Saturday 9 May 2015

Situationist Survival Kit for Arts and Spirituality, Poole

"Being in love is dangerous because you talk yourself into thinking you've never had it so good" - David Salle

In March I co-ran a workshop with artists Jason Miller and Jennifer Newbury at the Lighthouse arts centre, Poole. The idea of the workshop was to look at how everyday creative practices can help us to look away from the unsatisfactory solutions of commercialised leisure and to become more resourceful in finding ways to occupy our own minds, rather than let them be occupied for us. The workshop was used to consider the relationship between spatial practice and spirituality as we looked for ways in which to integrate mundane art practices such as drawing, walking, re-imagining spaces and keeping visual diaries into everyday life.
 
Consumer practices are often a reflection of that which is perceived to be lacking in everyday life. From the annual holiday to the DFS sale, there is a sense in which we put our trust in commerci
alised leisure to transform mundane reality or as rewards for helping to fuel the wheels of capitalism. As pseudo-individualised creativities have become a commonplace part of everyday life, the social and institutional structures through which these are organised have become more transparent or revealed in full; thus exposing their paradoxes and inadequacies in terms of reward and liberation. Yet, we have the power to transform everyday life ourselves through creative practice; in order to live a liberated and transfigured existence in which the mundane becomes a catalyst for identifying intensify personal creative and spiritual inquiry, through practice.
Participants were asked to choose from a series of propositions for Situationist intervention tactics to utilse on our planned walk around Poole commercial centre, quay and waterside park. We then returned to the Lighthouse to discuss the effects of our détournements.

The work I produced for the project began with the instruction to observe everything at eye level and respond to what I saw and experienced. I made a series of image / text pieces using the ephemeral snapshots of Poole that I had taken to document my journey. The images are cropped to reference the image sharing website Instagram and the transient nature of online representation. The font is
SymLogiDIN by Walter van Rijn.