My sprawling review of the Goldsmiths Art MFA Degree Show, 2011
Originally published by Groupe d’Etudes Interdisciplinaires en Arts Britanniques

The labyrinth. Turning; coiling. An allegory of improbable human journeys. Physical; mental; spiritual. Beyond; behind; within. But underneath the mythos and symbolism labyrinths are simple structures. The maze is corners, mere corners. Unfurl them all and the labyrinth becomes a cul de sac; a doorless hallway; a vanishing point leading nowhere.

Browsing an MFA final show can… ]]> Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:03:25 -0700 http://www.geiab.org/GEIAB_DEUX/index.php?lang=eng&revue=showit&rn=4&article_id=91#begin http://www.fuel.rca.ac.uk/articles/thoughts-on-art-practice-phds

“Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorised in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange.”

- Jean-Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition

What are artists to gain from taking a PhD? How does the mantle of ‘artistic research’ enable art objects and those invested in them? And where does art’s autonomy reside when its criticality comes from within an academic institution?

Over the last 20 years art has eased its way into academia. Past the door of the artist’s studio and… ]]> Thu, 21 Jul 2011 02:58:04 -0700 http://www.fuel.rca.ac.uk/articles/thoughts-on-art-practice-phds http://machinemachine.net/text/out-loud/and-there-it-is

The hatches have been nailed shut, the creak of a rusty armature silenced with globdules of lubricant. And There It Was, the website; the event, stuttered into life.

UPDATE: The event took place on Thursday 23rd of June 2011 at Chisenhale Gallery. Photos from the event can be found here:

We start from the position of the ‘and’. A neglected conjunction, moulded by the incidents, events or ideas that came before – often just before – its… ]]> Mon, 20 Jun 2011 07:33:57 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/out-loud/and-there-it-is http://art-research.co.uk/digital-autonomy-a-reponse-to-hito-steyerl

“Is an ephemeral image, a moment in a streaming video, a thing? Or if the image is frozen as a still, is it now a thing? Is a dream, a city, a sensation, a derivative, an ideology, a decay, a kiss? I haven’t the least idea.”

Extract from David Miller, Materiality : An Introduction [1]

In A Thing Like You and Me, Hito Steyerl plays out her ongoing obsession with the copy, skirting briefly over her wider, yet more implicit concern: the digital. Echoing the work of Bruno Latour, Steyerl acknowledges the materiality by which… ]]> Sat, 11 Jun 2011 04:02:00 -0700 http://art-research.co.uk/digital-autonomy-a-reponse-to-hito-steyerl/is-an-ephemeral-image-a-moment-in-a-streaming-video-a http://www.chisenhale.org.uk/events/21st_century_event.php?id=47 Chisenhale Gallery - 21st Century Events: And There It Is:

Goldsmiths MFA Art Writing colleagues present an evening of performances, readings, projections, objects and contemplation. And there it is will chart the outcome of a sustained collective engagement with the decisive enigma of disaster and its many possible presences. 

What if the word and its manifestations are perceived as events? The word might be a thing in the world, said, written or performed, the word might mark both a place of effort and a failure of presence. If the word is an event, a… ]]> Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:31:00 -0700 http://www.chisenhale.org.uk/events/21st_century_event.php?id=47/chisenhale-gallery-21st-century-events-and-there-it-is http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/10/seriousness-is-the-new-black--the-turner-prize-at-tate-britain-and-anish-kapoor-at-the-royal-academy--sue-hubbard------many.html Many factors have lead to London’s pre-eminence in the contemporary art world: the importance of Goldsmith’s College to the Hirst generation of YBAs, Saatchi’s ubiquitous influence as a collector, Jay Joplin’s White Cube gallery, the founding of the annual Frieze art fair, and of course, the Turner Prize, that annual award set up in 1984 to celebrate new developments in contemporary art presented each year to a British artist under fifty for an outstanding exhibition in the preceding twelve months. It has always been a controversial affair. There was, of course, that bed (it didn’t win) and Martin Creed’s minimal… ]]> Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:50:00 -0700 http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/10/seriousness-is-the-new-black--the-turner-prize-at-tate-britain-and-anish-kapoor-at-the-royal-academy--sue-hubbard------many.html