A public sculpture which is a massive rendering of those plastic bird spikes that people put on window ledges and security cameras to prevent birds from landing. The scale of this sculpture will mean it is the perfect size for birds to use it as a perch.
performance
Desert Head /
A single-channel video of a head poking out of the sand in a desert landscape, the eyes are closed, framed in such a way as we can’t tell if it’s someone buried up to their neck or whether it’s a decapitated head.
The eyes dart open and we hear the head’s internal monologue, worrying over trivial and mundane aspects of everyday life - “Did I leave the gas on?!…”
At the end of the monologue the eyes close again.
My ideal ‘head’ would be the actor Paul Putner.
Marble Foot /
A marble sculpture of one of my feet, attached to a marble base - as if a fragment from a larger sculpture.
Include this work in every exhibition/project/installation I ever have, with an invitation for visitors to touch the foot to bring them good luck.
Over time this repetitive action will begin to polish and wear-away the marble, as we see with sculptures around the world purported to contain good luck.
Origami Extreme /
Take a sheet of any size screw-up-able material and screw it up into a ball.
Take a photo.
Flatten it out again and trace over every fold and crease line with a fine-liner pen.
The reference photo and the lines on the piece of paper then exist as some sort of extreme (impossible?) origami proposition.
Dreamytime Escorts /
A written agreement/contract to visit someone in their dreams and take them on an adventure.
Immigrants t-shirt /
A t-shirt boldly stating ‘IMMIGRANTS’ on the front of it, with illustrations of key/essential plants and vegetables now grown/growing in the UK that were imported from elsewhere.
Piano Squawk /
Get a pianist to write the score from a short video I have of my daughter, aged about 2-years old, randomly pressing keys on a piano in the corridor of a local arts centre and making squawking noises to listen to the echoes.
Then have that score performed by professional musicians.
Knuckleball /
Learn how to throw a knuckleball, as referred to in baseball.
“A knuckleball or knuckler is a baseball pitch thrown to minimise the spin of the ball in flight, causing an erratic, unpredictable motion.”
Battle Jacket Fiction /
A ‘battle jacket’ (cut-off denim jacket covered in band patches worn by heavy metal fans) covered in patches of fictional heavy metal bands.
Walk on the Wild Side /
A performance, that becomes a video, of the drummer from a Mötley Crüe tribute act riding on The Scenic Railway at Margate’s ‘Dreamland’ funfair, with their drum-kit strapped onto the ride, playing along to Mötley Crüe’s song, ‘Wild Side’.
The original video for the song famously features Tommy Lee playing his drum-kit in a hydraulic, revolving, cage.
As a former resident of Margate, employee at Dreamland, and (then) aspiring rock star, this work also contains autobiographical meaning.
Burning Guitar /
An electric guitar, on a stand, plugged into an amplifier, feeding back, doused in a flammable liquid and set on fire.
This could be a performance that later becomes a video, sound work, and/or photograph.
Topiary of Doom /
A long-term project, whereby a bush appropriate for topiary is planted. As the bush grows, it is trimmed to form the shape of a nuclear mushroom cloud.
Raining Blood /
This could either be a live performance or a video (possibly both).
At Bluestone holiday resort in Wales, they have a swimming pool with a wave machine and large water jets/fountains that spray out in an arc into the pool from a raised platform above the wave-pool.
This performance/filming would happen at night, as lighting is key to its mood.
The pool will start off in low-light-to-darkness.
A soundtrack of Slayer’s ‘Raining Blood’ will play, loud, through the room.
As the track plays, white lights will flash to animate the opening drumbeats of the song.
As the opening riff of the track plays, people dressed in the clothes of heavy metal fans begin to gather on the raised platform (they’re wearing jeans, boots, band t-shirts, cut-off denim jackets with patches).
As the song fully kicks in with Tom Araya’s high pitched scream, the fountains begin spraying into the pool, lit only by red light, and the people amassed on platform begin diving off the platform into the pool, as if stage-diving at a concert.
This continues for 3m25s of the song, until it ends with a huge clap of thunder and the sound of rain.
At this point, the stage-diving stops and the red light changes to white light on the fountains for the remainder of the track (which consists of audio of thunder and rain).
Ring of Fire /
A slow-motion video of a 1970s Evel Knievel wind-up toy being jumped through the middle of a burning car tyre (set up like a flaming hoop that stunt-bikers jump their bikes through).
The video starts as a close crop, front-on, to the centre/hole of the tyre.
The tyre is doused liberally in flammable liquid and set alight.
Through the hole, in the distance, we see the toy being wound up and released, jumping through the centre of the tyre off a small ramp.
After the toy has passed through the tyre, the camera slowly pans out to show the entire burning tyre, full-frame.
For several minutes (final length to be decided in the edit) the film focuses on the burning tyre, before fading to black.
Ghost Room /
Using air-conditioning units connected to a weather-app via a computer, the room/gallery will be kept at the local (and live) temperature of Williamsburg in New York.
When I came up with this idea I immediately thought it should be Williamsburg, for no more conscious reason than it’s somewhere I would often like to be, but aren’t.
I’ve since come to think of how Williamsburg has been described as cool, as hot, and for many people is now something of a cultural ghost town, due to gentrification.
It would be possible to come up for a conceptual justification for setting the temperature to pretty much any town or city in the world.
A key recommendation is that wherever the work is installed, a town/city is chosen somewhere in the world that has a significantly different temperature/season/weather-pattern, to ensure the work is physically effective on entering the room.
Cultural Icon Fire /
This could be a performance, an action, a video, a photograph, or all of them.
Using a flammable liquid or gel, a large pentagram (for example) is drawn on the floor, after dark. This is then set alight.
I have also imagined this as a potential series of ‘round iconography’ burns i.e. do the same with an anarchy symbol, C.N.D., a smiley etc.