I waited for the optimal day to go through the roof; clear skies, no chance of rain, sunny, and the hottest day of the year to date. It was hot in the house, hotter on the roof, and ridiculous in the crawlspace. I had to be sure that the adhesive and the caulking would have enough time to set before a storm. The sample from the roof was about five inches thick, mostly tar and rocks, and probably weighs close to twenty pounds. Now that I have officially passed through every floor and the roof, the next step is to resolve the shelves loaded with board games on the first floor. I'll only be here at Elsewhere for three more working days and I still have a lot of work to do.
I've been visiting Monique's space daily. She's been doing some intricate performative work removing small patches from the pattern of her dress with a pair of tiny scissors. Although I have been visiting her space regularly, today marks only the second time that I have affected her work. I wonder if she notices that the work is different? Has the work changed? I labeled and removed everything in the space beginning a little after 6:30am and ending around 8:30am. This time was a little more difficult, at least in the complexity and number of objects. I'm curious whether she is arranging these "fitting exercises" in the anticipation that I will work with them. This piece seems almost placed here for me. After disassembling the work and documenting the empty room I repositioned everything as accurately as possible. Upon close inspection one might notice a series of elaborate lines on the wooden floor, however, the floorboards are dark enough to make it difficult to see the marks from more than a few inches away. I'm curious how the space will change next.
Lisa and Mary prepared an incredible holiday dinner for their extended family tonight. Georges mother an father joined us and seemed to enjoy the food as well as the conversation. In addition to tofurkey, the meal came complete with cornbread, mashed potatoes, stuffing, mushroom gravy, and all the fixins. I am about as far from vegan as you can get, but the meal really was delicious. I found that tofurkey is just as affective at causing drowsiness as actual turkey. After a cup of coffee I was ready for my talk. The talk went well I think, the audience seemed engaged and there were some great questions from the crowd. All that's left is finishing the core sampling project. I've got exactly one week to do so and, although it's going to be a challenge, I am confident that completion is in the near future.
Major accomplishments the other day, too busy to write. Ian and I successfully punched a hole through the first floor ceiling and into the second floor. All of our preparations last week paid off. We couldn't have been more accurate with our estimation. The core sample was perfectly centered between two joists in the hallway upstairs. I then began marking some of the objects on the shelf below to see what I will be dealing with. Should be a clean run, a few tricky cuts in a mannequin and some fabric, a half circle out of a couple of shelves, and a chunk from five or six Monopoly board games and I should be there. We decided to tackle the hole through the third floor ceiling after lunch. Some really nice pictures came from working in the crawl space. Not the most comfortable position to work from, but nice results. Ian, as always, a huge help.
Monique worked very hard today. She painted her room, covering her previous arrangement of objects (the one I affected) with a drop cloth to keep them paint-free. I am exhausted from working on my core sample all day, I think I'll leave her space untouched.
Today marks day two of my secretive collaboration with Monique. I
entered her space at about 2am with a video
camera on night vision.
After photographing the space as she left it, I proceeded to trace the
location of every object within the installation, number them, and relocate
them piece by piece into categorized piles just outside of the doorway.
Upon completing this daunting task, I immediately began re-installing
the piece exactly as it was. In one sense I have claimed her piece as
my own. If my actions are not known to others, have I affected the
piece? Is it actually collaboration if what is done exhibits no visible
change? The process took approximately three hours, I am guessing in the
video I will appear paranoid. The other residents were
still hard at work well into the morning. At one point I was
essentially caught by Lisa and Mary. I told them that I was doing an
experiment where I am video taping myself sitting and thinking with other
artists works. I doubt they bought it, I am a horrible actor and an
even worse liar.
Worked hard today. We all did. The crew made a major dent in overdue projects, the artists made progress on their work, and George and Stephanie seemed to be pleased with the outcome.
My core sampling is underway. I have two samples complete at this point, one from the second level ceiling and one from the third level floor that completes the hole. We also crawled around in the dank crawl space between the third floor ceiling and the roof, prepping for our next cut. Everything is going smoothly, however slow.
Monique and I have officially begun our experimental collaboration. Earlier I had expressed my interest in systematically disassembling a previous artist's installation and re-installing it as was. Given our unique situation here at Elsewhere, I was immediately drawn to the possibility of deconstructing another artists work. I saw potential in the action itself; working with issues of ownership, absurd process, and collaboration with an unknowing party. Monique and I discussed this project's potential and our conversation grew in layers of promise. She expressed interest in collaborating on such a project. We decided to develop a set of rules and allow the process to evolve as we go.
Rules:
1. No one is to know of the project until it has come into fruition.
2. Monique is to select a space within Elsewhere that appeals to her and begin the project on June 10th, 2007.
3. She is only to tell me of the location of her project, no additional information will be provided.
4. We will not see each other at work in the decided location.
5. Documentation will not be discussed until a later date.
6. We are to each keep a (hidden) blog of our activities, only visible by the author, to be posted at a future date.
Day One: June 10th, 2007
Though I am intrigued by the concept of dismantling Monique's work only to reassemble it again, I have taken a different path on our beginning day. Upon entering the space and assessing the situation, I was presented with an eerie room, half collapsed and quickly entering a state of entropy.
Three things caught my eye:
1. A clean, white box, with markings on the lid
2. A leather chair parallel to the back wall of the room
3. A carefully stacked pile of plaster placed amongst the pieces that had fallen from the ceiling
Has she begun her project? Is this merely an introductory gesture? The only certain sign that she has taken over the space was the stack of rocks. And even that is not entirely certain. This room had been previously occupied by Steph for a performance in which she proceeded to write in chalk all over the walls of the space.
I decided to document the space as is as a precautionary measure. I then proceeded to carefully walk across the fallen plaster, leaving few shoe prints along the way, and marked/removed the chair at the back of the room. I then removed the small white box in the doorway, discovering upon opening it that it was filled with bobbins. Finally, with precision, I released the stack of rocks from its position. After photographing the empty space, I carefully placed the objects into their original locations and covered my markers. Re-stacking the rocks proved to be more difficult than expected, she was showing off her dexterity (if she actually did stack the rocks). I managed to get them re-stacked closely resembling my photograph of her column. I decided on the first day to leave her a sign that I had entered the space. I began scanning the plaster rubble for pieces shaped closely to the ones she had used in her stack. I then found myself whittling plaster chunks with my knife to replicate the stones that she had used. I created my own column adjacent to her's closely resembling the original. My thoughts are that she may not even know that I had removed the objects from the space at all, the column may present itself as the only alteration.
Made progress on the core sample today thanks to Ian's help and a lot of problem solving. Many factors are affecting the simple, or not so simple, decision of where to extract the sample from within the space. Conceptual integrity, aesthetic interest, and physical possibility all play major roles in the decision making process. Oh and I can't cause the building to collapse (I promised), so I have to avoid all structural elements. This has proven to be more difficult than expected. It seems as though the original construction workers weren't concerned with making sure that the joists on the first floor correlate exactly with the joists on the third floor, or with making sure that the joists on the third floor correlate exactly with the joists on the second floor, or with making sure that the joists on the second floor correlate exactly with the joists on the first floor. George kept mentioning the notion of a single sweet spot existing in the building. A spot that meets all artistic necessities and passes through the building without affecting its structural integrity. A romantic idea. Although I had my doubts Ian and I found the building's sweet spot today and successfully passed a plumb bob from the roof, passing through three stories, and ending directly above the hardwood floor on the first level. The core extraction begins tomorrow.
Feel like I’ve got direction now. I’ve spent a majority of the last four days thinking, developing my conceptual direction, and pre-problem solving. You can easily talk yourself out of making anything if you allow this aspect of the “creative process” to get the better of you. Prior to my arrival, I received a Residency Packet containing disclaimers, contracts, and a statement about Elsewhere’s vision of a collaborative workspace. What was intriguing was their understanding of this building as a “living museum;” in which nothing is for sale but everything is available for re-contextualization and re-presentation, including other artist’s work. The opportunity to remove and re-arrange aspects of a previous resident’s work was a provocative possibility. Questions of validity, longevity, ephemerality, ownership, and post-postmodern approaches to art-making were potential directions for the work.
After several meetings with the directors of Elsewhere, I have expanded on my original intention of extracting a 12”x12”x12” cube from existing installations within the space.
Current direction; core sample the entire three story museum. More to come.
