Nostalghia

((echo)) 01/05/14 – David Fyans – Nostalghia

I have been thinking about Navid Nuur’s ‘Renderender’ as a series of hyperlinks and interconnections, if you were to think of it as a Wikipedia article, it is interesting to note the blue underscores, the way in which different works relate to each other through content, theme, process, language, shape, texture and so on.

Spending time in the physical presence of the slide projectors and considering the way Nuur uses the projector for magnification via the teardrop piece, coupled with his methods of time displacement throughout the exhibition – the splitting up of a single moment, or the cohesion of multiple spans – formed connections with this work and spurred me into rediscovering and presenting it tonight.

echo 010514 02

“The Japanese therefore see a particular charm in the evidence of old age. They are attracted to the darkened tone of an old tree, the ruggedness of a stone, or even the scruffy look of a picture whose edges have been handled by a great many people.

 

To all these signs of age they give the name, saba, which literally means “rust”. Saba, then, is a natural rustiness, the charm of olden days, the stamp of time. ‘Saba, as an element of beauty, embodies the link between art and nature.”

Tarkovsky – Sculpting in Time p.59

echo 010514 03

Nostalghia – takes a 35mm slide, found in a muddy puddle and projects it alongside a sequence derived from scanning it at 4800dpi, printing on transparency, cutting up and (re)housing in slides as an exploration and abstraction of the original found object.

 echo 010514 01

The found object has always held an appeal to the artist, the ever presence of its ‘ur-life’, its circumstantial detachment from it and willful repurposing in a new context. In particular I find the idea of the found, captured image fascinating as an ‘edited reality’, a discrete point in space/time, hyper-edited by the photographer in both physical and temporal dimensions, framed exactly as desired by its creator.

 echo 010514 04

In this instance, a further process saw the image being deemed important enough to be transferred onto a slide and presumably proudly projected until it became through unknown circumstances, discarded, in a puddle for whatever period of time passed until it came into my presence.

 echo 010514 05

With nature and the elements entering into a relationship with the object, affecting the material and chemical composition, it has become something new, something ‘other’ – a series of new landscapes or maps resultant of time and process, interacting with the original content of the slide and it’s subsequent existence.

A single moment in time, fractured and explored from different perspectives.

 

((echo))ing again

I *think* I’ve managed to fix this but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Tonight, I shall be presenting work as part of DCA’s ongoing ((echo)) event, which sees artists making short term installations, presentations, performances, etc in response to the gallery programme. Tonight sees the first public presentation of my piece ‘Nostalghia’ alongside work and presentations from Holly Keasey & James Lee, Tamara Richardson, Jessie Giovane Staniland and Daniel Tyminski. The event is in the gallery at DCA, Dundee, from 7-8pm and entry, as ever, is free. Here is a link.

In the meantime, here is a trio of recent sculptural soundworks for your delectation. As ever, I’m available for performances/commisisons etc. so just drop me a line if you’re interested.

I’ll hopefully post up my presentation notes from tonight’s event here in the coming days.

Cheers

D