MENU
Field Research
Decision Making and Science
I started my masters with the proposal "The Public Book" and the initial proposed research question was: how can science help us making better decisions and what can the role of art be in this context? I have always been concerned with interdisciplinary practices and I wanted to combine science, the public realm and art.
My first research field trip was to Oxford, where I arranged to participate in a decision-making study at Molly Crocket labs, which in ways was another variation of Milgram's experiment in the late 60's but with much more advanced neuroscientific research to back it up. As I was interested in science, and whilst in Oxford, I took the opportunity to go to the Natural History Museum and Oxford Brookes University, where there was a microscopy exhibition, which featured work by Rob Kesseler. This was decisive in the development of my practice as I discovered that rocks could be folded by pressure and heat, and this process was called metamorphism. Given that I was looking for new forms of knowledge via the intersection of different kinds of knowledge, Geology became central due to the immense metaphors and exciting possibilities it presented to me. Geology was also in line with David Cross' lecture, which detailed how oil and capitalism were at the foundations of the problems of sustainability and wider displacement issues.
As a language aficionado and an avid reader, I started looking into Geological language as a starting point for making, as well as mimicking the processes of folding rock with books, by pressing them in the nipping press.
Is the question Collision?
Silkscreen on cartridge paper, book cloth boxes, crushed books
This book installation is a metaphor for the creation of a knowledge. Exploring the scientific and emotional realms through language, I made these two kinds of knowledge collide, in order to form questions by using and manipulating geological collocations.
practice based research
indigenous cultures' destruction
Through practice based research I was observing the bookscape embodying oppression and release, by crushing and un-crushing the books in the nipping press, making me think that all the knowledge in the books was being destroyed, silenced, oppressed.
Captured by the beautiful visual movements of the pages, I started to look into film. I also saw Notes towards a Model Opera by William Kentridge (see Critical Analysis), and the feelings and facts I was witnessing made sense only on an abstract sphere, but yet, with no discernable narrative they told poignant stories. These stories were of horror, but told with beauty. I was struck by this effect and Kentridge's politicised work.
Looking at the destruction of bookscape (practice-based) and landscape (research), I came across the destruction of Amazonian tribes' heritage because of oil spills. I looked into the Waorani people, which have been greatly affected by Colonialism.
The Waorani People in the Ecuatorian Amazon, who are suffering the consequences of displacement as Bloc B22 in the Yasuni National Park is being explored. This is one of the most bio-diverse places on Earth.
'The link between man and the world has been broken. Henceforth, this link must become an object of belief: it is the impossible which can only be restored within a faith. Belief is no longer addressed to a different or transformed world [...] Only belief in the world can reconnect man to what he sees and hears. The cinema must film, not the world, but belief in this world, our only link.' (Giles Deleuze, in Cinema 2: The time image, continuum, 2005, pg 166)
Reading about the Situationists, and durational approaches, I came to find that a slow approach, is not only immersive and allows for subliminal reflection, but also the anti-spectacle methodology. This is also verifiable in the filmographies of Bela Tar, Derek Jarman (with some exceptions) and Tarkovsky. A slow, quasi-theatrical world creates a world of immersion.
ethnocide
digital film 14'44''
ETHNOCIDE marks the beginning of my interest in Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Looking at the destruction of habitat of the Yaorani people in Ecuador, it became apparent to me that it was about more than the environment as a place but also as concept, a way of being that was vanishing under oil spills. What one would call culture, is too, knowledge. In Western Culture books have been a symbol of knowledge (even tough one could argue that what they carry is information instead) and using the book as a symbol of knowledge, ETHNOCIDE depicts a culture being destroyed by oppression, where oil companies hide behind corporate power.
Field Research
Microscopy
My fascination for microscopy grew stronger and I got a place in a study visit to the Microscopy Lab at Oxford Brookes, by contacting Rob Kesseler, which at the time was the chair of Art & Science at CSM. Since I was crushing books, my project for the two days was to observe different types of paper's appearance when torn, cut, and scrunched.
Experiencing an SEM microscope, perusing these unseen landscapes has forever changed my perspective of life, universe and human existence. I wrote a poetic essay on surface and depth and made a book about it. It was the first step in understanding the bigger picture in terms of ecology.
It was soon after that I started looking into the microscopy of rocks.
Immersed in ideas of detournement and the idea that society is mediated by images, by Guy Debord, and how the rock layers are organised on the Earth's crust and mantle, I made use of stratigraphic concepts for my next piece. I was also reading about the history of the oil industry and found out that fracking had a surge in the London Stock Exchange. This motivated me politically and propelled my interest in fracking, given that was a "local" (national) problem. From the piece bellow, I developed two other projects and both got shortlisted. (Click here for Yorkshire Sculpture Park proposal; Click here for Peckham's My Bussey Canvas public vote)
shaleopoly
digital prints, pencil drawing on the wall, screws, tissue paper, blood
Being a site-specific one-week long project, I chose a spot where there was a frame on the gallery wall. This choice was because alike in the "Society of the Spectacle", where a vicious cycle perpetuates itself, the world’s oil dependecy is too a vicious cycle, which in many ways ‘frames’ us. The abstract landscape is how shale looks under the microscope and it counter-follows the chronology of the oil industry on top of the frame: the more angular shapes on the left, is how young shale looks like under the SEM microscope and it progresses on to the oldest. A stratigraphic opposition between nature and industry.
Research
colonialism, post-colonialism and Neo-colonialism
When looking at how did the displacement of indigenous cultures happened throughout time, mainly in South America but also in some parts of Africa, I encountered two main reasons: christianity and resources extraction. This resource extraction would more often than not, be related to oil, minerals and metals, timber and rubber. This is how I stumbled upon Colonialism and Imperialism, which now manifests more than ever in a corporate capacity.
My research was veering into power dynamics, freedom of speech and political affairs, when one day reading the newspaper, I was shocked to read that a surveyed general public in the UK thought that Colonialism was a good idea and there was nothing to be ashamed of. I wanted to challenge this propaganda and the institution, understand how to subvert it, and even more, how to do it through art.
Continuing to look into symbols of power to be able to subvert them, I came across Deborah Kelly's Tank Man Tango, and a reactionary newspaper article to the YouGov survey I mentioned above. Keen to experiment new ways of conveying the public book, I took the streets of London my own performance.
Homage to tank Man, a walk on murder mile
newspaper (READ HERE), artist book
Realising that currently, newspapers, the news on TV and social media, are the most accessible form of propaganda, I adopted this format to the advantage of the message. The artist book, one off, is not possible to open fully. An oppressed specimen, able to be exposed, yet, not explained as its words are muted by the red (blood) shed by its oppressor. Or is the red activist paint? A retaliation muted? Just like the lone protester in Tiananmen Square. An imperialist and parliamentary style was adopted to create a supremacist environment, which was in contrast with the newspaper, representing the masses.
Research and
practice based research
Fracking and lithography
After seeing that propaganda had its initial days by spreading in lithographic prints, and those being primarily done in stone, I was keen to learn the process (it was the most ever appropriate technique to print anything related to rocks/ stone/ Earth/ minerals, which was the subjects I was dwelling in, and now, enlightened about its use in the political sphere, I wanted to use it even more) and I signed up to a City Lit course to be able to use the facilities at Camberwell.
When I signed up, I thought lithography was only possible to do with stone (litho) but I soon learnt/realised that there are various techniques that developed alongside technology.
There is offset litho, exposed on a light-sensitive aluminium plate; zinc plate, which goes under pretty much the same process as a stone; and stone.
Drawing with greasy pencils, understanding the chemical processes of saponification, which translates in how to control grease and non-grease to the advantage of print, lithography showed to be a very crafty and painterly printmaking process. I was really keen to get on the stone, but I was trying to rearrange the visual components from SHALEOPOLY because I felt that that residency allowed me to explore and expand ideas on site and on the wall, but it was more like a sketch or as if I was planning another piece. I felt that it needed some resolution, and I was only technically prepared to approach it on the offset print, which was great because that was another variation on the chemical behaviour of the relationship and process between water, grease and ink.
Because of SHALEOPOLY I started following 'Drill or Drop' to keep myself updated in regards to what was happening with fracking. I knew there had been two big corporate conferences in the North and that Lancashire was already suffering consequences of the power of energy companies. I found a report/research that was testimony to the community's problems. I also found plenty of videos on Youtube, detailing the struggles of property/farm owners situated around fracking sites. I was sympathetic to them ,as I could see displacement unfolding, like there had been with indigenous cultures (for other, yet, similar reasons).
A fracking pointless discussion
Drill bits, offset lithographic prints, perspex, Mdf
Further developing the graphic style of stratigraphic maps and representations, I enhanced Shaleopoly's first draft. In this piece there was an emotional logic behind the hierarchy of the prints set-up: it was (again) about a collision between the emotional, the scientific and public, however, now channeled towards the political dimension of Geology. This piece was crucial to my practice's development, because it was then that I realised that I had been bound to book form but that I needed to break free from obligations related to form. The sculptural aspect of this piece was heavily influenced by Mona Hatoum's exhibition at Tate Modern and British Art Show 8 in Norwich.
practice based research
stone lithography
Having not yet got onto the stone, I was determined to learn how to print from a rock. I booked a workshop with Simon Burder at Oaks Fine Art Editions Studios, who had taught me on the zinc plate before. As my mind was occupied with stratigraphy, it was through drawing directly on the stone, that I came up with an idea that still stands in my "relationships database". I was drawing layers of the earth, thinking of human's burials, when in my mind, our physical composition juxtaposed with that of the earth's. The earth's crust, our skin, the molten core, our blood and organs, the core, our feelings and thoughts.
WE Are Earth
Lithographic print
In this sketch, I imagined our veins, plasma, cells, different textures of our fat, intestinal tissues, different parts of our bodies, and transposed that onto the layered style of the stratigraphic map. This idea, stayed with me, maturing, to be developed at a later point.
Field Research
Crude oil and metamorphic rock
Since ETHNOCIDE I had been trying to purchase crude oil and/or visit an oil refinery. I had approached various refineries via phone, posting presentations and letters, asked for support from Imperial College professors, with no results at all. It all seemed very secretive. So I decided to find a place of geological relevance, where I could collect metamorphic rock and visit an oil refinery at the same time.
Rompetrol's oil refinery Petromidia in Navodari, Romania, is one of the most advanced refineries in terms of carbon foot print in Europe. I was struck by its area, 4.8km2, and the industrial landscape against such a bucolic seaside scenery. It was also the first time I was able to smell crude being burnt (distilled), which lingered for a good 20 km away from the refinery.
Collecting rocks in the Black Sea was an amazing experience as I could see the striations on the rock formations with the eyes of someone who now knew what was looking at.
The geology of the Black Sea is super rich and I collected various rocks, limestones, ironstones, sandstones and even shale. The metamorphic samples exhibited different levels of metamorphism, some with the typical "eye" formation.
With stone litho freshly in mind, I approached the technician at Camberwell, Simon, to know if it was possible to print from ironstone (the biggest rock I was able to bring over). After a few experiments, we realised it was possible, but the rock had to be bigger in size so that it had enough surface to take pressure from the press. Whereas with Bavarian limestone (the type of stone litho plates are normally made of) the ink is easy to "peel off" the surface, with a harder stone like iron stone, the ink doesn't release as easily and more pressure is required. It was nevertheless really exciting to prepare, grind both with a power tool/grinder and manually, a stone that I collected myself from scratch.
At this stage I started being excited about working with rocks, and manipulating rocks. I was interested in the meaning of materials and crude and rocks were at the top of my list.
Academic research
arts and oil
My contextual research question was initially related to Colonialism and the impact that had on the work of William Kentridge and Cornford & Cross. I was trying to analyse two distinct approaches to political issues that affect the environment and social issues. I was also trying to focus on one aspect of Colonialism, oil extraction, but after a 2nd draft completed, in consultancy with Ricardo Falcão, Anthropologist PhD in African Studies, and David Cross, it became apparent that Colonialism is extremely complex in and within all its ramifications, which meant that a 3,000 word essay wouldn't be able to cover a reasonable argument.
Consequently, I narrowed my focus to oil and on the work of Cornford & Cross and David Cross' current practice, in the context of the gallery, site-specific and public realms. I discussed in more detail the engagement of the institutional art world with oil dependancy and the role that bureaucracy has been playing to the detriment of the artist's role in society.
Essay
academic writing
Extracting effective strategies from artists Cornford & Cross and David Cross’ work