GUIDE TO LIFE ARCHIVE GUIDE TO LIFE ⇒

WORK PROPOSAL 2003

Guide To Life fulfils two purposes within my art practice, conceptual and strategic. Conceptually Guide To Life can be seen as expressing the unceasing struggle to understand life. As an ordering system which provides a prescription for successful living it is representative of all other possible ordering systems and an expression of the universal human longing for structure. In that Guide To Life attempts to provide something that is not possible, i.e. a structure to live by, it expresses nostalgia and a longing for certainty, feelings which have a particular poignancy for artists where the belief in art and the certainty of purpose which seemed to be there in the past is no longer possible.

Strategically the adoption of Guide To Life as a structure for an art-making is a means of enabling continued artistic productivity. Producing work within the structure of Guide To Life lessens the moments of self-doubt and indecision which paralyse the art-making process. Guide To Life removes the question of what to make as it allows for diverse forms of artistic output as every work, regardless of form, material, content or quality can be included within its infinitely expandable structure.

Central to my way of working is the adoption of a position of ironical distance. The irony is present in the work and also in the strategies which I use to talk about it. Guide To Life is important as an act of artistic positioning. The claims which it makes for itself or which I make for it are of course destined to fail and it is the beauty and tragedy of human failure which is the ultimate subject of the work.

The works that I am currently engaged in and which I would expect to continue with in 2003 are positioned within Chapter V of Guide To Life and are examinations of historical art-works spanning the Renaissance to the 20th Century. My most recent work, “Dürer (Self-Portrait 1498)” was the first work in this series. What interests me in this analysis is firstly an attempt to understand the feelings of aesthetic pleasure and transcendence experienced when looking at art and, secondly, to try and enter into the way of thinking of the artists who created them, particularly how they experienced themselves as artists. The works I am currently making are compositional analysis drawings and compositional manipulations of various works to see if I can discover objective criteria of beauty, copying of details to try and reproduce and/or manipulate the expressive qualities of the works and the isolation of various visual symbols from within the works.

Guide To Life Introduction 1999

Guide To Life is a metaphor of the ceaseless struggle to understand life.

Guide To Life is a practical artistic strategy to provide a pre-prepared stock of works for exhibition purposes, which, because of their universal relevance, are conceptually appropriate for every possible exhibition context.

Guide To Life is a practical artistic strategy to eliminate the need to strive for excellence: since everything belongs to the Guide To Life, any work that is made must be a necessary part of it, and every part of Guide To Life is no better or worse than every other part, as every part serves the underlying metaphor equally well.

Guide To Life is an artistic strategy that eliminates the need for perfection in that:

Every work can be categorised as a part of Guide To Life; and

Every part of Guide To Life serves the metaphor equally well.

Guide To Life Contents 1998

The following pages contain works unified under the title of A Guide to Life.

The Guide presents a hypothetical book in which all the information necessary for a successful life is collected.

A vital quality of the works is their identity both as individual aesthetic statements that must be appreciated as fully independent art works, and their vital connections to the rest of the group. Any presentation solutions must wholly maintain both aspects of this dual identity.

A Guide To Life provides a reservoir of images that can be variously combined and differently presented to meet the particular needs of every specific viewing/exhibiting context.

- a selection of pages of particular contextual relevance could be bound together as a book or pamphlet for sale or distribution;

- where appropriate a single page could be shown alone, and presented in such a way - increasing the size, changing the paper or print quality, or even framing - that the graphic fine art qualities come to prominence and the individual page fully realises its importance as a single work;

- the existing page format of the work could be completely forgotten and the content of the works encapsulated in another form more appropriate to context, e.g. leaflets for distribution, CD-ROM, business cards, hoardings posters.

Contents 1/4/1998

I Basic Philosophy
1. Possible Models of Truth and Falsehood: (a) The Continuum, (b) The Circle
2. Pure and Corrupted Spaces
3. False Prophets
4. Possible Life Philosophies (a collection): (a) Alexis, (b) Chris

II Necessary Knowledge
1. Dick Train
2. Ibex Droppings

III Productive Living
1. The Cat Nap (Oscar Wilde Method)
2. The Removal of Lethargy: (a) Sleep, (f) Food
3. Inspirational Slogans: (a) Fun Is For Losers, (b) Stupid And Lazy

IV Art Making
1. Allegory and Metaphor: (a) A matter of luck, (b) Life is a Pointless Struggle
2. Lessons in Form: (a) Attribute Analysis

V Autobiography
1. Narrative Spaces: (a) The Hospital Room Where My Grandmother Died
2. Portraits: (a) Susan, (b) Steve, (c) Bridget
3. Disputed Facts: (a) Tears vs. Bicycle
4. Spatial Orientation: (a) My Bedroom at 119 Brook Drive, London

VI Inventing Reality
1. Dream Homes

VII Beautiful Things
1. Middlemarch: (a) The Prelude
2. A Sentence from Moby Dick
3. Purkinje Cell Spines

VIII Emotional Well-Being
1. Self Acceptance

Research Collection
R1. Snapshots selected out for their Aesthetic Qualities

Appendix I
Items of Possible Worth or Interest

Guide To Life Notes

Communicating Meaning
Symbolism
Allegory & Metaphor

Content:
Narrative
Emotional
Psychological
Literal
Allegorical
Symbolic

Research collection:
Understanding aesthetics
Communicating meaning

Photographs:
People
Places
Things
Narrative
Emotive
Transcendent

BASIC PHILOSOPHY
First Principles
Truths
Falsehoods
Purpose and Meaning
morality, ethics
Research Collection (Items under Consideration)

NECESSARY KNOWLEDGE
Life
Art: history, techniques and materials, methods of representation, aesthetics, form

PRODUCTIVE LIVING
Emotional Stability: self-analysis

AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Experiencing Self: historical perspective, existential perspective
Experiencing Others
Experiencing The World: Documentation Projects: landscapes, cities, interiors, skies

Part I: historical
Part II: existential: Self-Analysis
Part III: fictional: fantasy lives, dream home

Understanding Autobiography (history)
Autobiographical investigations: historical, existential
spatial orientation: articulating space, movement plotting

Representation: successful interaction - communicating through representation
Experiencing Self

self (narrative)
self (emotive)
self & others (narrative)
self & others (emotive)
others (narrative)
others (emotive)
places & things (narrative)
places & things (emotive)

Beautiful Things (documentation projects):
Transcending Representation: de-personalised portraits, image as pattern
Defusing Cliché: Landscapes, Landmarks
Experiencing Space: cities, landscapes, interiors
Exploring Symbolism: equestrian statues, towers

Atmosphere
Tension
Drama (implied narrative)

BEAUTIFUL THINGS
Aesthetic principles
a collection
creating reality
attempting transcendence

CONTENT
Content (subject matter)
Content (metaphorical)
literal/representative (narrative)
psychological/symbolic (emotive)
drama, tension, atmosphere, emotion
allegorical/metaphorical, didactic, psychological, emotive

Reference
Architecture: history, decoration, structure
Aesthetics: composition
Drama: visual, psychological
Implied Narrative
Camera Accidents
Visual Sketches
Imagery: allegory and metaphor, symbolism, martyrs, annunciations, lions, didactic images

The only remaining artistic problem is that of identifying when the Guide To Life is complete.

2 Konzeptbeschreibungen

Mein nächstes Projekt wird eine Fortsetzung der Arbeit „Six Images from Guide To Life Picture Library“ (sechs Motive aus dem Bildbibliothek des Lebensführers) sein.

Die Bildbibliothek ist ein Projekt, das ich seit langem verfolge. Sie beinhaltet eine Sammlung von Fotos, zum größten Teil selbst aufgenommen aber auch Postkarten und gefundene Bilder. Diese Fotos sind den verschiedenen Kapiteln des Lebensführers zugeordnet. Sie sind sowohl fotografischen Skizzen und Proben als auch eigenständige Bilder.

Bisher ist die Bildbibliothek eine private Fotosammlung gewesen, aber jetzt möchte ich sie in eine künstlerische Arbeit umwandeln, die Andere ansprechen kann.

Die ersten sechs bearbeiteten Fotos der Bildbibliothek sind aus meiner Sicht gelungen, so dass es sich lohnt, diese weiter auszubauen.

Ich hoffe, dass die Bildbibliothek so umfangreich wird, dass sich alle Kapitel des Lebensführers, die Bestehenden und die Zukünftigen, abgedeckt werden.

Das Wesentliche für mich ist die Wahrnehmung beim Betrachten der Fotos. Der Inhalt interessiert mich weniger als die Kette von Assoziationen, Gedanken und Gefühle, die sich in meinem Kopf abspielt. Die ursprüngliche Intention des Fotos wird durch die Bearbeitung verwandelt, um diese Wahrnehmung in Vordergrund zu bringen.

Ausgehend von Bildmaterialien der „Lebensführer Bildbibliothek“ möchte ich ein Diaabend als künstlerische Arbeit/Performance veranstalten.

Der Titel der geplante Arbeit ist:

„Mein Leben“ (Lebensführer IV(A).3 Autobiografie (Lebensgeschichte))

Als Vorlage dient der klassische Familiendiaabend, wobei es mein primäres Anliegen ist, diesen Diaabend als bewußt gestaltete Performance zu inszenieren, wodurch die tatsächliche Beziehung zwischen dem Gezeigten und Erzählten und einer autobiografischen Wahrheit in den Hintergrund rückt.