DANGER OF DEATH | UNSAFE BUILDING

Making the move from idea to actualised project was definitely easier when I was in education and had, seemingly, all the time in the world to focus on my art practice. Now that I am juggling jobs, real-life and my art practice the road from A to B takes much longer.

I started The Road Sign Collection in September and it has developed. However, my biggest problem is that it is developing much faster in my mind than it is outwardly. I am stuck between wanting to get to an end point – for my practice this means something outward facing, and not to rush the process in case I miss something important in the developmental stages. (Not to mention also trying to find time to read around the subject to ensure that it is contextualised). My lack of time requires me to plan ahead and then realise ideas when I can find a slice of time to do so. Ideas will often start in my sketchbook and then go through a digital process where I try to figure out the site from afar. 

This is why I ended up installing my latest site-specific text piece in the dark (and freezing cold). This installation, ‘DANGER OF DEATH | UNSAFE BUILDING’ utilises a site that I have used before. In a previous installation I looked to the site to inspire the language used within it.

My reasons for wanting to revisit this site where two-fold; firstly, due to its crumbling aesthetic and its size, which allows me to play with aspects of teleperception (Virilio, 2010). This new installation had a slightly different approach to the first. This time I was looking to the found text from The Road Sign Collection and applying it to appropriately to the site in question, allowing the work and the site have a dialectical relationship (Owens, 1998).

This approach allows me to re-position the text away from its original state/site/purpose and apply it directly onto the site in question. This allows the text to feel more directly related to the site, meaning that the chosen words start to come from the site, in this particular instance it is as if the building itself is warning the reader of its state. 

My choice of vinyl was in keeping with my art practice, but mostly in this instance picked due to being able to fabricate the lettering ahead of time. Meaning that the installation is much quicker than for example working with tape on site. Using both black and white vinyl was intentional and intended to be used as something sort of experimental; which colouring would be most readable? Most jarring?  

Reflecting on the choice of colouring of the vinyl I found that both brought something different to the installation; the white was easier to view, the black draws you in closer for clarify. Viewing the work in both day light and darkness only emphasised this further. This change in conditions is important to consider, given that the text is installed in a public place, which can be view at any time (Rose, 2013). The passing of time is key here, as the falling-down process has happened over time. 

Revisiting the water tower allowed me to find a new way of working within the specific limitations and conditions of the site (O’Doherty, 1986). Having said that, the limitations and conditions of the site have changed slightly since I last used it in 2017. The building is disused and has continued to deteriorate in the last two years, making it less accessible and more of a hazard. It was unchoice territory two years ago and that has only increased over the years (O’Doherty, 1986, p.67). 

Originally, I wanted to work with all for corners of the water tower. However, from a site visit I knew that this would be impossible as the access to two of the corners was now blocked by fallen debris. By using the corners, the audience are encouraged to move around the work, again touching on notions of teleperception (Virilio, 2010), as the work goes on farther than the eye can see. working with this placement also breaks the text, as it moves around the corner (Deleuze, 1997), echoing the breaking up of the site itself. 

The materiality of the work and the intention that it will be temporary allows the text itself to start taking on the characteristics of the water tower; both are falling down. After one day of being installed some of the vinyl lettering had fallen from their place. While the water tower has existed for a much longer time period, it too is losing part – largely slates from the roof, hence the chosen warning signs. There is a rawness of ‘nowness’ (Hayward, 2004) as things are changing continually. 

Going forward I plan to install these words into a new site, one which clashes which the original intention of the text. This will allow me to create something quite playful which encouraged a more lateral interpretation of the text.

References

Deleuze, G. (1997) Essays Critical and Clinical. University of Minnesota Press.

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

O’Doherty, B. (1986) Inside the White Cube. University of California Press.

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

Rose, G. (2013) Visual Methodologies. Sage Publications Ltd; 3 editions.

Virilio, P. (2010) Art as Far as The Eye Can See. London: Bloomsbury.