Stadig å fortsette framover; å søke etter
Solen, som slynger sine slående stråler; som forsvinner
Under Brygga, et vesen lever; forråtner
Ved enden av Landet; Sjøen
Det finnes en innside og en utside, et mørkt indre og et lyst ytre. Under huden, inni kroppen, er mye flytende. Dette er stedet hvor det underbevisste virker, fordøyer og prosesserer og samler og skiller substanser.
De lette etter selve begynnelsene av mening og skapelse: for å sammenføye tusener av år tilbake med idag. De ville finne det, men da de ankom, visste de fortsatt ikke hva de skulle gjøre.
I dypene av himmelen fantes ingen speil, og i solens sted gapte et stort blødende hull der kanskje en jeksel hadde blitt vridd ut. Sjøen hadde sannsynligvis blitt tømt, og etterlot seg hulrommet av sin beholder omsluttet av et svimlende stup. Kloden selv hadde forsvunnet, hadde opphørt å være solid.
– Le Clezio, J.M.G., The Book of Flights.
Eleanor Clare og Dillan Marsh bor i Bergen, og har lagd arbeider sammen siden 2013, et samarbeid som begynte som en utforskning av hvordan det å lage kunstverk og å skrive gjensidig kan påvirke hverandre i å forstå mening og utviklingen av form og struktur. Clare har en mastergrad i kunst fra Central Saint Martins, London (2011), og Marsh en mastergrad fra Kunst- og designhøgskolen i Bergen (2011). Sammen har de produsert verk for følgende aktører: Parabol Bergen, Assembly House Leeds, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, ASC Gallery London, Deuxpiece/Büro für Problem Basel og Apis Press Bergen.
Prosjektet er støttet av Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Assembly House Leeds, Metal Arts, Bergen Kommune og Norsk Kulturråd.
www.fossilsandstars.blogspot.no
Archipelago er et lite, fleksibelt visningsrom for å vise enkeltverk og installasjoner i et fokusert, men åpent miljø. Siden rommet ligger i førsteetasje på Hordaland kunstsenter, like ved siden av et større, mer formelt utstillingsrom, åpner Archipelago opp for å undersøke de skiftende egenskapene ved et kunstverk med begrensningene av et lite, fysisk rom, i en tidsalder med virtuelle rom.
Programmet til Archipelago planlegges kort tid i forveien for hvert nye prosjekt, med den hensikt å gjeninnsette kuratorisk smidighet og nåtidig engasjement i institusjonen. Disse utstillingene følger en annen tidsplan enn Hordaland kunstsenters hovedprogram for utstillinger, og er tenkt som en gruppe av «tenkeøyer» som oppstår i tiden.
The hands are scrabbling
The earth is turning
The tide is rising
Constantly forging onwards; seeking
The Sun, casting its glorious rays; disappearing
Under the Pier, a creature lives; decaying
At the end of the Land; the Sea
There is an inside and an outside, a dark interior and a light exterior. Under the skin, in the body, much is fluid. This is where the unconscious is at work, digesting and processing and merging and separating matter.
They were looking for the very beginnings of meaning and making: to connect thousands of years ago with today. They wanted to find it, but when they arrived, they still didn't know what to do.
In the depths of the sky, there were no mirrors, and in place of the sun a great bleeding hole gaped where perhaps a molar had been wrenched out. The sea had probably emptied, leaving the hollow of its basin rimmed by a dizzy precipice. The earth itself had disappeared, had ceased to be solid.
Le Clezio, J.M.G., The Book of Flights.
Eleanor Clare and Dillan Marsh live in Bergen, and have been producing works together since 2013, a collaboration which began as an investigation into how making artwork and writing can mutually influence one another in the understanding of meaning, development of form and structure. Clare received MA Fine Art from Central Saint Martins in 2011, and Marsh MA Visual Art from Bergen Academy of Art and Design, 2011. They have produced collaborative work for the following organisations: Parabol Bergen, Assembly House Leeds, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, ASC Gallery London, Deuxpiece/Buro fur Problem Basel and Apis Press Bergen.
Research and development has been supported by Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop, Assembly House Leeds, Metal Arts, Bergen Kommune and Norwegian Arts Council.
Archipelago is a small, flexible platform for showing individual works and installations in a focused but open environment. Located on the ground floor of Hordaland kunstsenter, adjacent to a larger, more formal exhibition space, archipelago works with the constraint of limited physical space in order to explore the changing modalities of artworks in the age of virtual space. Archipelago is programmed with short lead times for each new project, with the intention of reinserting curatorial agility and real-time engagement into the institution. This initiative follows a different schedule to Hordaland kunstsenter's main exhibition programme, and is conceived as a group of 'thought islands' appearing in time.
These objects were something like old fashioned projection screens, and something like gondolas; not of the Venetian type, rather the wheeled display stands used in retail (even though the wheels were rather too large to be seen on the shop floor - they were more reminiscent of something that could belong in a workshop - somehow 'masculine').
One was much taller than the other, on high legs. A square frame, glossy and blue, contained an LCD screen. The smaller one was painted in red gloss, and also held an LCD screen. The larger was somewhat mesmerizing as blue letters in italic capitals glided across the screen, spelling out 'TOTAL.' As I watched, I realised that the word seemed to glitch, to come apart - severed by a horizontal line through the middle; sometimes partially slipping from vision. TOTAL: this word as an entity, as a thing, as a visual object: I felt some pathos for it. It had fallen short, it was fading, it was uncertain. Words fail me...
Upon the screen of the smaller object, to the bottom right, almost slipping out, was the word SUPER in italic capitals. It was flashing - like brand names in lights at Piccadilly Circus, or how I would imagine it to be in Las Vegas. Yet once again there was a sense of pathos pertaining to the one who is desperate to be noticed, but just seen in the peripheral vision, at the edge, about to become obsolete.
Below the screens as I looked down, I noticed that the wires and connections at the back of the DVD player were left open, hanging out, and that surrounding the glossy blue frame was grey foam, cushioning the LCD screen and protecting it from damage. The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even. Or this time perhaps we may infer that the Bachelor himself has been disrobed, robbed, even. The edifice that would give this work a sense of sheeny, hermetic closure as an object has been cast to one side. It appears to be suspended - in a state of display in its most commercial aspect (as a product/object/work of art), and also in the sense that it has been left bare: in a state that could be either not quite complete or abandoned in the process of dismantling.
Laurie Edson writes about 'The Large Glass,'
'The verbal clues provided in the title suggest that we are witnessing the ongoing process of the stripping and all that goes with it, a dynamic situation has been 'caught in the act', temporarily frozen in glass and delayed (delay, of course, promises completion at some later time).
Duchamp uses techniques that function to delay the spectator's response, and this very delay (and the subsequent heightening of the spectator's desire to comprehend, to solve, to figure out, read) produces desire in the sense which Barthes has used the term.'
It seems that in Marsh's work too, there is the undeniable sense of delay, and to use Edson's terminology, of being 'caught in the act.' In the seductive promise of a shiny, glossy exterior, and in the promise of the words 'super' & 'total' the viewer seeks at once to understand what is missing - to understand why this object is left as it is, apparently undone, to know exactly what it is, or what it is for. I (the spectator) am caught between a state of mesmerized fascination with the brightly lit words on the LCD screen, a sensuous appreciation of the physical potential of the clean, glossy structure, and a feeling of frustration in terms of knowing: I cannot name this thing before me; I cannot define it. And as such, both the physical object and meaning are left un-ended.
Installation for me is the staging of an arena; a temporal place, where there is the suggestion of narrative, but without the acting out or realisation of it. A tension or awkwardness is arrived at through the procedure. There can be an ambiguity of state; between definitives is where I find space for the work. I construct exhibition components like film or theatre scenery; with a facade of functionality. I am interested in light constructions, that can reflect the temporal and theatrical nature of an exhibition, mobility rather than permanence can be implied. A crude and provisional construction will be revealed in places; I am curious to make components that are ill fitting or dysfunctional. I want to create gaps that can be entries into the work. A gap is a hole, the place of desire; a sense of incompleteness in ourselves, we perpetually seek fulfilment, to be whole. Fantasy is continually renewed, we return again and again to the same place. For me this is also a metaphor for the creative process: the continual making and unmaking of work, the building of ideas and their subsequent deconstruction and the need build new again.
