Move Something
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Move something is a social sculptural art experience.
To prepare, assemble a large collection of material objects in a large open space. A gallery, studio or project space work well.
The more diverse the range or materials the better. Try to get objects from as many different kinds of places, with as many different uses, scales, materials, textures, forms, affordances and cultural associations as you can.
Then gather two or more people.
To begin, take it in turns to move something.
Each turn you must move at least one thing, but you can move as many things as you like.
Speak as little as you can.
As your communication plays out through the materials, you can loosen the turn taking and begin to move things when you feel, in response and in relation to the other peoples movements.
As we became more absorbed bringing these objects to life, we started to pile, to build towers and other structures.
We noticed ourselves projecting all kinds of meaning onto these piles.
We turned our piles and collections into houses, towns, figures, people, machines, animals and empires.
As we played, mostly without talking, I got a sense of what Lewis was trying to do. He was trying to break apart my little town, turn my godess figure into a monster. There were tensions.
Our dynamics, the pushing of our different intentions played out through the materials
Something worked. There was something in the space, the group of people, the twilight and that assemblage of materials that supported us to manifest some of the complex dynamics moving between us at different scales and levels.
I got interested in the use of physical materials to mediate and social dynamics, tensions and intensions after a row me and my Dad had about a mess I made in his garage.
I'd been back at my mum and dads for the summer, between second and third year at university and my dad had very kindly let me use his tools in the garage over a few nights to make a sculpture. I left it in a mess and couldn't understand what his problem was at the time, what a twat. I was so caught up in my idea of being an artist I couldn't appreciate I was in his garage. 30 years after his British Rail apprenticeship this was stretching him to the limit. It had been a perfect and tense summer, my dad was dealing with my Nannas dementia and I didn't know how to talk to him about it or help.
I'd been obsessing about intersubjectivity, making lots of quite conceptual pieces and writing very abstract artist statements about the different worlds we each live in. My way of trying to feel in control of the overwhelm of people I guess. Anyway, this argument and realising it was the garage and the materials in it that provided the contact and the spark for me and my Dad to have the argument we needed, pulled me back into the physical world and away from ideas and theory. For a while at least.
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I will be adding more writing to explain some of the artworks. I'll keep adding to the WIP blog.
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