During this project aimed to look and observe movement in a way that is often not noticed. Have researched into indexical marks by looking at Michael Davids definition of indexical marks and by reading Paul Kane’s’ lecture about Duchamps studio. I want to use this idea that you can see that something has been present in a space without knowing what it was to experiment with the different marks that movement can make. Yves Klein would paint peoples bodies and have them move around on paper so that what was left was the print or their body. Kleins work makes me question whether the ‘art’ is the result of the performance or in fact is the performance itself. this question made me choose to use performance art, performance art often makes me feel uncomfortable but i think that this is a necessary step in developing my work and my understanding of its importance. Heather Hansen produces performance art whilst also using her body to create large charcoal drawings, I like her work and how she videos herself but I prefer the immediacy of Klein’s work. Lighting became a very important part of my project because of the performance and film element so I may try to push this idea further and see how shadows can be used to mark movement in a similar way to Olafur Eliasson, so that people viewing the exhibition are in fact creating the movement themselves.
After working with paint on the body to make marks I began to push the abstract element of this project further. Using clay and wire I encouraged other people to 'play' with the material for a set amount of time whether it be 5 minutes or 1hour. After the set time I would take what ever they had created and pour paint over the surface. I was interested in seeing how materials can interact with man made objects.
The outcome resulted in expressive sculptures that show a combination of thought and decisions in their structural form, every movement to shape the wire or the clay uses a thought process. This is combined with the uncontrolled element of the paint, a completely natural movement with no direction or thought process.