WIP

Nigel Whitbread

beat.fuse.echo WIP Script

April 06 2023

Hello and welcome to a presentation of the Work in Progress for my project entitled BEAT FUSE ECHO, and with a  working tagline  “a contemporary journey through a fluctuating landscape”

As I guide you through the processes of this body of work, TALK about the WALK as it were, the film playing will draw you INTO the WALK, that is about the TALK.

The film highlights the start of the journey, the very first steps on the path to discovery.

The photos in front of you with their locational QR codes and the original polaroids illustrate stops along the way.

And the model represents the end of the journey, and the time you have to pause and reflect on what has passed.

My art practice explores the concepts of pilgrimage, traversing the land, identity to a place and time, the projection of an individual's thoughts and experiences, and the act of trying to convey the experience of others who have walked similar pathways in the past. 

The theories and work produced are influenced by Gilles Deleuze, Henri Bergson, Rupert Sheldrake, Yi-Fu Tuan, Miwon Kwon, Robert Macfarlane, Michal Iwanowski, Hamish Fulton, Cornelia Parker and Andy Goldsworthy.

My practice incorporates walking, instant prints, environmental manipulation, and in-situ re-photography, which adds the additional layers of time and space.

The concepts explored are thinking through exploring, walking, identifying with a place; projection of the creator and viewer; overlapping the past/present/future; linear/non-linear experience of innate feelings from the past and future; and the freedom to explore without barriers or limitations. 

The title itself BEAT, FUSE, ECHO  incorporates What3words’ naming system which divides the world into 3 metre squares and gives each square a unique combination of three words. 

Beat comes from its definitions; to beat a path through the grass; to keep walking on; exhausted, physically, or emotionally; and to walk a beat. 

Fuse comes from its definitions; if something fuses two different qualities, ideas or things If, or if they fuse, they join together , especially in order to form a pleasing or satisfactory combination; and to become united and blended. 

And Echo comes from its definitions; a detail or feature which reminds you of something else; if one thing echoes another, the first is a copy of a particular detail or feature of the other; and in the sense of reminder. 

1st IMAGE - Stained glass window

///intensely.sleeping.mixers  

In his book The Presence of the Past, Rupert Sheldrake explores the possibility that memory is inherent in nature. He suggests that natural systems, such as termite colonies, or pigeons, or orchid plants, or insulin molecules, inherit a collective memory from all previous things of their kind, however far away they were and however long ago they existed. Because of this cumulative memory, through repetition the nature of things becomes increasingly habitual. Things are as they are because they were as they were.

All humans too draw upon a collective memory, to which all in turn contribute.

He also discusses how morphic resonance might explain how people can experience memories of past lives especially when triggered by a location or meditative state. 

Can the viewer of the imagery take into account the creators perspective of the journey, the thought process, the concept, the memories held within the place and landscape, and their own perspectives? 

My main aims are; to try and express the experience, convey what was felt at the time, and to enhance the sense of actually being a part of the photograph. I hope that by using physical overlaying techniques in combination with re-photography that I am able to embody my feelings, the abstraction of senses seen in my mind, what I was thinking, was the experience direct and intimate, or can it be indirect and conceptual? And to tap into people’s recognition and symbol making capabilities.

The crux of the idea revolves around St Illtud, a well known and influential saint in Wales, I am especially interested in the travels of Welsh saints throughout South Wales and Brittany. St Illtud had many students who in the 6th century came to his monastery in Llanilltud Fawr from all over the British Isles before starting their own journeys by going out into the wilderness to preach the gospel and found their own Christian communities and the concept that we can perceive the past as an echo that reverberates into the present like a morphic resonance,

Using the start of a walk as the focus and walking from two religious sites of note, namely St Illtud church in Llantwit Major and Ty Illtud barrow in the Brecon Beacons, I have created along the way a series of hybrid photographs which incorporate polaroid prints taken in-situ with physical elements from the environment overlaid and then re-photographed with a digital camera. This process produced imagery that is a cross between the documentation of a place being experienced and an invocation of the experience itself by adding another layer of time and space, which enhances the complexity of the imagery. 

LIGHT A CANDLE Pause for reflection

Unlike other artists who deal with walking the land, who either want to leave no trace of being there or leaving their mark on the land. I want to encapsulate my presence with the act of leaving a buried reminder of the capture of light on a chemical paper in the place the image was taken, whilst creating an experience that can be walked around as an art piece, and a walk that can be mirrored by a participant. All in the while being stored digitally in the cloud, which is a man-made plane of memory that can be accessed by all (limited access can be assigned by password protection) a universal memory still open to interpretation. 

Concerning the polaroid prints I do feel there is a limitation with the quality of the instant images, which in retrospect could have been improved by  using an instant printer linked up to a digital camera, but then would I have lost the authenticity of the moment by not having a direct correlation to the light creating an image through an analogue chemical process?

2nd IMAGE - Celtic Stones

///count.extensive.doll

With reference to having to break the walks up over months to complete them within the timescale, should I have instead maybe walked it over approximately a 10-day period straight to give it a more focused work ethic?  But then would I have lost out on the changing of the seasons captured if I had used a more protracted time frame.

While conducting early stages of research I contacted The National Museum of Wales about being a part of their fellowship programme but was unsuccessful, I feel this would have been a good opportunity to gain greater insight into studying the Celtic stones held within the museums different sites, and would have provided me the opportunity to look deeper into the connections of Welsh and Breton and how Breton became established in Brittany at the same time Welsh saints were building relationships in the region. 

If I had more time I would include deeper research on the history of Welsh saints, especially St Illtud and the characters he may have influenced, Welsh settlements from 500 AD onwards, the spread of Christianity in Wales and Brittany, and the rise and decline of Welsh and Breton as a contrast, 

3rd IMAGE - Church gate

As a way of presenting the imagery to the viewer I wanted to break open the concept of the “White Cube” as written about by Brian O’Dherty in his book “Inside the White Cube. To truly make it a space that is accessible to all with a strong feeling of being open and unconstrained. The modern gallery space keeps the outside world at bay with its windowless white walls and artificial lighting coming from directly overhead. 

I want to free up the space by encompassing it within a wooden frame and by printing the imagery onto transparencies so that light shines through them and projects them onto surrounding walls. I will also keep one element of the “White Cube” in the way of walls, but they will be open on each side so that the viewer can walk within and around them, and the transparent photographs will transform them into a windowed gallery. I am looking to break the laws of the White Cube principle so that the art truly breaks free of its confines. 

I want to scale up the experience so that it can be walked around and by using light projection, create an extended canvas. 

Things to bear in mind are; access for everyone of all disabilities,  different viewpoints (adults, children, wheelchairs), auditory elements and movement to simulate my experience. 

I would like to promote at different venues and incorporate online elements within the show (utilising WHAT3WORDS).  

Further concepts to expand upon on include;

Fungal connections network, memory through time, planes connected, storage, sharing (analogy) 

And is burying a focus and anchor point? 

thinking through exploring, walking, identifying with a place; projection of the creator and viewer; overlapping the past/present/future; linear/non-linear experience of innate feelings from the past and future; and the freedom to explore without barriers or limitations. 

The message I'm trying to convey is, the nuances of memory depend on how you frame it. 

Identification to a place through elements of space, time, personal perspective, and interpretation,

can resonate into the present and back again into the past.

When in a place can the past resonate with the present? 

And can we feel it and tune in to it? 

4th IMAGE - Dovecot

///echo.mailers.outwit