The Road Sign Collection: Types of sign

As I start to grow the Road Sign Collection. One of the first things that has started to become apparent is that there are different types of opposing sign categories within the sign collection.

Temporary / Permanent

Image / Text / Image and Text

Black and White / Colour

Triangle / Circle / Square / Rectangle

As I move forward, I feel that I need to decide on which category I am most engaged with and want to develop further. It is the contrasting temporary / permanent which draws me in the most, as within my art practice I usually work with the temporary.

I am partly interested in temporary art as my practice is very much concerned with creating work which exists for a limited time (Owens, 1998). This also allows me to explore the absence of the art once it has been uninstalled (Doherty, 2015). I feel that there is a real-life parallel with temporary road signs once they are removed from the site. Once removed, is the feeling of absence felt here too? Due to this they also carry a feeling of now-ness (Hayward, 2004). They are in this site right now, for a very time specific reason. Due to the context of the sign and the context the site, the sign would no longer make sense if it existed longer than necessary.

The permanent signs lose these characteristics, as the intention of them is to stay in place and due to this they start to become less interesting to me. However, I also have an interest in the everyday and placing attention onto thing which are usually overlooked. The permanent signs are less obvious than the temporary ones and so this brings me back to them. There is also more variety in the signs which fall into the permanent category, possibly giving more scope for development.

I am also intrigued by, as mentioned in my previous blog, in the notion of multiples as originals (Judovitz, 1998) and this is something that I am more able to explore with the permanent signs.

With both sign categories there is a direct relationship between themselves and their context, the site of the signs gives the reader immediate access to them (Stiles and Selz, 2012, p.712) as all road signs draw on our shared public language (Wittgenstein in Kripke, 1984). The use of context helps the audience to understand the text, in a real-life situation this is particularly important with road signs as they are commenting on social contracts that we follow (Rousseau, 1998).

While I am still unable to decide which category to peruse, I know that I want to challenge this aspect of the signs by putting them into new sites. This will allow the text to have a dialogical relationship with new sites (Owens, 1998).

The other categories are less important in that I do not have control over them, in that I am taking them as I find them.

References 

Doherty, C. (2015) Public Art (Now): Out of Time, Out of Place. London: ART/BOOKS.

Hayward, K. (2004) City Limits: Crime, Consumer Culture and the Urban Experience. Routledge-Cavendish

Judovitz, D. (1998) Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit. University of California Press

Kripke, S. (1984) Wittgenstein Rules and Private Language. John Wiley & Sons; New Ed edition.

Owens, C. (1998) The Allegorical Impulse: Towards a Theory of Postmodernism. New York: Oxford Press.

Rousseau, J. J. (1998) The Social Contract. Wordsworth Editions.

The Road Sign Collection

The Road Sign Collection started by chance after an art walk during an art tutor CPD day run by NEAAT (Network of East Anglian Art Teachers). As a group we were instructed to walk around the Fine City of Norwich and document the walk with; photos, drawings, rubbings. During this walk, I photographed road signs. I was drawn to these due to the nature of my art practice, which is concerned with the relationship between text and site.

The choice may have also been influenced by my interest in what Duchamp calls the ‘unchoice’ (O’Doherty, 1986), with so many things to look at in a fine city and I am choosing to focus my attention on road signs. They struck me as ready-mades in a site-specific installation, something chaotic, yet powerful in their ability to direct traffic (Ranciere, 2009).

However, despite my initially drawing my attention, once the day had come to an end I promptly forgot about the signs.

During this time, I was teaching a short course titled, ‘Exploring Drawing and Illustration’, keep your eyes peeled for a future blog post ‘Teaching Drawing’ for more on this, with one of the weeks focusing on line drawing techniques - something that I am usually guilty of neglecting within my practice. However, covering this topic and seeing my learners’ outcomes – particularly their continuous line drawings, made me want to give it ago within my art practice. 

Working with the long-forgotten road sign photographs, I drew mostly continuous line drawing of the photographs using a drawing tablet and digital pen. I found, as my learners had hours earlier that it is much easier to tell someone not to take the pen off the page than it is to not take your pen off the page. However, I found the continuous line drawing outcomes felt more natural and so persevered.

I felt that once the pen was lifted from the page the aura of that piece of work is set (Benjamin, 2015) and that those drawing which contained broken lines lost their authenticity. Having a break in the line looks too considered, shows a pause in the process and takes away from the overall aesthetic of the sign. 

The intention is that each road sign drawing will be an original (Benjamin, 2015), with each only drawn once, in one continuous movement. There is some irony in this conversation about originals, as the signs themselves are of course not original, rather they are multiples of something mass-produced and largely used. What it is that makes them original is the lived experiences the sign has had (Benjamin, 2015), reflected in the condition of each sign. The more these road signs have been interacted with, the more damage they will suffer (Dezeuze, 2007). This is something that I wanted to ensure that I captured within the drawings, to allow each sign to be recognisable as a copy of the original sign, drawing on Judovitz's notion of originals as multiples of sorts (1998). 

Initially, this activity did not have a purpose beyond flexing my continuous line drawing skills. However, as I created the drawings, I started to see the potential for a new project. I started to explore the use of block fill colour to make them more reminiscent of the originals. I was undecided on the outcomes and continued to keep a version in which they remain as continuous line drawings.

The use of colour in the signs felt important to their ability to carry out their function successfully. I had to start to consider the readability of the sign and our temporal relationship with them (Foster, 1996). Without the colouring, there is a sense of unfamiliarity to them (Deleuze and Guattairi, 1987).

The more time that I spend with the road signs the more I start to consider placing them into a new context (Grosenick, 2002). The text is direct and to the point when it is within the original context.

Within my practice, I look to have public-facing outcomes and these signs lend themselves to be repositioned into a new context, away from the road. I look to explore what this does to our relationship with these signs that we encounter every day once they are put into an art context. This starts with turning them into drawings and will perhaps end in a gallery context, allowing this new cultural framework to change the context of the road signs (Kwon, 2002).

Reference

Benjamin, W. (2015) Illuminations. London: Penguin.

Deleuze, G.  and Guattairi, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press.

Dezeuze, A. (2007) Tate Papers no.8: Blurring the Boundaries between Art and Life (in the Museum?). [online] http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/08/blurringboundaries-between-art-and-life-in-the-museum. [accessed 23/10/19].

Grosenick, U. (2002) Art Now. Taschen GmbH; 01 edition.

Judovitz, D. (1998) Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit. University of California Press

Kwon, M. (2002) One Place After Another: Site Specific Art and Locational Identity. The MIT Press: Cambridge Massachusetts and London, England.

Ranciere, J. (2009) The Future of the Image. London: Verso.

Welcome

In this blog I will be exploring both my art practice and teaching philosophy, with a view to examine how the two co-exist.

A synopsis of my art practice:

My art practice explores the use of text and site. I often use found text within my work and will draw upon the texts original meaning to guide my practice. The use of our shared public language is essential to the works success.

Within my practice I create site specific installations and work with the concept of text/context to create works which resonate with the site. One of the aims of my art practice is to create situations in which dialectical relationships can take place between; the art and the audience/the art and the site.

My practice take a DIY approach and I strive to use materials that are inexpensive; such as electrical tape and ready mixed paint and processes which are easily accessible.

My teaching background:

I am currently teaching unaccredited art courses within an Adult Community Learning setting. Within this role I plan and deliver short art courses, the themes of these include, ‘Exploring Drawing and Illustration’.

As well as this I work part-time as a Study Skills and PASS (peer assisted student success) Adviser in a Higher Educational setting. Within this role I plan and deliver sessions, conduct 1-2-1 tutorials and facilitate PASS Leader Training. Sessions range from presentation skills to leaflet design.

I am also currently running a Creative Practitioner Support Programme at SPACE Colchester, 37 Queen Street. Each month will see two artist feedback sessions open to all creatives; whether they are still studying, graduated, emerging or re-emerging. Offering opportunities for peer-to-peer feedback on work-in-progress.

Previously I have worked within an FE setting teaching Art and Design.