Photos by Conor Lawless
Novellus Castellum
Text by Rangy Manatee
I spent 4 months working on a project called Quarantine, which was to be an experiment looking at the relationship between art, society and incarceration. My aim was to live in the Exertus space in Newcastle for the whole month, building a space in which I was trapped and finding ways to escape. This was closed down on the evening of the first day, 01/06/2007, due to health and safety and security concerns. Disappointed, I looked for a way to talk about what I felt and immediately felt compelled to go into therapy. For the majority of the month, I produced work which exorcised the negative feelings I had about not being able to do Quarantine, using materials that I had brought in especially to do it. Slowly, I began to see a language forming of symbols and positions. Objects formulated themselves into groups and found themselves occupying particular areas of the space. Music was generated, sometimes as a response to to a video, sometimes relating to my pursuit of therapy. Signs were painted which began to relate to other objects and micro-installations. I painted "I'm OK" on the wall, but didn't really feel OK, so I decided to paint it out. This formed the crux of my performance on the last night. I wanted to build to this moment of labour, I wanted to be the only person in the room who was not OK and therefore in most need of therapy; I wanted to justify my existence in the space. So I began playing music with some friends, who accompanied me throughout the night. This made me feel better and so I danced in the rain. Thoughtful now, I went to the typewriter and wrote "What can be done when we feel nothing?" and asked it to the audience. I offered therapy sessions for all comers, perhaps those who were asking the same thing. I read to them from self-help books and gave them a nice badge which said "I'm OK" on it when we were done. I went to the audience to check if they were all OK and they were, so I gave them all badges. But I wasn't feeling OK at all, so I tried giving myself therapy, but it didn't work so I painted out the writing on the wall. I'm writing this 6 months after I performed it. And now my life has changed I feel a lot better.
Documentation
Review by Adam Thomas
Thomas walks into the studio and immediately notices two words written upon a wall. Walker stands there, beneath them, looking or perhaps working. This is not work, Walker tells Thomas later. This is not my work.
The day approaches three o’clock. A library of records leans against a partition, dust is caught beneath a wall’s white emulsion. Thomas gesticulates. He wants to talk about notions of quality within art. Thomas claims he led him to this point. There is a smile. Somewhere outside the gallery, footsteps can be heard.
This is not work, Walker tells Thomas.
Next to a false wall is a brown box containing materials for a previous project; the box has been opened but remains full. Walker’s previous installation had been cancelled after one day. He spent four months working on it. Thomas asks for the name of the new project. Therapy, Walker replies.
By the door are eight paintpots, arranged in two stacks. There are also two tables in the room. It appears that Walker uses one for writing and one for painting. Thomas looks away but cannot avoid looking at the two words on the wall. It is not always possible to talk about what it is that one is seeking to recover from.
A ladder holds its place near to the entrance. Elsewhere, various everyday objects are scattered throughout the workplace. Some look as though they have been broken, others look as though have been fixed. An office chair with wheels waits invitingly in the centre of the room. This is not work.
Some people feel that art and life inform each other. Thomas looks at the uncut logs set upon easy circles of woodchips and splinters, he looks at the keyboard, the marinucci organ and the xylophone. In the corners of the space, uneven grey floorpaint curls at the edges. He looks at the words on the wall once more, he cannot fathom why. Here, somewhere, there is an interest in etymology and slippages of meaning. Thomas sits on a red chair.
What is that blanket for, Thomas asks. Security, Walker replies.
Audiences are detectives, readers are operatives. In exploring the relationship they have with their own art, artists question the autonomy of meaning. Thomas looks once more at the two words on the wall, questioning. There are slow rewards here. Justification, fulfilment, finality; all are sought and seldom found. Yet still we look. The typewriter and paper, seemingly the focal point of the room but not always noticeable, sits on the table. The paper is blank.
This is not yet work, Walker says. This is the beginning of the work, the start of a tangent from itself. This is not work. Footsteps can be heard again from outside.
Thomas looks to the two words on the wall and understands. They are over ten feet high.
Adam Thomas, Fire On The Lifeboat
