting on these sculptures as they wouldn’t want to hurt them. It is interesting that our relationship can change with work like this, suddenly we can connect at an emotional level with the sculptures and regard them as having feelings and reactions to us.

 Day 2 (01/04/20)

Coughing has become my new focus with these sculptures. Such a common symptom of illnesses is now feared as it could point to Covid-19. I wanted to question how much our attitudes to the dry cough have changed and explore a piece that would alarm an audience and make them want to flee a gallery space, like with my door handle experiments. It seemed exciting to think about how a piece could touch someone rather than the participant having the authority to touch it. This led me to create a piece that would suddenly cough (ideally with warm air coming out of the sculpture at this point and flooding the onlooker’s face), giving a viewer a shock as they realise the sculpture is not what it seemed and has made them feel exposed to something unpleasant. Maybe a space filled with these coughing beings would create a new power dynamic in the room and an energy amongst the viewers who would be trying to dodge the air from the sculptures.

Day 1 (6/04/20)

My recent experimentation seems to be quite successful, I am enjoying connecting our behaviour to that of animals and plants, especially since at the moment I feel many people are resorting back to their primal ways in the face of the crisis. I remember videos of people physically fighting over toilet paper earlier on in the outbreak, acting like animals due to the desperation and uncertainty brought on by the pandemic. I have now started planning pieces that make noises and grunts that sound like forms of communication. I am interested in how random sounds, rather than language can very effectively convey messages, for example children programs such as Bill and Ben, Teletubbies and Pingu that tell stories without ‘real’ words. Artaud’s ‘Theatre of Cruelty’ seems very relevant when considering my ideas. He focused on overwhelming the audience’s senses to make them undergo catharsis, putting less importance on text and instead having the actors consider the primal emotions of their roles (for example with snorts or screams).

Day 2 (9/04/20)

Whilst using the ‘warp’ tool on photoshop I discovered that the backgrounds of my images might respond well to this sort of distortion. I started to explore how I could change the way we react to the general gallery space and how we ‘feel’ it. Making the walls curve in or swell could result in a familiar space becoming confusing and could consequently disorientate the whole body, as I drafted out ideas where the floor was uneven, making a viewer somewhat out of balance.  I was interested in giving the viewer a new outlook on a space, a space that they feel comfortable in and believe they understand, much like my experience in ‘Dialogue in the Dark’.

Day 1 (14/04/20)

Lockdown and the social distancing measures have drawn my attention to lack of touch. Completing the ‘Touch Test’, created by the Welcome Collection and Goldsmiths university, drew my attention to how we as a society yearn for more touch and generally find it ‘warm’ and ‘reassuring’. I can imagine that people having to shield or isolate alone will be struggling with a lack of human contact. Whilst social media can allow us to see and converse with other people, touch can only be achieved from a close distance that wouldn’t be between two metres. I began to plan out some ideas as to how people could gain a feeling of closeness and comfort from an artwork, rather than a fellow human. A sculpture that someone could hug and cuddle, easing their loneliness or the absence of touch they feel.

I began to make little cushion shapes that could replicate a simplified version of the human form, a sack to hold over the shoulder for example, like we do when carrying babies. My plan was to put a layer of oogoo on the fabric to create a texture that felt like the skin, maybe with the addition of hairs as well, and place water bottles inside the shapes to give the sculptures a warmth that we associate with ourselves and our touch. The research I carried out at the start of the project, regarding the uncanny valley and how this changes our response to robots, made me aware that temperature is a key part in making a work feel ‘real’. People often describe the coldness of the human body being the most alarming and haunting thing when someone dies. When Mohri Masahiro’s hand robots were warm, people became disturbed by them as they felt too human.

Unfortunately, the oogoo was not as easy to use as the instructions I found suggested. I took the relevant safety measures by working in my garden with goggles, gloves and a face mask, as silicone lets off a very strong acidic smell. However, the material didn’t seem to stick well to the fabric and just became this lumpy mess that took ages to dry. I was disappointed that I couldn’t physically test out these sculptures and see how my household would respond to them, finding the creepy or relaxing. I was also planning the paint the oogoo with fleshy tones, maybe with thin and subtle layers of silicone paint that people tend to use for SFX props and costumes.

Day 2 (15/04/20)

Although physically making this piece does not seem possible in these circumstances, I will still create a visualisation of my ideas, so my thought process and experimentation is understood. The lecture we were sent about ‘How to make work without making the work’ has made me realise that an audience can value pieces that were never realised, as the demonstration of ideas still allows us to question and think about what is proposed. Therefore, I decided to create my human replacement pieces by digital collage, probably getting a huggable sculpture that looked more human than I could have achieved by hand.

An audience’s interaction with this work is what I am missing out on. My idea aims for the participants to give my work purpose and a function in comforting or providing touch. I discovered a replacement boyfriend pillow online which made me question if we really can replace human touch as this attempt would make me laugh rather than feel loved. I think the process of making this sculpture has made me realise that, as Sabrina Raaf's article states, it is the emotional connection we have with one another that makes us connect and long for intimacy. Maybe a piece that feels human can not offer all that a human does due to this.

Day 3 (16/04/20)

The survey indicated how touch is vital in changing our mood and how the way we have been touched previously (hugs when younger) plays a role in how we respond to tactile sensations as a whole. Like with my warped gallery space idea, I am aware that the whole body’s feel and state can change due to touch. I tried to explore this notion more today, thinking about a piece that allowed people to rock back and forth, a movement that many of us, particularly some people with Asperger’s syndrome, find comforting, as I discovered with a type of cocoon hammock that offers a small and swinging place to relax and recuperate after overstimulation. Pressure is another form of touch that can be used as a calming mechanism. I personally find types of pressure, particularly on my feet, very pleasant and started exploring this heavy touch with a weighted blanket.

My feet seem to respond differently to the rest of my body, as the touch test highlighted, so I considered a work that would directly be felt from the ground. Thinking about having an unpleasant experience, I started to plan an idea where a room was filled with crumbs and the audience would feel this unspecific material sticking to their feet or crunching under their shoes. I would find an exhibition like this very disturbing, feeling a sense of unease and anxiety throughout my body due to textures felt on my feet. In the future I would like to observe how other people might react to this.

Day 1 (20/04/20)

Since I ordered thermochromic pigment for my park project, I have decided to incorporate this material into my working process. Like with my fleshy blobs, I started to consider breath and more specifically how far our breath and air actually goes, which people are more aware of given the two-metre distance rule. Since this pigment can respond to any form of heat above 31°C, I decided it would be a suitable material to use in terms of detecting and tracing our breath, either as part of a sculptural piece or a performance.

To start with, I attempted using warm glass and condensation to show how much we expel by simply breathing, I could not use the pigment today as I didn’t have all the safety equipment to do so. Without technicians to guide me, I spent a long time figuring out how to use the material, learning that it either has to be mixed with acrylic (to show the colour of the acrylic when heated) or pva glue (to show the colour of the surface underneath the pigment, in this case a sheet). I didn’t want to overdose my outcome with colour and so I decided that I would wither paint the pva glue mixture on a white sheet or stir the red pigment into white acrylic before applying.

Day 2 (21/04/20)

The conditions are too windy for me to paint the sheet today. As I have to do this outside, (a ventilated area) the pigment possibly blowing into my surroundings could pose a risk to the plants and birds nearby. Instead I focused on this idea of controlling the air, controlling what air we breathe and what air we contaminate as a way of dealing with the current crisis. With this in mind, I took some photographs where I used my flute to change the direction of my air and the places or objects I contaminated, enjoying how something blind to the eye can be vital in altering environments and the way we behave to one another.

Day 3 (24/04/20)

I was finally able to paint the sheet in accordance with the health and safety instructions I sourced. Although I had aimed for the colour to be red, I decided to mix the pigment with acrylic, which made it a light pink. I thought this material would be more suitable as it has a smoother finish and doesn’t leak through the fabric like the glue does, making the colour change less obvious.

When the sheet was dry, I began testing how it responded when wrapped around the human body. I experimented with simplified human shapes, like with my replacement human cushions, wondering whether a viewer would only realise a person was underneath these forms due to the colour change from their breath.  I then planned a park piece where two performers, bound in this material, stood close to on another, causing a colour change near their mouths with their breathing. I thought this piece could highlight how much we can actually spread by simply ‘being’ and could also give a sense of the separation this situation is making us feel, as the performers appear to be sealed from the world and each other, only left with their air.

Day 1 (01/05/20)

This week my focus moved away from my PPP’s initial aims and intentions, as I started considering the UK’s response to the virus, realising now how badly our population has been hit. Throughout this lockdown I have been watching Nish Kumar’s ‘Mash Report’ on BBC One, enjoying his satirical commentary on the situation, and finding comfort in hearing a clear and well backed up opinion on the matter. A key thing that he identifies is how the government was too slow in responding to the virus, ignoring the advice from WHO and not learning from the mistakes in Italy, where they realised the scale of the spread too late. This TV show probably attracts a limited audience, people who agree with his ideas and moreover like topical comedic programs. I became interested in using an art piece to bring these issues to light, putting a work in a public setting where any passer-by, whether they agree or not, could see it.

I have created a visualisation where two screens can interact with each other, showing what WHO advised on particular dates and how our government responded at that specific time. This would hopefully put into perspective how much their response has changed compared to now. Researching what was being reported in early March has made me realise how despite the warnings, Boris Johnson was claiming that he’d continue to shake hands with corona patients while on Question Time Matt Hancock stated that there was no evidence that social gatherings could accelerate the spread. Comments such as this may highlight their lack of clarity and the misinformation they spread at a time of crisis, where acting quickly and decisively could have saved lives and made the lockdown shorter. I however, would aim for this piece to neutrally lay out the facts rather than force my opinion, simply prompting people to question what could have been done differently. To do this, I would place both screens of equal size opposite each other and play the clips at the same volume, putting the two in a conversation, without any other commentary, so to allow the viewer to respond as they please to the information. I think that pieces of this nature will be very important when we come out this crisis, as those in power should answer to their actions, especially since so much has been lost due to the pandemic.