Tom Friedman

It was recommended that I look up an artist called Tom Friedman particularly this video of an his exhibition at the Stephen Friedman gallery. I'm glad I came across this artist because i find some of his work fascinating especially his choice of materials and the intricacy of his work. I thought the wire piece he created near the entrance to the gallery interesting, the process itself was quite simple, just unraveling wire and mangling it but it can be interpreted in lots of different ways as he described in the video. From watching this video I also gained an insight into the process involved when selecting and creating works to exhibit in a specific place.

I wanted to somehow show the traces left in spaces due to interaction. I got a sheet of newsprint one morning and tape it to the floor just inside the door of my studio. Everyone that walked through the door that day left some type of trace. I took it up off the floor that evening, the newsprint was now filled with shoe-prints, dirt rips and tears. The tears, rips and prints created interesting patterns and designs on the sheet. There were also some shoe prints on the sheet however they were not very visible at first glance so I decided to use a fine pen to trace the outline of some of the shoe prints.

After carrying out and examining the movement in a space I decided to create a wire interpretation of the piece. I chose to use wire to represent the traces in spaces because it is easy to bend, move, twist and overlap.

I created this by bending and overlapping pieces of wire.

I like how the wire creates a whimsical effect.

Recording Traces

I carried out an experiment to trace movement in space and how movement and interaction leaves traces we might not always be aware of. I tried to make a visible recording of the traces the movement of my hand leaves in a space.

I tied a ink pen to a piece of string and held the string with my hand. The movement of my hand created marks on the piece of paper. This showed how movement can leave traces and marks in spaces.

I love how the piece turned out, the lines and marks create an interesting composition.

The lines and marks intersect and overlap with each other almost like the traces we leave behind. It could represent  the crossing paths and interaction in spaces. How the traces we leave behind may

After looking a little more I could see a connection between this piece and the movement from urban space (where it is highly populated) to the suburbs and countryside (where it is less populated). There is more movement and traces left in spaces that are more built up as more interaction occurs.

Dominic Wilcox

As I was looking at images of fingerprints, hand-prints and footprints I stumbled upon this artist. He used his own fingerprint and carved it into the sole of his shoe so wherever he walks he is leaving a trace of himself, I thought this was very clever and interesting idea.

I have started to explore the traces left in spaces...the first things that came into my head were traces such as fingerprints, hand-prints and footprints. We leave traces everywhere some more visible then others.
I started off with a simple print of my hand. I like how the ink defined the lines on my hand creating marks and patterns.

Hand-print using indian ink

I zoomed up on parts of the prints I found interesting. This pattern reminds me of tyre tracks or buildings.

I used a fine black pen to outline and define parts of the print giving it a map like effect

This is another print of the same hand, I was surprised at how different the two prints turned out.

Another zoomed area of the hand-print.

'To Live is to Leave Traces' - Walter Benjamin

Francis Alys

As I was watching this video of the artist pushing an ice block around mexico I was particularly drawn to the marks the ice block was leaving behind as it was being moved around. It got me thinking about how things and people leave marks or traces in spaces. This is something I'm going to explore some more. I will update this blog later to share my progress.