A Repeatable Action-Work / by Mark Gubb

Every artist needs a simple action-work that they can do anywhere, anytime (for example, on arrival somewhere), which transforms a fairly modest moment into a moment of creativity, capturing something of that moment and lending it significance (even if it doesn’t really have any).

Something like:

Balling/screwing-up a blank piece of A4 paper, then photographing it in-situ.

Keeping the disposable cup from the first cup of coffee you drink in a new destination.

Sending a postcard to your dead Grandmother’s last address.

In some ways, it doesn’t really matter what the action is, it’s just a physical representation of a moment. The success of a work like this exists in the repetition. One balled-up and photographed piece of A4 is photograph of a piece of trash, whereas 100 photographs of balled-up pieces of A4 in different locations becomes a marker of time.