THE FINAL FRIDAYS WALK 3. 29 MARCH 2024.

May 3, 2024

For this third mark-making walk from Altogether Otherwise we explored the topic of utilities, visiting a local mobile phone mast, gas substation, electricity substation, and the river Irk.

The mobile phone mast and gas station are to be found in an endlessly interesting car park, where we also pondered the bits in-between, looking for imprints, shadows, and hidden energy. We reflected on how walking can create dynamic landscapes, constantly in flux and juxtaposing as we re-orientate.

Reflecting on the previous video documentaries of the walks so far, I wanted to allow for slower editing and longer shots, with a sense of duration to demonstrate the essence of prolonged looking, and close observation that happens during the walks.

This walk had something to do with the idea of channels. Channels of energy, of matter, and of interest.

The Final Fridays walks are all about looking for the gap in the fence.

Join us on the Final Friday of next month by registering here.

THINGS HAVE CHANGED

April 11, 2024

Since my previous entries in this journal about the installation at Altogether Otherwise (see: ALTOGETHER OTHER AT ALTOGETHER OTHERWISE and ALTOGETHER OTHER), things have changed.

The installation at Altogether Otherwise has become something altogether different. Something more akin to a field research centre, conducting investigations and explorations in the landscape by collecting and sampling matter and data, marking time and place with the things that we can all experience together.

Containing maps, plans, GPS coordinates, instant film images, Google Earth images, and photocopied images of drawings; the installation expands upon the previous Final Friday mark-making walks and anticipates those upcoming. It is a collective, and co-created work of landscape art, continually in flux and never static. Renamed The Final Fridays, this installation is intertwined and integrated within the walks that it i ntra-acts with. It is an example of intra-active and relational landscape art.

QUESTIONS THAT NEED ANSWERING

April 11, 2024

I have recently been closely considering some questions that have been posed about my residency at Altogether Otherwise, which includes the Final Fridays mark-making walks, alongside an installation.

What is happening in the relationships between myself as the facilitator, or ‘the artist’, and the people, or ‘the participants’, joining me on the Final Fridays mark-making walks? Whose choices determine what happens?

The formation of Landscape art that happens on the mark-making walks is co-created. Authorship, if such a thing can even exist, belongs to all those taking part, if at all. I am more of an artist as curator than ‘the artist’. Through my practice and my research, I am interested in the things we can all see together. I am not particularly interested in phenomenology, psychogeography, or one person’s individual response over the collective. No one person’s perspective is any better than anyone else’s. There is no value hierarchy, only variability.

Am I analysing my own practice or analysing the work of others?

Both. I am analysing the work of a dynamic collective of collaborators and co-creators, of which I am part. The work is formed through the intra-activity of the collective. We do not exist as independent agents, but co-operative and interdependent agents. The work of Karen Barad, and her theories around interrelationships has been influential to me as I continue to contextualise this dynamic.

The walks are time-based, collective, and relational landscape artworks, facilitated by me, by co-created by all those taking part. We are interdependent; not independent, intra-acting; not interacting.

The installations are both prequels and sequels. They are both a before and an after. A priori and posteriori; reactive and proactive. They activate and expand. They diffract and intra-act. They investigate the walks and become entangled with them.

Authorship of the installation is unimportant. As ‘the artist’, I am not fully in control of it and I make decisions based on the outcomes of unexpected encounters.

THE FINAL FRIDAYS WALK 2. 23 FEBRUARY 2024.

March 27, 2024

The second Final Fridays mark-making walk from Altogether Otherwise.

We began our walk by heading into Angel Meadows where we pondered over the geological notion of deep time, and the potential agency of the boulders that lie to the Northern end of the park. Questioning their context, and their possible displacement, we made rubbings in collaboration with the rocks, forming human and non-human dialogue, and considering how memory may be embedded within inanimate objects.

We drew comparisons between the weird and the eery in each of the places where we encountered something strange or unexpected. Mark-making and convivial conversation allowed us to speculate on the often ignored and unreckoned elements of the city.

Through open observation and slow consideration, we speculated on dyspotic and post-apocalyptic futures being made available within the present moment. Potential failed futures that are being repeated and imprinted on the ever unrolling now.

This is the documentation of a process-driven, time-bound, collaborative landscape work.

The next Final Fridays mark-making walk will take place on Friday March 29th. Register at Altogether Otherwise.

THE FINAL FRIDAYS WALK 1. JANUARY 26, 2024

February 9, 2024

The first in a monthly series of Final Fridays mark-making walks from Altogether Otherwise.

Using walking and mark-making we explored some of the edgelands of Manchester city centre, twice passing underneath the Metrolink track where it meets the River Irk.

We thought about Buddleia, with its stubborn growth and rich pigmentation. We considered this in relation to unchecked, ignored, and developing places where they tend to latch on to the bits in-between.

We thought about migrating workers, and the arteries of city centre development, with it’s temporary compositions, and liminal landscapes.

We speculated on angels and ghosts in the landscape.

This is the documentation of a process-driven, time-bound, collaborative landscape work.

The next Final Fridays mark-making walk will take place on Friday February 23rd. Register at Altogether Otherwise.

Recce for a city centre sketchbook walk at night. November 24, 2023,

December 3, 2023

With two volunteers I tested out a short route for a nighttime sketchbook walk, taking in Angel Meadows and the surrounding streets, before ending at The Angel pub.

We noticed the things usually ignored, reflecting on how these are made different by the darkness.

We explored ideas and issues around ownership, particularly about land ownership, land reclaimation, and personal stories about how this has affected us in different ways.

We considered signifiers such as ‘no-man’s land’ and how these sorts of places can hold unusual and unexpected encounters.

We thought about ghosts stories, and how, why, and when people tend to see ghosts in the land.

We took a speculative approach to understanding and making sense of the edges and boundaries of the human-made environment.

Together, we approached concepts such as non-places, no-man’s land, repetition, edgelands, process, and duration through walking, mark-making, and story-telling.

This is the documentation of a process-driven, time-bound, collaborative landscape work.

Altogether Other at Altogether Otherwise

November 17, 2023

The installation piece Altogether Other began as a relatively static piece. An artwork that came into existence at the group exhibition Continuum at Hive Gallery, it remained in place just as it was, for the duration of the show. However, it’s next iteration at Altogether Otherwise will not be static, but in flux; dynamic, open-ended, and ever-changing.

Not quite a studio space, not quite an exhibition, Altogether Other will be a space that holds live investigations. More like an office or a lab than an art space. At times we may even deny it exists. Things will be added, removed, altered over time. It will respond.

The piece has grown out of my studio space, out of my painting practice, to take on a new role of art as searching for an unknown sense of time and place.

Both the installation and my walking practice are about searching for a sense of lost time and place. Searching through walking, presenting, investigating, mark-making, reanimating, projecting, reminding, and remediating.

From January 2024, there will be monthly sketchbook walks from Altogether Other, on the final Friday of every month. In the sketchbook walks we will use walking and mark-making as a group, to explore, discover, listen, experience, and linger.

The walks inform the installation and the installation informs the walks. Ideally this would become a perpetual feedback loop, always present, but often out of sync, and disjointed, like the ghosts and magick of the land we continue to seek.

Altogether Other

October 13, 2023

An installation set up in the back of house areas at Hive Gallery in Bolton as part of the group show Continuum. An exhibition of art from the University of Bolton tutors past and present. 15th July - 19th August 2023.

The installation was titled Altogether Other.

Making use of the usually inaccessible back of house areas, the installation sought to present ‘an other’. There was something else going on as part of this group show, and it felt as though something was under investigation, and those conducting the investigation had not long left. An assemblage of art objects were presented alongside ephemera one might expect to be present in the back areas such as stacked up chairs, a mop and bucket, a step ladder, and other housekeeping equipment. After weaving through the passageway of paintings and photographic installations, viewers would find themselves presented with a small room where the main piece of the installation was to be found. In this small room, there was a sculpture sat on top of an overhead projector, projecting the base of the sculpture onto the facing wall. The side of the sculpture was being recorded by an old analogue video camera which displayed its image onto a black and white television via a video cassette recorder. The installation seemed to be filming and projecting itself in an endless loop, awaiting a point of disturbance. This disturbance was ready to re-occur and repeat on the activation of those present carrying the congruent set of conditions.

Viewers were left with the feeling that they had departed the gallery environment temporarily, and had stepped beyond an imagined boundary into something else. An unsettling experience leading to viewers questioning whether they were allowed to be there. Something has happened here that was unexpected. It was still happening. A live repetition of an unknown, or peculiar set of circumstances.

This installation marks the beginnings of an open-ended investigation into aspects of hauntology, the paranormal, and pseudo-science orchestrated by an art practice which will continue to involve painting, photography, video, assemblage, and analogue or obsolete image-making technology. Altogether Other will be remade in another space for longer term investigations, and subject to change, development, and repetition as part of an artist residency to be announced soon.