Francis Alys
I made a trip down to London especially to see the exhibition, Francis Alys: A Story of Deception, at Tate Modern.

Having trained as an architect, he addresses the built environment and the uses of public space, turning cities into fields of investigation and then utilising them as the raw material for his interventions. He seems to have a wonderful ability to notice the most mundane of intricacies such as bottle tops embedded in tarmac or chewing gum left under a table, and then he utilises these humble observation to engage with weighty ideas. I clearly share his passion for drawing people’s attention to the everyday details that go unnoticed and some of his works have a particular resonance with the ideas behind my practice.

Francis Alÿs in collaboration with Felipe Sanabria, The Collector (Colector) Mexico City, 1990-2, Private collection © Francis Alÿs Photo: Ian Dryden.

Francis Alÿs, Ambulantes I and II Mexico City, 1992-Present, Private collection © Francis Alÿs.

For example in Placing Pillows, he placed pillows in broken windows to draw attention to the failure of civic authorities to repair these damaged buildings in the aftermath of the 1985 earthquake. And his interest in the civic authorities runs deeper as can be seen in such works as The Collector, which celebrates the widespread resistance that exists in Mexico to modernisation, and in Ambulantes, where he documents street situations and characters that attest to a lifestyle in defiance of the pressures of modernity. In the same way that I intend my work to question the necessity for the continual renewal of our cities, his work appears to speak out against modernity and its restricting rationality that has prevailed in an attempt to control nascent urban life, and project in its place a model of city planning.

Francis Alys and Politics
In many of his projects politics and poetics seem to intertwine as he concerns himself with the everyday life of a city, the economics of modernisation and the division of space. I am interested in his standpoint on this as I am often given the question of whether I consider my work to have a political agenda. His works are first and foremost poetic, transient and open to interpretation. And yet the question lingers as to whether these poetic acts that reflect upon particular real situations can also create a space for new ways of thinking, that will lead in turn to ‘the possibility of change.’ Alys does not want his practice to be overtly political but instead believes that,

“Through the gratuity or the absurdity of the poetic act, art provokes a moment of suspension of meaning, a brief sensation of senselessness that reveals the absurdity of the situation and through this act of transgression, makes you step back or step out and revise your prior assumptions about this reality.”

(ALYS, F. (2007) Francis Alys, interview with Russel Ferguson, London, p.40)

I feel that, similarly to Francis Alys, I am trying to use the language of an artist to make a poetic response to my surroundings. This may have a social dimension or become a political comment, but that has to happen within the experience of the poetic act.

Photograph from David Zwirner, New York. Francis Alÿs on his walk through Jerusalem in 2005, in which he retraced the Green Line with a leaky paint can, part of an exhibition at the David Zwirner gallery in Chelsea.

Hazard MMX

Saturday 17 July
Manchester city centre 12-5pm free

HAZARD Manchester’s micro-festival of sited performance and intervention unleashes its third wave of bizarre behaviour onto the city on 17 July. Outbreaks of cheeky, thought-provoking and sometimes raunchy sprees of eccentricity take live art and contemporary performance into the public domain.

The two previous outings of Hazard have seen the bold and the beautiful, eccentric and extreme crop-up in every possible location: Cathedral Gardens swaddled in Hazard Tape, giant dancing traffic cones, impossible circumnavigations of the city by canoe and dry-wipe graffiti have all featured. At times unavoidable, at times subliminal, a flash of yellow and black might be the only clue that the city is one big performance.

For HAZARD MMX, over twenty pieces of work will take to the streets, with participating artists to include:

Alex Bradley, Andy&Gaz&Jon, Astrid Breel, Clare Charnley, Doldrum Theatre, Eggs Collective, Fin de Siecle, Freezechester, Hannah Wiles, Hen's Teeth Theatre, James Topple, Jordan McKenzie, Martin Hamblen, Natalie Preece, Noise Club, Out Of Hand Theater, Peader Kirk, Rachael Nutter, Scratch ‘n Sniff Cinema, The Muffia, Vickie Fear

Here is a link to the website which has pictures, videos and writings on the events that took place: http://hazardmcr.org/?page=1

Beeline, Oldham Street
I was selected to take part in Hazard MMX as a paid participant. It was important to me that I proposed work that would develop my practice and build on the concepts that I had been researching. Having produced the Monotony series I wanted to continue with this methodology of producing work that in some way creates a trail for the audience but I was keen to experiment with a way of doing this without using letters.

Continuing with my focus on the homogenisation of our cities, I proposed to draw attention to the ominous and controlling, BXPU 1539 Manchester PU bollards that guard our streets: a black sentinel on every corner, a pillar of our uniform city experience.

Using yellow tape I wrapped the first bollard with just one strip of tape, the second with two, the third with three and so on, until the final bollard at the top of the street was completely yellow. The colour was chosen specifically as one that would be eye catching but also that fitted in with the theme of the festival ‘hazard’ and referenced the city emblem of a bee that is inscribed on every bollard.

Images of Beeline by Hannah Wiles, Photographs by Roshana Rubin-Mayhew

Radical Nature
Recently I noticed that I have started looking more and more at nature within the context of our urban environment. To begin research around this topic I have just finished looking at the exhibition catalogue for, 'Radical Nature: Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet'. The exhibition questions the value and meaning of nature in the context of the urban.

You can view images of work from the exhibition here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/jun/18/radical-nature-exhibition-barbican#/?picture=349064139&index=0

 I am particularly interested in the idea that nature is segregated from our everyday lives and controlled in such a way as to reinforce the fact that we are living in a predetermined world. It is as though nature is seen to be a threat to the stability of society's infrastructure and must therefore be repressed.

In this exhibition the artists attempt to reconnect man with nature, suggesting that they are fundamentally interdependent upon one another within a fragile system. It also breaks down the portrayed division between architecture and the natural world. As previously discussed, building matter originates from nature before returning to its original stte through dereliction and decay. 

Empty Space
Thinking about the ideas that Doreen Massey had highlighted in her book 'For Space' (see previous post), I began noticing the physical division of space by fences and walls and I became particularly interested in areas that were not in use and yet cordoned off in some way to prevent access. To draw attention to these 'dead' spaces I weaved red ribbon in-between the entrances and added a bow in reference to grand openings of finished developments.

For Space
I recently read a book called 'For Space' by Doreen Massey due to my interest in public spaces and place-making strategies. In the book she considers space as 'interaction' rather than just being structural, explaining that it is a continuous production and reconfiguration of heterogeneity in all its forms (and is therefore the opposite of that which is sterile and still.)

She also discusses how space has been divided up into 'places' as a tool for imagining and organising global space. This in turn is a refusal to acknowledge the multiplicities of space, its fractures and its dynamism.

This then leads on to a very interesting discussion around ideas of globalisation. Importantly it is pointed out that we are currently experiencing a Neo Liberal Capitalist form of globalisation led by multi-nationals. It is projected that this is the only form of globalisation that exists with the whole world following a single trajectory with some countries simply being 'behind' others. This clearly does not live up to the requirement that space is always and ever open, constantly in the process of being made.