When not
wandering around Walthamstow/E17 studying, if not getting completely lost up
his nether orifice, 'Field Study's Man in E17' has been known to take an
interest in less insular matters and to look to the experiences and
accomplishments of others to broaden his Walthamstow view. So in the last 8 (at
the time of writing) days I have looked for the field student, with the guarded
hope he has resumed such outward looking activities as attending talks and
meetings, with particular relevance to Walthamstow.
Before I list
the events attended I feel compelled to say this diligent 'activated
spectatorship' (to use contemporary art jargon) is not without considerable
risk when it comes to 'Field Study's Man in E17'; his propensity for asking
damn awful questions when it comes to the Q&A part of an artist talk is
remarkable. 'Remarkable'? That conceit is what he tried to convince me of.
'Nobody asked such a bad question as I did', he told me as we left a discussion
between Iain Sinclair and Rachel Whiteread, that was a part of the 'Psycho
Buildings' exhibition programme at the Hayward Gallery in 2008.
I recorded
the discussion (for personal study/use) and when I played the recording back I
had to agree with the field student that the question was indeed diabolical.
'Listen to that', he cried with laughter. 'I am easily the worst 'questioneer'
in the world. Call me, 'Thee Crap Questioneer'', he bragged. I was mortified to
think that 'Field Study's Man in E17' was sabotaging arts events with
deliberately bad questions and decided to refrain from further similar participatory
actions in the field. That decision was made before the schism that finds 'Lost
and Found in E17' and 'Field Study's Man in E17' in search of each other, or at
least the former in search of the latter, and not least because the latter can
really be an 'arse'.
Before I list
the events attended I feel compelled to say something about the question the
field student put to Rachel Whiteread way back in 2008. That encounter has
weighed heavily on my mind ever since. Unfortunately, 'Field Study's Man in
E17' had been reading, 'Playing and Reality' (D. W. Winnicott) and was
particularly taken by Chapter 4, 'Creative Activity and the Search for the Self'.
DWW asserts,
'(i)f the artist (in whatever
medium) is searching for the self, then it can be said in all probability there
is some failure for that artist in the field of general creative living. The
finished creation never heals the underlying lack of sense of self.'
The field
student waited patiently, with mounting trepidation, well into the
audience/panel Q&A session before he grasped the microphone and lobbed a
very poorly formed question, (based on Winnicott's assertion) at the eminent
artist. The question was edged with a sense of assertion, even an accusation
that, in his mind, Rachel Whiteread may have demonstrated failure in the field
of general creative living. What did he mean? The question was crass and (some
might say euphemistically?) ‘excremental’. There was no genuine reason to
suppose and/or assert Rachel Whiteread’s creativity in her public art work did
not extend into her field of general living and really, if it did or didn’t it
was (and is) none of my business. Playing the question back caused me hot
flushes of embarrassment. How could you, Field Study’s Man in E17, how could
you? I should really rub your nose in it.
I tried to
excuse the crassness of the question by recalling an interview with John Tusa
in which Rachel Whiteread spoke of personal/family experiences and how she expressed
them through her sculpture – or understood something of the experiences through
the sculptures. The division of public and private was blurred though not
sufficiently to make that disparaging assertion about a prominent artist’s
creative life as a whole.
Rachel
Whiteread’s work has often embodied (paradoxically) relationships between
private and public, interior and exterior, material and immaterial; those
binary divisions assumed in order to make everyday life less perplexing.
Asserting that artists are persons who search; what is/was it that RW searched
for in the process of solidifying the nether spaces of household furnishings?
During the Psycho Building conversation, Field Study’s Man in E17 thought the
lost subject of Whiteread’s search was the reverie she experienced as a child
while sitting in cupboards/wardrobes and similar poetic spaces. Why would that
search be indicative of a failure of general creative living?
What
particular relevance could RW have to Walthamstow? Field Study’s Man in E17 has
reported on intrepid archaeological adventures partaken beneath his bed and
this leads to 2 examples of RW’s work, Untitled
(Amber Double Bed) and Untitled
(Amber Bed), which see the nether spaces of 2 beds solidified in rubber and
high density foam, and the resulting objects slumped against walls just like
abandoned mattresses. Of course, Walthamstow is a prime destination for connoisseurs
of sublimely dumped mattresses (once very private and intimate places) thanks to the work of the Walthamstow Tourist
Board. The field student is fascinated by the map-like stains – topographies of
his sublime perhaps? It may be a cheap reference to make to the high art of RW,
however the artist has acknowledged the importance of the phenomenon of urban
discard and detritus in her work.
Back in
January 2013 and it has become a matter of urgency that I try to reconnect with
‘Field Study’s Man in E17’ not least as a way of trying to contain his potentially
rank interrogations. Yesterday I attempted to look for the field student under
my bed and quite alarmingly I found myself repelled and projected away by a
rubbery mass. It seems the field student has resorted to artistic means to
avoid ‘reconnection’.
So after
that circuitous ramble the list of the events attended:
On 15th
January I picked up a trail, pointed to by the Archipelago of Truth, that lead
to Walthamstow Central Library and there I found Clive Bloom (‘an historian of
disturbance’) in the company of some Waltham Forest Young Advisors for a panel
talk and audience discussion about the 2011 Riots and related issues. The field
student asked CB how strained relations between central government, the media
and the police might have affected the policing of the riots. I’m trying to
locate the report from the errant field student. On Sunday 20th January he
left a message he had buried the report in the middle of Walthamstow Marsh. I believed
him and went looking for it!
On 21st
January I pursued Field Study’s Man in E17 towards Tottenham Marsh and found
myself/the field student at the Ferry Boat Inn, in the company of East London Beekeepers. It was
a very convivial and informative evening; an occasion when the field student
could ask stupid questions about the limits of his beekeeping knowledge, and be
advised most sympathetically and expertly. A discussion about dowsing and ley
lines in relation to beekeeping certainly animated the field student’s eyebrows
and before I knew it he was off with his rods and quickly found one of the
reservoirs. How many times have I told you, Field Study’s Man in E17, you must
use waterproof ink for your reports?
On 23rd
January I squeezed into the Hornbeam Cafe where close on 40 people had gathered
to listen to a couple, Naomi and Pip, give an account of their ‘WWOOF-ing’
journey around the southwest country and Wales last year. Their rural bicycle
rides took them to a diversity of organic farms, gardens and communities. At
each they were provided with food, shelter and a growing awareness of
alternatives to large scale industrial horticulture and agriculture – partly in
return for their labour, energy, enthusiasm and experience – all of which are
worthy of a field report although Field Study’s Man in E17 may not be the
reporter for the job for reasons that may be all too apparent.
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