4by4, an audacious series of shows for September in association with Neville Brody’s ADF : four curators / four shows / four publications / four weeks.
The ten artists in 4by4 will produce video, sound, ready-mades, text, performance, interventions, ceramics and publications. Highlights include the till receipt as a performance, a brand new typeface, a ‘pop-up museum’ in the gallery, the Bible re-written in blue biro, an army helicopter disabled by a video game hacker and the cut-up tapes of William S. Burroughs aired for the first time in a gallery. payneshurvell.com/
A curated publication will be produced weekly to be given away.
4by4 will be a series of multi-faceted, short, sharp shocks including video, sound, readymades, text, performance, interventions, ceramics, crafts, publications and newsprint. In a bold programme of shows and using whatever means necessary, 4by4 will give artists a chance to
take new risks and show work which might not ordinarily get exposure. In keeping with the principles of Brody’s ADF, 4by4 will show work that is challenging and experimental and questions current thinking and assumptions about design.
The ambitious month-long programme will be overseen by Neville Brody and co-ordinated by James Payne. The rapid succession of exhibitions will be challenging but are intended to give the artists freedom to experiment and to incorporate elements of serendipity and chance.
A free A3 ‘newsletter’, published by PayneShurvell, will accompany each show and will alternate between being purely informative and decorative; one week, a limited edition, another week something mass produced and throwaway. It provides a space for free exchange of ideas. Each of the four shows will be launched on Wednesday evening and will run until Saturday of each week. 4by4 8 September – 2 October 2010
Week One (Dreams of Desire 08/09 – 11/09) – Daisy Delaney
For 4by4 Delaney will be working with an object so familiar, banal
and everyday that we forget its existence – the till receipt. For her
show, the receipt is a document generated as a by-product of a
covert performance. The performance, in which the unidentified
cashier is an unwitting participant, occurs inside an art galleries
bookshop. A list of words is printed automatically on a till receipt
which now contains hidden information.
Week Two (Rational/Irrational 15/09 – 18/09) – Ian Whittlesea, Gary
O’Connor and Daniel Rapley. Curated by Dermot O’Brien
Private view Wednesday 15 September 6-8pm
Ian Whittlesea will be presenting a new typeface ‘Sol Sans’, that unlike
most typefaces can only do one job perfectly, allowing anyone to rewrite Sol LeWitt’s ‘Sentences on Conceptual Art’. Gary O’Connor has
been working on ideas of art as a ‘gift’, as a method of dissemination
and also as a way to engage on a very personal level with the public.
These ideas will be incorporated into his new work for 4by4.
Daniel Rapley’s work examines the ambiguity of social constructions
such as authorship, originality and productivity. For ‘Authorised’ Rapley
is transcribing the Authorised King James Version of the Bible by hand.
Week Three (How am I not Myself 22/09 – 25/09) – Matthew Robinson and Edward Vince. Curated by Edward Vince
Private view Wednesday 22 September 6-8pm
Edward Vince aims to fill the gap between design and art through his own work and the selection of others. Edward Vince will be curating ‘How am I not Myself’, where a ‘pop-up’ museum will be installed in the gallery, alongside Matthew Robinson, whose own work creates dialogue between material and object by juxtaposing the two, establishing a new architectural language.
Week Four (Silencer 29/09 – 02/10) – Alex Baker, Audio Research Editions, Corrado Morgana and Nye Parry. Curated by Mark Jackson
Private view Wednesday 29 September 6-8pm
Mark Jackson, who curated ‘Dead Fingers Talk’ at IMT gallery this year, presents Silencer. Nye Parry and Alex Baker produce hypnotic sound installations. Corrado Morgana, the artist and video game hacker, will be showing ‘Not Playing’. Made within combat flight simulator DCS Black Shark by Eagle Dynamics, Morgana is one of an increasing number of artists who demonstrate gaming’s independent scene, challenging notions of play. Audio Research Editions’ ‘Real English Tea Made Here’ is an installation featuring the cut-up tapes of William S. Burroughs, curated by Colin Fallows and Barry Miles. These early sonic experiments influenced artists such as the Beatles, David Bowie, Brian Eno and Sonic
Youth as well as the technique of digital sampling.
FAD artist interview Q&A 4by4 at PayneShurvell
FAD wanting to get into the mood of 4X4 asked 4 questions to the 4 shows and waited for the answers , here’s what we got back
Week one- Dreams of Desire
Daisy Delaney, The process of buying the products to spell the coded messages takes a while so how are the shops treating you?
Sometimes I manage to go through the whole process incognito; that’s the ideal scenario, because then I don’t have to try to explain myself to anyone. Museums and galleries usually have quite rigorous security, and so hanging around tills, can arouse suspicions. Sometimes I have to explain what I’m up to, in order to avoid being arrested or thrown out of the place. I think a lot of shop assistants are happy to do anything to relieve the boredom.
What do you understand by anti-design?
DD: Anti-design as an idea has been around since the sixties. It’s a reaction against over-design
What next?
DD: I hope to avoid Museum gift shops for the foreseeable future; I never want to see another fridge magnet as long as I live.
Week two – Rational/Irrational
Gary O’Connor, What exactly are you giving away?
My thoughts written on tissues, you can keep them, or use them to wipe your nose.
What do you understand by anti-design?
To turn something inside-out or upside down, smash it up – set fire to it and start again, but this time on a much lower budget because you spent all your money on the thing you just smashed up
Daniel Rapley, Do you agree that Amateurs imitate and professionals steal?
The statement presents a semantic problem. Both ‘imitation’ and ‘theft’ can mean the same thing in certain contexts while the terms ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’ also have various definitions. So the question as a whole poses a logical dilema to me. I’m sure the statement, as it may be intended, is true in certain cases and I’m sure it’s also false in certain cases. It’s a bit like saying ‘women drink wine and men drink whiskey’.
What do you understand by anti-design?
DR: For me anti-design perfectly encapsulates a certain punk aesthetic. The freedom and creativity to think outside the box, react against conventions, and the belief that design, as a communicative tool, has more socially important applications than to do the bidding of capitalism.
Ian Whittlesea, Explain more about this new font.
Sol Sans is based on a series of hand-written sentences that the American artist Sol LeWitt published in 1969. He was attempting to work out what conceptual art was and what it could be. The first sentence is: 1. Conceptual artists are mystics rather than rationalists.
Here’s another one relevant to the anti-design festival:
32. Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution.
More Info:www.ianwhittlesea.net/
The typeface was made with the help of Mark Pearson, an artist who runs a project called Progress Through Typography
Any letters not included in the original hand-written text have been replaced with Helvetica Medium, which means that it is a font that does a single job perfectly. It allows anyone to re-write LeWitt’s Sentences on Conceptual Art, but as soon as it’s used for anything else it introduces a level of difficulty, or complexity; it slows down the experience of reading and draws us back to LeWitt’s work.
For Rational / Irrational at PayneShurvell I’m typesetting some of LeWitt’s sentences in caps (rather than the lower-case that he used) and putting them on the wall. The largest will be about 6 metres long, and says:
5. Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.
What do you understand by anti-design?
I think art is always anti-design. It deals with necessity not choice.
Week three: How am I not myself
Edward Vince, There is no gap between art and design is there?
I think there is a gap between art and design, but then in the same breath, where do you draw the line? Especially with the whole notion of the ready made, but I do think commercial design has lost its purity, no longer being about functionality and longevity but being brand driven and transient. I wish to create objects that are free from this, and for me I see this as being an art object, one of purity and simplicity. The only definite comparison I can draw is that they are both intended for consumption, albeit in varying forms.
What is architectural language?
EV: architectural language… this statement was actually intended to suggest that the curated work will create conversation between object and material through a clash and contrast of the two, finding a new language.
Week four: Silencer
Mark Jackson, Is William Burroughs still relevant?
Of course, no more so than in an age of user-generated interaction with both technology and the media.
What do you understand by anti-design?
I’ve been thinking about it predominantly as the application of design and technology to uses for which it was not intended, such as art, magic or pseudo-science.
Corrado Morgana: Are there any other artists working in gaming who you admire?
Too many to list, innovative commercial designers, independent producers such as Kenta Cho and artists group Molleindustria, game artists like Julian Oliver, Joseph DeLappe, Myfanwy Ashmore et al. Game artists don’t necessarily work in gaming, they work WITH gaming; designers work in gaming. Have a look at www.gamescenes.org for more.
What do you understand by anti-design?
That which challenges accepted norms, overturns the mainstream, innovates through subversion, transgression, détournement and play.
