Permeation: For Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces
Starting as a strategy to address a perceived need, that of linking together the often disjointed end of year studio artist's show and expanding that to addressing a (also perceived) disconnection between the wider community and the gallery/studio residents. "Permeation: For Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces" set out to literally link together the street, the different galleries and the studios.
Starting as a spray painted line on the foot path and transforming from tape to string to wood and so on, the work formed a continuous connection which mutated via an internal logic. At each link transformed through mechanical utility (ie one link physically supporting the next)t or traversals of the picture plane (ie drawn lines to wire lines) . At certain points stopping to engage with the structure of the building, support a shelf of books on local history and provide a voice for the public.
The end of the line was perhaps the most successful, throughout the conception of the piece I wanted to partially invert the usual system of artists displaying work to public without much feedback and so at the end of the line I placed a microphone connected to a speaker placed in the hallway between the artist's studios, originally more as a gesture than an actual functioning sound work. The effect was pleasant and far from annoying to the artists as I originally thought it would be. The street sound piped into the studios proved popular, functioning as a device for bringing the street into the studio and I assume making the artists feel less isolated.
