#208: This is my canvas

#201: The Void (A Dream, A Manifesto Offshoot)

I think about blank spaces a lot.

Sometimes I try to fill them with my imagination.  

To create imaginary artworks to fill spaces on walls, on floors, in lives.

But I also think about leaving them blank.

I think about silence.  

I think about silence as a blank space.

I think about blank spaces as silence.  

I think that a blank space in art is the equivalent of silence in music.

John Cage silenced an orchestra.  

I want to call blank spaces art.

Silence where no sound is made (Does Silence Exist? IV): Physical Version

I want to add a small label to the wall of the Tate and in doing so add an artwork to the display.

Waiting for art

I want them to leave a gap in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and give it a title in the catalogue.

Whatever else you see here, this is the future to avoid

It is about silence representing absence.

A place to stop and discuss the other works (but not this one)

Absence of music.

Freedom?

Absence of art.

It is what you make of it

But with instruments all around, or artworks all around.

This is both art and not art

Absence.

Your imaginary art ideas board

I think about absence of art as art.  A title alone and a blank space.

Nothing makes sense

The ultimate void.  

My Nothing, or (I know I believe in nothing but it is) My Nothing

More than a blank canvas, or a white one, or a monochrome one, or a phial of air or an empty shoebox and so on and so forth: and more simple than an elaborate opening to an empty gallery and case.

An absence, a blank space, a void among their opposites.  

A blank space that screams.

A dream.  A blogpost.  An idea.  A manifesto offshoot.

Postscript:

And beyond?  Can it go further?

For beyond the blank canvas there is a blank space and beyond that an empty room.  Then empty floors and empty buildings and beyond - not empty things but empty areas, empty places.

#200: Creating a Piece of Imaginary Art

(Process)

Think of a theme.

Come up with a snappy title.

Think of something that represents this.

Write it down and share it.

(does not have to be completed in this order).

#199: Clever Title

(A snappy title is all you’ll ever need)

Anything (though it should probably work with the title, however tenuously)

#198: The Imaginary Art Immersive Experiences

A room based on the Van Gogh Immersive Experience: a room in which artworks are projected onto all four walls with chairs scattered around and facing the centre of the room for visitors to sit and enjoy.  Unlike the Van Gogh Immersive Experience, nothing is projected onto the floor.

There are three variations:

198a 

The text from Imaginary Art blog posts are projected onto the walls and read by actors, accompanied by ambient music.

198b

AI generated art created from the text of Imaginary Artworks is projected onto the walls, while the text from the posts are read by computer simulated voices, accompanied by ambient music.  

Terminals are available so that visitors are able to create their own artworks in the same way and add them to the slideshow.

All art used by the AI to generate its own work is cited, online and on screens within the room.  Prints of these works, and those made by AI, are available from the gift shop.

198c

A future variation of the above.  Visitors take it turns (if they wish) to wear devices that are able to show their thoughts on screens.  They are invited to read the text from Imaginary Art blog posts that are projected onto the walls and read by actors, accompanied by ambient music.  Each reading is accompanied by the images that the person wearing the device is imagining.

#197: Tate Modern Turbine Hall Proposal

197a An Exhibition of Imaginary Art

Screens cover the walls on either side and the far end of the hall up to the height of the parallel girder that is on the southern side.  These form a zig zag shape, rather than being completely flat.

Onto these screens are, in some places projected (in a changing slideshow) and others printed, a series of Imaginary Artworks for people to stand, or sit, and read and imagine.  Elsewhere are stickers on the floor with shorter Imaginary Art examples and tablets on plinths and table tops on which visitors can browse the whole blog or a slideshow.  These are placed so that visitors have to stand facing in different directions.

These works are supplemented by boards giving a background to Imaginary Art and workshops encouraging visitors to create their own.  Slowly, the results of these workshops are worked into the slideshows of Imaginary Art.

197b People at an Exhibition

Boards on the bridge across the Turbine Hall and on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Floor viewing points invite visitors to watch those who are viewing An Exhibition of Imaginary Art.  

They ask visitors to look at how people are portraying themselves, to see how they look in any given moment, to think about the impressions they give out and how the viewer sees them, before imploring them to find a mirror and ask the same questions about themself.

#196: Maneck's Refrigerator

A refrigerator.  On it is written:

Maneck was silent as they persevered to rescue the shreds of their livelihood. Not all their skills with needle and thread could sew it together again, he thought. Did life treat everyone so wantonly, ripping the good things to pieces while letting bad things fester and grow like fungus on unrefrigerated food? Vasantrao Valmik the proofreader would say it was all part of living, that the secret of survival was to balance hope and despair, to embrace change. But embrace misery and destruction? No. If there were a large enough refrigerator, he would be able to preserve the happy times in this flat, keep them from ever spoiling; and Avinash and chess, which soured so soon, he would save that too; and the mountains of snow, and the General Store, before it all went gloomy …

But it was an unrefrigerated world. And everything ended badly. What could he do now? … There was no way out, it was checkmate for him.

Mistry, Rohinton (1995) A Fine Balance. London, Vintage, p.505.

What would you save?