I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to see Susan Hiller being interviewed by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Serpentine gallery director. And I took some (well actually quite a few)notes, here they are...
Susan hiller came across as a formidable woman with big ambitions, as much now as ever!
Originally trained in Anthropology, she had always wanted to be an artist.
Hiller became critical of anthropology having interviewed men all across the world, she noticed that they were always men! Talking about the women, the gender issue became more apparent....
Entering into the art world with no specialised training Hiller took with her from Anthropology:
- particularly interesting books
- linguistics
- "primitive" arts
BUT, she seemed to stress heavily that so many people want to label her art as anthropology based, and IT ISN'T!
Yes, she notices things about the world in which we live and culture, but so do other artists, no?
"Human beings are more like flames than stones. In a state of constant flux."
Hans asked Susan if she felt there had been a "necessity of time before crystallisation" ?
Her response was not so much that there was a need but she had travelled extensively, and enjoyed a fantastic period(early 70s) in England in which anything seemed possible and everyone was optimistic. There were no boundaries in art as the "market had been rejected"....
So, she began to feel more confident with work.
Exhibition "3 Friends" really the starting point, although as a comment on art the 3 women marketed it in a very "airy fairy way" - this backfired, and apparently all of about 30 people turned up....
"those 3 silly women!"
Following on from this Hiller became interested in the way cultures map themselves ever so slightly differently, for example English is derived from classical languages and American from slang english....
She also talked about her Recycled works, which were part of her 2011 exhibition at the Tate Britain, commenting that the works were like insects, constantly going through different phases.
Hiller took old canvases and reworked them over a two week period, unravelling the thread and then plaiting and braiding into 3d works.
"When is something finished?"
"Weston-super-mare.....what a fabulous name to a foreigner!"
Susan Hiller saw the "Rough Sea" photograph, and was interested by the necessity of the words as well as the picture of the big wave! The words just seemed to be floating there.
then she went to Brighton and saw the same thing, began collecting.
Hiller admittedly that she is a bit of a collector...
With Dream Mapping (1974) the idea was to find unverbal ways of talking about your dreams, as this begins to create a narrative, and often dreams aren't like this...so lets MAP.
The group slept in fairy circles, like "hippies going out to the field!" but she assured us his was all very normal at the time.
After Dream Mapping Susan said she realised that this work only had really meaning and resonance if you were involved, so she stopped this type of work. Presumably seeking a larger audience...
Finally we watched The Last Silent Movie
Hiller was quite particular in the way that this should be viewed in a VERY dark room (there were lighting issues) and that you should just see the subtitles.
The piece was to bring disappearing images out into the open, far more than and archive will ever do.
It was great to hear Hiller talking about her work, especially relating to works that I've seen, I only wish I'd plucked up the courage to ask my question!
"I was lucky enough to see your show at the Tate earlier this year and was particularly taken with the piece Witness which I found trully absorbing and beautiful, you mentioned earlier that this piece was the offshoot of another work you never made Big Stars, how do they relate and what was the process behind them...?"
ooops, but I was too scared as she'd just been offended by another woman who phrased her question in a particularly bad way, suggesting that Hiller's work wasn't visual....
Which, by the way, it is.
Taking over the space with strange plastic wallets and envelopes. Development from previous piece.
Today talked about our work again, few things came up, the use of the plastic wallets as important- they're something we use to protect things. Suddenly, you give the unopened envelopes in side new value.
or have them continuing upwards again....
I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to see Susan Hiller being interviewed by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Serpentine gallery director. And I took some (well actually quite a few)notes, here they are...
So I wanted to incorporate my unopened post (addressed to others) into my 'junkmail' piece, but had a bit of a moral struggle with myself in using them, I mean they weren't addressed to me right? And, the recurring reaction I got was:
So, our latest individual project was to experiment with
Having been told by the lovely Kate Allen that my homework this particular week was to experiment with salt dough, I went home and started pressing the children's favourite into interesting indents and textures inside and outside the house, much to the amusement of my hou
Readings architecture to me, amongst others!, seems somewhat hit and miss. The stark contrast of 1960s towerblocks, and their cardboard box like form plonked next to quaint old georgian and victorian properties is apparent from just one stroll home from Cemetery junction. Taking this as a starting point I decided to try and show, if not emphasise or disguise this point through my work. I experimented first putting small boxes over the new 1960's towerblocks and modern flat buildings...(photos to follow) and then as you can see here with gold ink over the images, I enjoyed this idea, as it almost tried to make the square like patterns you can see less formal, perhaps softening the contrast with their neighbours. 
Love the way I used paint in this piece, especially to create the meandering people, miss this medium a little bit looking back!
