FINAL FRIDAYS 7 (JULY 2024)

August 2, 2024

We started Final Fridays 7 in the usual way, by discussing some of the outcomes and ephemera collected at the research centre in Altogether Otherwise.

On route to our first sketching stop, we told each other stories of walking in strange or unusual places, using senses other than sight, and relaying feelings of trepidation, doubt, and being unsettled.

Our two sketching stops for this walk were pieces of public artwork that you might describe as being hidden in plain sight. First was Breaking the Mould (2000) by Andrew McKeown. Situated in a public park built on reclaimed land from the old Collyhurst Quarry, this sculpture symbolises the notion of giving birth to new life. On our way to this sculpture, some participants talked about how they wanted to ‘get back into drawing’, contemplating how the ritual or routine of a regular drawing practice was something we all wanted to retrieve, recapture, relearn, and reclaim, from possible futures, unrealised in our current present.

Our second stop, viewable from the first, was Totem (c.1945) by William Mitchell. This concrete sculpture stands in vicinity of the now demolished shopping parade at Eastford Square, which was for a while abandoned and vacant; a ghostly shadow of the bustling community that still lives there.

The premise for this walk was about being active in a landscape that is loaded with failed futures; sharing stories of hope, reclamation, and retrieval, guided by more than human presence.

The Final Fridays continues on Friday the 30th of August. Book your place here.

FINAL FRIDAYS 6 (JUNE 2024)

July 25, 2024

For Final Fridays 6, we visited three significant sets of steps. The video displayed above documents the moments where I decided to take instant film photographs along the way.

Our first stop was the Lowry Bridge in Collyhurst, where one member of our group experienced what they described as a ‘flashback from the future’ – which led on to a conversation about Hauntology.

We considered the notion of ‘going somewhere’ and ‘above and beyond’ and how steps are commonly associated as an in-between stage of being or going somewhere. A liminal space that is neither here nor there, a place where we carry ourselves from one place to another. These particular steps have lost that sense of purpose, as they are only accessible from one side. Perhaps they have yet to find their new purpose. They are themselves in an in-between stage, isolated in the no-mans land of the edgelands, as they look over a vast landscape of development and contemporary industry. It seems this site has always been on the fringes, a place on the edge of industry, and dispensing isolation, a place where people go to be elsewhere and nowhere all at once, as witnessed by L.S. Lowry in his painting of the scene A Footbridge (1938).

Our second stop took us to a set of steps leading up to the trees from Collyhurst Road. From the road, there is no clear indication to where these steps lead, other than into the trees. They are narrow, relatively steep, and dead straight. They reminded one member of our group to steps leading up to a temple, and another of a notion of ‘going somewhere where there’s nowhere to go’.

Finally, we reckoned with the steps leading to and from the railway underpass that links Bromley Street to Dalton Street. Here we contemplated strange traces unravelling a sense of place. A definitive place that leads to something else entirely. An altogether other.

We reckoned with our thoughts and marks over beer in the pub.

The next Final Fridays walk is Friday 26 July 2024.

FINAL FRIDAYS 5 (MAY 2024)

June 25, 2024

During the fifth Final Fridays walk, we reckoned with the following topics:

Breaking boundaries

Monumental rubble

Temporary topographies

Punctuating time

Different timelines playing out simultaneously

Validation of weirdness

Responsibilities of artists

Scouted (recced) routes

Reckoning with the landscape

Do what feels right

Look twice, draw once

Pausing at construction sites: Speculating on past uses, present absences, and possible futures

Space as transportation for time

Portals

Losing track of time

Skewed scale and proportion

Entanglement, time, and physicality

More than human agency

Changing skylines

Artefacts and bog bodies

Panpsychism and eco-critcism

Questioning the underneath

The Final Fridays continues on the final Friday of every month. To book your place go to https://www.altogetherotherwise.com/

FINAL FRIDAYS 4 (APRIL 2024)

May 17, 2024

This fourth Final Fridays walk was all to do with mapping the scope and perimeters of project’s boundaries and interests.

Circumnavigating the pocket of land surveyed by the Final Fridays, we considered walking as cartography, as we co-created our GPS route. We did encounter a couple of GPS blackspots on the walk. Are these ideal places to look for ghosts? Are GPS blackspots themselves ghosts? The absence of presence, and the spectre of the satellite.

The walk was interested in thresholds presented by bridges, weirs, fences, and development. We paused at some of the tactical areas of transport links and the bits in-between.

Contemplating the weir as a boundary making device, and a space for disrupted sound, we reflected on the new noise formed because of human intervention. Through mark-making, and by closing our eyes, we acknowledged the broad strokes of the mass pouring of water, in contrast to the slower, more delicate trickles formed where the channelled river meets stones and rubble on its bed, diverting and diffracting, channelling, and intra-acting.

Exploration was made at some key sites, through rubbings and responding to feedback from surfaces. Artefacts presenting themselves, leaving traces, and offering imprints and evidence of the past, imprinting onto the present through signs and archaeology.

When editing the GoPro footage, I decided on an edit that removed all spoken dialogue (as much as possible). I’ve found that the dialogue and the spoken word tends to dominate proceedings at times, and it felt appropriate to channel and prioritise other sounds.

FINAL FRIDAYS 3 (MARCH 2024)

May 3, 2024

For this third mark-making walk from Altogether Otherwise we explored the topic of utilities, visiting a local mobile phone mast, gas substation, electricity substation, and the river Irk.

The mobile phone mast and gas station are to be found in an endlessly interesting car park, where we also pondered the bits in-between, looking for imprints, shadows, and hidden energy. We reflected on how walking can create dynamic landscapes, constantly in flux and juxtaposing as we re-orientate.

Reflecting on the previous video documentaries of the walks so far, I wanted to allow for slower editing and longer shots, with a sense of duration to demonstrate the essence of prolonged looking, and close observation that happens during the walks.

This walk had something to do with the idea of channels. Channels of energy, of matter, and of interest.

The Final Fridays walks are all about looking for the gap in the fence.

Join us on the Final Friday of next month by registering here.

THINGS HAVE CHANGED

April 11, 2024

Since my previous entries in this journal about the installation at Altogether Otherwise (see: ALTOGETHER OTHER AT ALTOGETHER OTHERWISE and ALTOGETHER OTHER), things have changed.

The installation at Altogether Otherwise has become something altogether different. Something more akin to a field research centre, conducting investigations and explorations in the landscape by collecting and sampling matter and data, marking time and place with the things that we can all experience together.

Containing maps, plans, GPS coordinates, instant film images, Google Earth images, and photocopied images of drawings; the installation expands upon the previous Final Friday mark-making walks and anticipates those upcoming. It is a collective, and co-created work of landscape art, continually in flux and never static. Renamed The Final Fridays, this installation is intertwined and integrated within the walks that it i ntra-acts with. It is an example of intra-active and relational landscape art.

QUESTIONS THAT NEED ANSWERING

April 11, 2024

I have recently been closely considering some questions that have been posed about my residency at Altogether Otherwise, which includes the Final Fridays mark-making walks, alongside an installation.

What is happening in the relationships between myself as the facilitator, or ‘the artist’, and the people, or ‘the participants’, joining me on the Final Fridays mark-making walks? Whose choices determine what happens?

The formation of Landscape art that happens on the mark-making walks is co-created. Authorship, if such a thing can even exist, belongs to all those taking part, if at all. I am more of an artist as curator than ‘the artist’. Through my practice and my research, I am interested in the things we can all see together. I am not particularly interested in phenomenology, psychogeography, or one person’s individual response over the collective. No one person’s perspective is any better than anyone else’s. There is no value hierarchy, only variability.

Am I analysing my own practice or analysing the work of others?

Both. I am analysing the work of a dynamic collective of collaborators and co-creators, of which I am part. The work is formed through the intra-activity of the collective. We do not exist as independent agents, but co-operative and interdependent agents. The work of Karen Barad, and her theories around interrelationships has been influential to me as I continue to contextualise this dynamic.

The walks are time-based, collective, and relational landscape artworks, facilitated by me, by co-created by all those taking part. We are interdependent; not independent, intra-acting; not interacting.

The installations are both prequels and sequels. They are both a before and an after. A priori and posteriori; reactive and proactive. They activate and expand. They diffract and intra-act. They investigate the walks and become entangled with them.

Authorship of the installation is unimportant. As ‘the artist’, I am not fully in control of it and I make decisions based on the outcomes of unexpected encounters.

FINAL FRIDAYS 2 (FEBRUARY 2024)

March 27, 2024

The second Final Fridays mark-making walk from Altogether Otherwise.

We began our walk by heading into Angel Meadows where we pondered over the geological notion of deep time, and the potential agency of the boulders that lie to the Northern end of the park. Questioning their context, and their possible displacement, we made rubbings in collaboration with the rocks, forming human and non-human dialogue, and considering how memory may be embedded within inanimate objects.

We drew comparisons between the weird and the eery in each of the places where we encountered something strange or unexpected. Mark-making and convivial conversation allowed us to speculate on the often ignored and unreckoned elements of the city.

Through open observation and slow consideration, we speculated on dyspotic and post-apocalyptic futures being made available within the present moment. Potential failed futures that are being repeated and imprinted on the ever unrolling now.

This is the documentation of a process-driven, time-bound, collaborative landscape work.

The next Final Fridays mark-making walk will take place on Friday March 29th. Register at Altogether Otherwise.

FINAL FRIDAYS 1 (JANUARY 2024)

February 9, 2024

The first in a monthly series of Final Fridays mark-making walks from Altogether Otherwise.

Using walking and mark-making we explored some of the edgelands of Manchester city centre, twice passing underneath the Metrolink track where it meets the River Irk.

We thought about Buddleia, with its stubborn growth and rich pigmentation. We considered this in relation to unchecked, ignored, and developing places where they tend to latch on to the bits in-between.

We thought about migrating workers, and the arteries of city centre development, with it’s temporary compositions, and liminal landscapes.

We speculated on angels and ghosts in the landscape.

This is the documentation of a process-driven, time-bound, collaborative landscape work.

The next Final Fridays mark-making walk will take place on Friday February 23rd. Register at Altogether Otherwise.

Recce for a city centre sketchbook walk at night. November 24, 2023,

December 3, 2023

With two volunteers I tested out a short route for a nighttime sketchbook walk, taking in Angel Meadows and the surrounding streets, before ending at The Angel pub.

We noticed the things usually ignored, reflecting on how these are made different by the darkness.

We explored ideas and issues around ownership, particularly about land ownership, land reclaimation, and personal stories about how this has affected us in different ways.

We considered signifiers such as ‘no-man’s land’ and how these sorts of places can hold unusual and unexpected encounters.

We thought about ghosts stories, and how, why, and when people tend to see ghosts in the land.

We took a speculative approach to understanding and making sense of the edges and boundaries of the human-made environment.

Together, we approached concepts such as non-places, no-man’s land, repetition, edgelands, process, and duration through walking, mark-making, and story-telling.

This is the documentation of a process-driven, time-bound, collaborative landscape work.

Altogether Other at Altogether Otherwise

November 17, 2023

The installation piece Altogether Other began as a relatively static piece. An artwork that came into existence at the group exhibition Continuum at Hive Gallery, it remained in place just as it was, for the duration of the show. However, it’s next iteration at Altogether Otherwise will not be static, but in flux; dynamic, open-ended, and ever-changing.

Not quite a studio space, not quite an exhibition, Altogether Other will be a space that holds live investigations. More like an office or a lab than an art space. At times we may even deny it exists. Things will be added, removed, altered over time. It will respond.

The piece has grown out of my studio space, out of my painting practice, to take on a new role of art as searching for an unknown sense of time and place.

Both the installation and my walking practice are about searching for a sense of lost time and place. Searching through walking, presenting, investigating, mark-making, reanimating, projecting, reminding, and remediating.

From January 2024, there will be monthly sketchbook walks from Altogether Other, on the final Friday of every month. In the sketchbook walks we will use walking and mark-making as a group, to explore, discover, listen, experience, and linger.

The walks inform the installation and the installation informs the walks. Ideally this would become a perpetual feedback loop, always present, but often out of sync, and disjointed, like the ghosts and magick of the land we continue to seek.

Altogether Other

October 13, 2023

An installation set up in the back of house areas at Hive Gallery in Bolton as part of the group show Continuum. An exhibition of art from the University of Bolton tutors past and present. 15th July - 19th August 2023.

The installation was titled Altogether Other.

Making use of the usually inaccessible back of house areas, the installation sought to present ‘an other’. There was something else going on as part of this group show, and it felt as though something was under investigation, and those conducting the investigation had not long left. An assemblage of art objects were presented alongside ephemera one might expect to be present in the back areas such as stacked up chairs, a mop and bucket, a step ladder, and other housekeeping equipment. After weaving through the passageway of paintings and photographic installations, viewers would find themselves presented with a small room where the main piece of the installation was to be found. In this small room, there was a sculpture sat on top of an overhead projector, projecting the base of the sculpture onto the facing wall. The side of the sculpture was being recorded by an old analogue video camera which displayed its image onto a black and white television via a video cassette recorder. The installation seemed to be filming and projecting itself in an endless loop, awaiting a point of disturbance. This disturbance was ready to re-occur and repeat on the activation of those present carrying the congruent set of conditions.

Viewers were left with the feeling that they had departed the gallery environment temporarily, and had stepped beyond an imagined boundary into something else. An unsettling experience leading to viewers questioning whether they were allowed to be there. Something has happened here that was unexpected. It was still happening. A live repetition of an unknown, or peculiar set of circumstances.

This installation marks the beginnings of an open-ended investigation into aspects of hauntology, the paranormal, and pseudo-science orchestrated by an art practice which will continue to involve painting, photography, video, assemblage, and analogue or obsolete image-making technology. Altogether Other will be remade in another space for longer term investigations, and subject to change, development, and repetition as part of an artist residency to be announced soon.