BLOC
ASSEMBLY: My Dog’s Got No Nose…
Friday
25 April, 7 – 9.30pm, Hosted by Sylvester Space
(mp3 file approx 8.2Mb).
Bloc has invited artist group
utk to curate this event, as they
celebrate the 10th anniversary of their first public show. Bloc Assembly is a series of one-off events
taking place twice each year, that allows artists to present new or
experimental work.
Taking the theme of smell as
a starting point, utk (Liz Hall, Bev Stout, Tony Kemplen and Jane Mellor) have
brought together work by artists who have responded to the theme in a variety
of media. Some engage our olfactory
sense directly and immediately, whilst others invite us to consider our
relationship to smell in other ways, evoking smell through visual, aural or narrative
representation.
Join
the artists at the Rutland Arms after the event as they continue their birthday
revelries.
back to utk main page
JAMES BROWN
Limonene
Digital video
Assorted
orange coloured and fragranced cosmetic cleansers arranged
on a kitchen surface are occasionally excited by low frequency vibrations.
MATTBUTT
Shed
Video
The next instalment of
Lombutroup. MattButt is an artist based
in Sheffield, his current research includes attempts the visualisation of the
multifaceted potentiality of creative thought to the singularity of an idea.
"If
you stare at a pile of shit for long enough it will eventually disappear".
KATIE DAVIES
Keeping up foreign
relations
Two-minute video loop with
audio
It takes a lot more than just
fancy flying.
PAUL EVANS
Eurasian Lynx (Lynx lynx)
Graphite and Lynx ‘Sharp
Focus’ deodorant on paper
What do we think of when we
think of a Lynx? Animal magnetism perhaps? In mythology the Lynx is
characterised as an elusive, ghost like animal that sees without being seen.
The Lynx was chosen as the emblem of the Accademia dei Lincei ("Academy of
the Lynxes"), one of the world's oldest scientific societies, its piercing
vision invoked symbolically as characteristic of those dedicated to science.
Assuming the brand name Lynx for a range of deodorants might, by contrast, be
seen as a rather strange manifestation of our identification with certain
aspects of the natural world. Are we making romantic associations with the
pheromone trails left in silent forests by a creature of the night? The Lynx is
undeniably charismatic - perhaps some of us wish to share that feline
charisma. It’s also worthy of
consideration that a lot of successful predators disguise their scent by
rolling in dung.
LESLEY GUY
Extractions
From the Body of a Text Leaving Behind Only the Smells
My
work combines photography, performance, text, drawing and video. I often
construct scenarios or actions that manipulate the 'real' or recognisable. I often draw inspiration from literature,
myth and legend and have made works based on Frankenstein and Dracula. I am
currently exploring the act of creative reading as a means of formulating art
and ideas.
For
'Extractions..' I read the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Each time the writer
made any reference to smell I made a note. I then manipulated the text by
painting out everything but these smell references. These pages were then used
in the dark room to create contact prints. The results are an amalgamation of
the most dramatic and haunting smells from the novel. The story itself is extremely
sensual and makes constant reference to physical sensation and psychological
states. When we read we don't actually experience the sensations described,
like Count Dracula himself, they exist solely as phantoms in our imagination.
LIZ HALL
“Early morning, and
the pack gathers to interact in order to reinforce the social hierarchy within
the group…”
Colour Photographs
Smell is the most primal of
the senses and it underpins our behaviour in a highly subliminal way. For
example, we may use odour cues associated with the immune system to select
partners who are not closely related to us, or to ascertain our status in
relation to others. Our sophisticated posturing is not that dissimilar to the
activity of the pack.
TONY KEMPLEN
the sweet smell of
success: the foul stench of corruption
CCTV cameras, cotton wool,
lights, TV monitors
The
visitor is invited to sniff cotton wool that has been impregnated with
emotionally charged smells. Do they live up to our expectations? Do our noses
give away our feelings?
JANE MELLOR
Nose Bags
Via the nose, we
unconsciously gather information about each other from the smells we receive.
It is a conduit of invisible information. In this piece, an image of the nose
of each artist participating in the exhibition will be sealed in a see-through
plastic bag. The ability to identify using the sense of smell has been removed.
Can we recognise each other simply by the look of the nose alone? And if so
what assumptions do we make about the personality of the individual? There will
be a helpful list of contemporary, pseudoscientific nose characteristics (based
on the ancient Chinese art of interpreting human character through the
proboscis) to help you decide.
DOMINIC MASON
Some Paintings and
Drawings Relating to the Theme ‘My Dog's Got No Nose’ (2008)
Mixed Media on Canvas and
Paper
My work is an intuitive
exploration of a universe where all the real ‘answers’ appear to
lie just beyond reach.
Image: The back
end of a dog (detail)
(from the above series)
BEV STOUT
Nosegay
Cast soap
A collection of rose scented
noses will smell nothing but themselves. They provide their own antidote to
odours that may pass through the space.
utk
Olfactory Fictions
Electrical air-fresheners, plug in
timers, electric cables, wire mesh, table, vase and flowers.
The delicate scent of vase of
fresh flowers is cruelly mocked by the massed emissions from a hanging wall of
plug-in air fresheners, each mounted on the end of a long electrical lead,
plugged into one of a set of organically linked multiple adaptors. In
this olfactory fiction, the patently artificial smell of the sanitising
devices, tightly controlled by electrical timers, completely swamps any natural
scent that might be coming from the flowers.
JON
WAKEMAN & KAREN WATSON
Whiff of Culture
Takeaway food, plinths, plastic
cutlery, text, paper napkins
From the Himalaya
to the Blue Mountain Caribbean, to
the Bengal is a cornucopia of good
sniffing to be had in Sheffield.
Barely have we meandered Four Lanes past the Everest
and we’re filling our nostrils and New
Hing Lung with fresh Blue Orchid
and the near by Codrophenia, but this
is just the beginning, so Wok This Way.
We Wonder
(Wok and Kitchen) at the Red Ruby,
the Blue Diamond, Crystal, Diamond, Jade Garden (and
House) and The Jewel City, it’s a Golden
City when you lift your head from the Goldfish
Bowl of our every day lives. One might say we have a Galaxy, if we take a Universal
view, around us in this New Happy Garden,
this Oasis, our Island Pot.
Aphrodite embraces us in Marilyn’s, Wendy’s, Marcia’s, Wendy’s, Patricia’s, Tracey’s, Rita’s,
Nellie’s, Rosi’s and not forgetting Imran’s,
Lee’s, Hammid’s, Tony’s, Chan’s, Harry’s, Rasheed’s, Kenny’s and Pepe’s embrace as we enter the Summer Palace and the new Millennium. As we walk the Highway under the Rising Sun (like a Phoenix
rising towards a Rainbow) we thank
our Lucky Star, oh How Wing Loy!
Sun
Yee beaming down on us we wander between New Jasmine House, the New Taj Mahal (in Sheffield, Zaika! I hear you cry) and the Oriental Palace, Yummy House, Golden House
and the Lotus House, aghast at such a
diversity around us. On into Dong Fang
Garden and the Dragon Valley,
what a Happy Family we are when we
spot it there, the Chinese Dragon. Oh
China Delight!.
This is but a Taste (Of Kashmir) of
what Sheffield has to offer, and we have yet to hunt the Swallownest or laze in the Olive
Grove and Bamboo Garden or visit Peking, the Great Wall or Chicago. Hoo Wah!
Is this Dynasty
to last as long as those of the Red Star
of the Eastern (Eye) or of those who took The Mayflower?
Let us be pilgrims too, anyone for Curry Tonight!
Jon Wakeman
2008
NEIL
WEBB
Scratch and Sniff
Live audio performance.
This piece has been developed for live audio
presentation. Its uses several recordings of breath and sniff and numerous
nasal functions. These recordings have been re-edited and processed to create
an audio sniff experience moving from the relaxed to the agitated sniffer.
Allergies, deep breathing and noxious odors stimulate the nostrils to
provide the basis for this audio smell experience.
SEAN WILLIAMS
The Arrogance of Painting
Four paintings on board.
The fish head is symbolic in
this context of painting’s ultimate failure – that it can never truly be the thing
it represents. For all its ability to
charm, painting will always fall short.
It can briefly deceive, and it is this that encourages me to persist
with this ludicrous act of faith.
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visit www.blocprojects.co.uk
Bloc
Projects, 4 Sylvester Street, Sheffield S1 4RN.
Tel:
0114 2723155
info@blocprojects.co.uk
