“Installation art is a term that loosely refers to the type of art into which the views physically enters and is often described as theatrical, immersive or experimental”(p.6) – Clare Bishop 

Bishop writes that there is a difference between the installation of art and installation art. Installation of art is important in the works it actually contains while installation art the ensemble of elements in it as well as space are regarded as a singular entity in itself. By doing this installation art actually gives the viewers a change to step into a simulation, by physically entering the thing the artist has created and insists you regard the space as a singular totality. By this idea then the actual installation has a need for a audience to have them be it’s key characteristic. Without a viewing participant(s) the space remains without a purpose and therefore without a meaning. This then however made me think as to how if someone doesn’t see, or really grasp, the meaning of a installation is that then too devoid of meaning? Does that effectively make it something that has no willing audience.

By this moment I had extremely overthought my analysis on the definition of installation art so, on a whim, I decided to look up on the Tate’s website to a actual definition to it. The online post, again by Claire Bishop, opened wight the following, strangely amusing, questions:

What does the term ‘installation art’ mean? Does it apply to big dark rooms that you stumble into to watch videos? Or empty rooms in which the lights go on and off?

I don’t know what made me grin when I was looking through this post. Was Bishop making a tongue in cheek dig at the more cliché aspects of installation art. I haven’t seen many works of installation myself but before learning more about them I did assume they encompass mostly what she stated.

The one piece I can recall was at the tender age of 10 when my parents took me to the Saatchi gallery and I stumbled into Richard Wilson’s 20:50, or at that age “a really big smelly room full of oil”. At age 10 I wasn’t focused on the meanings behind the works of art I was merely focused on things that involved Pokémon or Quavers but no at the age I am now I actually get it. The slick black oil in a pure white room gave a distortion to a willing viewer and even now I can still remember how the room looked. One extremely thin wall blocking the permanently still oil creates a spectacle almost.

In my EXPO’69 group we have decided to settle on a installation piece, with very brief cameos from us to portray a character of sorts. We are essentially recreating the EXPO, every minor detail accounted for just outside the Grandstand front doors. We want our audience to be enraptured in the fervidly festive atmosphere we wish to remake.

In conclusion I haven’t really grasped one at all… But by looking more into installation art as a whole I can see the process of what my group’s EXPO piece could do. Our meaning is to bring life into the Grandstand and provide a safe, unthreatening haven for our viewers before they enter the darker aspects of what the site has to offer. A rather nice counter balance if I do say so myself.

Works cited:

Claire Bishop (2005). Installation Art: A critical history. London: London Tate Publishing. 6-10.

http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/it-installation-art

As we getting ever closer to the 8th of May I thought I’d share my trip to the bookies with you all. The horse racing part didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped but the football, which is more my sport certainly did. A ‘bookies’ or betting shop is a strange place in my mind. You can come across the strangest or nicest people inside. I feel in sense that the people inside are also putting on a ‘Site Specific Performance’. You can have the people who work there who obviously agree with every bet anyone asks them about. I heard one member of staff say ‘that’s a great bet’ four times whilst inside. People who enjoy betting as a hobby and sadly some people who more then likely are in the bookies most days and may even unfortunately have problems with gambling. Whilst there I wasn’t really sure on where to start as I only ever been assisted on my betting at my local races. However, a man named Phil kindly offered his help and before long I had put a pound on three different horses. Sadly however, none came out on top, (although one was second). But I did feel a great deal of excitement watching the horses even though they were on the television screen. I urge people to go and try this experience as you definitely come out feeling more connected to the sport. However, I wasn’t going to leave without a chance of a winnings and I placed a few pounds on a football accumulator, (which is numerous games of football, and to win all of them but go your way, what you’ve predicted.) Having placed the bet on Saturday I had to wait until Sunday to find out that I’d won. Needing only Tottenham to win to claim my winnings. They didn’t do it easily though coming from two goals down to win 3-2  and scoring the winning goal in the last minute. I hope it isn’t that tense next time. I happily went to shop the next day to claim my £28.75. The excitement I felt and witnesses at the ‘bookies’ is something that I want people to feel in our groups site work.

So finally we got the three musketeers in a lesson together and brought all our ideas together, which has made us panic a little less.
We visited the the ‘Life of Lincolnshire’ museum which to me and Charlie there wasn’t that much we could use for our idea. But we did come across a bit where you could dress up in old clothes, this was brilliant as now we have a costume choice to use for the old part of the grandstand we are doing. This suggested we should dress Charlie up in 1960’s clothes as the date we are using on one side is 1964 and the other will be the current day.
So as you can see on your left is the past date we will be using and on the right is the date of the show but as well as the day off the races. that is happening in Chester. As you can also see they are 50 years between the dates which brings us to using 50 years of the race track/grandstand history. But also the Lincoln City Council plaque is dated 1990 which makes it look a bit better, showing a bit more history but also a date in between the two that is used.

One thing that really caught our eye at the museum was the end of the race track pole. Which we are now going to use cardboard and cut up are own pole and stick it to one of the post at the front. We like the history behind the pole and the fact it is still in a museum and we never knew, like they said ‘you learn something new everyday.’
So like before we made a race track for the 1964 part, we used all the old horses names again and the jockey’s weights which we used stones and pennies the represent the weights. The old pole looks good on the post we are using as it makes it look like it’s the end of the track. 

 You can’t see what is written on the pieces of paper but we put the times at the bottom and the lengths of the races at the top, also in the centre of the shutter window is a piece saying what the actually event is called. So after using these ideas Michael was telling using about using chalk paint on wood which we think is brilliant. So instead of paper we are going to use wood, paint them with chalk paint and write each event before the race times on them. Like being in an old bookies.

 With the present side we have been playing around with it due to not being able to know the horses racing yet or even the bet ranking on them. Callum recorded a made up horse commentary so we could show what we was trying to do and how loud it would be on the day. This is one of our most exciting parts of the piece, using real life betting slips and the audience are involved with the piece by the history (some may remember) and the bets which if the horse wins they win money.
After looking around museums and how old races was done we like the idea of a news reporter but also a tour guide. In the present it’s like your there on the day getting your bets, everyone’s cheering or worrying about their winnings and you have the news reporting, reporting the facts but then you have the tour guide telling you about 50 years at the grandstand and the race track.
Finally getting the pieces together.

‘the factual with the fictional, event with imagaination, history with story, narrative with fragment, past with present’ (Heddon, 2008, p.9) in (Pearson, 2010, p.11)

After our visit to the Lincolnshire Archives about a month ago now, all my ideas for developing material on site are central to the past life of the Grandstand, its history, what the site used to be and what it experienced. I’ve been obsessed with what has been and how to put this back into the site but at the same time, taking this and creating a fresh, contemporary reaction from it. There are 2 ideas that I will briefly describe the main concepts of; I feel these both reflect the aim of combining the past and the present, forming a juxtaposition of time portrayed.

The Waiting Room

This idea originated from the trip to the Archives where we discovered a building plan for a potential mortuary during the World Wars. What I refer to now as the ‘RAF room’ was labelled as a ‘Waiting Room’ on the plans, presumably where family members would wait to see if their loved ones were still alive. We were then told that the room could have been used during the War as a different kind of waiting room where men would wait to test planes.

WHAT IS IT? The initial idea is create the look and feel of a ‘Waiting Room’ in this particular space, developing a durational performance, which heavily involves audience participation, through use of instruction within given envelopes. Without giving too much away to potential audience members, the themes that we have spoken and devised through are: time, weight/wait, war and death – along with some others with a strong relation to the Grandstand.

Whilst discussing what the next plan of action was, in terms of the development of this piece, we hit a brick wall. We felt that we have a strong concept that would be exciting, atmospheric and rewarding for a creator (both referring to us who are creating the set up and potential audience members who would in fact be the material) but it’s our relevance to the site where our ideas lack. In the next week, we feel that more research would be beneficial for us to make sure that our link to the site and its past is as strong as we feel our contemporary concept is. We think our visit to the Museum of Lincolnshire Life will help with this and give us further inspiration we need to develop this piece.

Expo 1969/2014

When looking through the pictures and factual documents that were displayed for us a few week ago at the Lincolnshire Archives, I felt quite sad at the nature of what I was looking at- death, injury, war, mortuary plans… UNTIL I came across articles, magazine cuttings and pictures of EXPO 69.Even though this event didn’t happen on site, EXPO 69 was a carnival like event held on the West Common area (on the fields parallel to the front of the Grandstand) where we discovered concerts and fashions shows took place with local Lincolnshire businesses such as ‘Curtis’ providing food and drink for the event. Myself, Keiren and Sam were intrigued and excited about this as it was something different and fun we could use to develop something, in comparison to the stories of war and death that surrounded the site.

WHAT IS IT? Our idea is to re-create EXPO 69 by developing an installation within a confined space on the site e,g, a small cupboard or toilet cubicle which would portray the event and the original carnival atmosphere. Whilst creating a contrast to some of the other historical events that also connect with the site, it would also reflect juxtaposition and the integration of the past and present. We aim to infuse the past into the present by retrieving back the character and fun that is connected to a site where the words ‘abandon’ ‘cold’ and ‘empty’ are presently used to describe it. Expo isn’t directly linked to the Grandstand but being in its eyesight, we feel it would have been a lonely spectator in the years it became disused as a racecourse, so giving the site a lease of life, we thought we would bring the party to it.

I feel that we need to make sure our historical knowledge of this event is correct so perhaps another visit to the Lincolnshire Archives will benefit us as there was a lot of information there that we didn’t necessarily look through which could be helpful. To make this installation what we want it to be, a lot of materials will have to be sourced and others hand-made to re-create the presumed atmosphere of this carnival event.

References

Heddon, D (2008) Autobiography and Performance. Basingstoke:Palgrave Macmillan in Pearson, M (2010) Site Specific Performance. London: Palgrave Macmillian.