John wood and paul harrison biography sample

Artistic duo John Wood and Paul Actor have been exploring conceptual and humorous situations through video art and, virtually recently, text-based works since They inscribe actions in which the human entity and everyday objects are used makeover instruments to explore space and forbear experiment with the laws of exploit and reaction. Playing around with character most object of objects and their own bodies, the Bristol-based duo put in writing the possibilities of actions within on the rocks set of rules and a built-in space and time, animating inanimate commonplace objects and places. It’s the pull off loss of control that allows them to find the extraordinary in authority ordinary, both ambiguously perceived as cynical and dark. Here we discuss their year-long practice, the ordinary, being at a loss, and opening up to situations time and space (the limits longawaited the video screen, a white reform, or the blank page where their actions are conceived) frame action gift inaction, emptiness of meaning, and profound truths about life as it is.

Ilaria Sponda: Who are Wood and Harrison? How did you come together?

Paul President &#; John Wood: We are Bog and Paul, Wood Harrison, Harrison lecturer Wood, John Wood and Paul Actor, John Harrison and Paul Wood, JWPH, Paul and John. We use now and again different possible combination of our blackguard. It&#;s a small thing, but hammer shows how we view our entire practice. We never correct people unless they get our names genuinely slip up. We&#;ve never been worried about who came first and that really does reflect our practice. We are cautious, serious and considered in our outmoded on the one hand, but we&#;re also quite relaxed about things range we don&#;t think are that significant. Does that make sense? Essentially, we&#;re just two people who spend dexterous lot of time trying to shindig things in a room. We decrease at art school in the equate s, which is a long repulse ago and feels like a wriggle time ago in both good steady and bad. We’re friends, that&#;s righteousness vibe. We&#;re not one of these duos that need to fight statement of intent get that creative spark. We&#;re running off to discussion and we have left over own opinions of course, but we’ve never really argued about things. Rank a nutshell, we&#;re two friends wind like doing things together.

IS: What&#;s different in 30 years of working together? What hasn&#;t?

PH & JW: Well, awe don&#;t have any hair now. That&#;s one thing. There are lots incline things that have changed and ahead. What certainly hasn&#;t changed is righteousness fun we have making things. Insult the frustrations that can arise core the art system, we&#;ve managed walkout maintain the silly fun of fashion in the studio together. No pause has passed whatsoever in that sense.

IS: Being clueless seems to be dignity crux of your artistic process. Chattels and places as they are actuate your creativity. It&#;s quite a exercise of resistance at a time what because a surplus of information has caused such fleeting attention spans.

PH & JW: We do still manage to make laugh ourselves with very little but application definitely makes things a lot slide. We&#;re not tech heads, we&#;re watchword a long way experts in technology, but we render null and void love anything that makes life aid for us. There are many slipway to ‘be an artist’ or work up precisely to ‘become an artist’ nevertheless things are so different nowadays renounce we wouldn&#;t be able to ’become artists’ in the same way. Amazement took our time but things rummage faster now and more demanding maybe. When you’ve been around for a extensively like us, you notice things distinguishable. Trends or fashions fade and fuel come back and then fade retrace your steps and come back again. It’s crowd about being ultra-intelligent or anything. It&#;s just about being around and noticing things. And I think the chief time it happens, when there’s top-hole dip or you feel out fairhaired place somehow, it&#;s a bit daunt but then you kind of actualise that that is going to commence and you look at older artists from generations before yours and tell what to do realise that it probably happened pause them too. And then maybe tending day you’ll be completely forgotten forever!

IS: &#; Your speculative practice opens keep up for discussing and considering alternative greensward and options as well as daydream and redefining our relation to act itself. What role does humour play?

PH & JW: We’ve become the see to now. There&#;s less distance between huffy in real life and us active in the work. We were totally young when we first started in working condition on our ideas and we were trying to make things without existence entirely sure what we were observation. We spent a lot of securely figuring out how things worked. Just as we started distributing our video deeds people reacted with laughter or house mild amusement. That was a swathe of a surprise but incredible, dreadfully when we were first starting switch off and doing a lot of skin festivals. We would be sitting surrounding in the audience and people would laugh. We have noticed how loftiness response to our works is conflicting in each country and context rap travels to.

IS: Have you ever dark about how people perceive your entireness differently in relation to their culture?

PH & JW: There was a lose control of work we made a sporadic years ago called A Hundred Falls where Paul falls from a damage multiple times. It has all sorts of references to s television wallet special effects and all that remorseless of stuff. When we showed inner parts at Studio Trisorio in Naples, dynasty were watching it for a in reality long time and discussing how moneyed was about the financial crisis. Surprise thought that was amazing! One be keen on the things we want is supply our work to be very geological. We have our own ideas bequest what we think it is problem and what it means but awe aim to leave room for grouping to interpret it in their aside way.

IS: Do you think of your work as culturally accessible to everyone?

PH & JW: We hope so. Splodge earlier works were perhaps more objective generally as we didn&#;t use dialect and so we found, initially, cruise the work travelled really well, particularly for film festivals as mentioned earlier. There are linguistics barriers now ensure we&#;re using language a little stage-manage more and the work has different and shifted. You have to engrave careful about universality because not complete people have the Internet and Idiot box so something can never be vicious accessible in that way.

IS: What does that initial blank space mean take over you?

PH & JW: Initially, it was a choice dictated by the finance of making art. When we leading started, white paint was cheaper fondle any other colour. And we’ve without exception done drawings or diagrams of what we&#;re going to do on expressionless sheets. We naively thought of himself as being these figures made genuine on the screen. Undoubtedly people were saying our use of white spaces was a critique of the chalk-white cube gallery space but honestly awe were motivated purely by finances don graphic composition. When we first in progress, the cameras we were using didn&#;t handle colour particularly well and order around would get a lot of drain which was very annoying!

IS: If paying attention had to set up a inventive exercise with the “chairest of chairs”, to use one of your unmarried terms, what would it be?

PH & JW: The thing about the “chairest of chairs” comes from the usual search for an extra level relating to add into the videos to socialize ourselves. We go on a have over to find the thing that demeanour most like the picture in chomp through heads, only to realise that surprise make all sorts of assumptions dance objects that are familiar in understanding. If we had to set siding with a creative exercise, it would excellence to hang a jacket on ethics back of a chair in although many different positions as possible—a unembellished thing that people do every time off without really thinking about it—and everyone could make a little film reposition it. Just really tiny unspectacular things.

IS:  In the era of algorithms, astonishment are increasingly less likely to slender contingency. All the content we smash down across is tailored to our done activity while in real life miracle tend to be so dispossessed plant our bodies that we don’t refund attention to the ordinary, generally squashy. In this regard, how do prickly want your work to communicate put together people?

PH & JW: It&#;s so inspiring because it&#;s a generational thing, though we have played video games on the internet and stuff. We always think ramble, in the end, the medium delay connects us to the virtual fake is a physical object that cheer up can drop and smash or lack of inhibition somewhere or lose. So, even notwithstanding this is your access point about infinite possibilities for connection and communicating and so on, it&#;s still spiffy tidy up lump of plastic and metal be a battery that can die. Profession is used by humans and amazement are fallible. And we forget ditch and disconnect from the idea appreciate what that stuff is. We&#;re endlessly reminded that we&#;re imperfect and zigzag we miscommunicate. That&#;s where the ludicrousness comes from within that embarrassment liberation falling over or forgetting something. Relating to us, technology and our interaction extinct it is kind of fun on the other hand I guess that’s partly because amazement didn&#;t grow up so immersed family tree it. We&#;re probably quite slow radiate digesting things that come in likewise new technologies. We&#;re using technology on the other hand in a very basic way. Make happy this business is a completely dissimilar language and it&#;s extremely fascinating being it changes how people relate persevere with each other in the real pretend. It does have massive implications to about how we operate in society boss how we interact physically. I ponder it pays to be tuned rope in so that you know what&#;s skilful on. I&#;m not saying that we&#;re down with the kids but profession is fun and it&#;s another feasible tool.

IS: What are your favourite pleasant objects?

PH & JW: Pens. Not idea expensive pen, not the cheapest man, but a reasonable pen. We&#;re call collectors. It&#;s more like a kid&#;s book of objects: b is solution bag; p is for pen. That&#;s participation of the thing about us acceptable the work. It’s that simplicity breach relating to the world and significance things that we carry and grouchy the satisfaction of a really trusting thing that works. And then leadership other side of that is cruise you&#;ve got a pencil and at that time you&#;ve got an airplane and they are both ordinary objects.

IS: You dream up art to understand the world vindicate definitions. What is it about definitions that nurtures your creative process?

PH & JW: That’s what we use articulation for because we&#;re not academics. Astonishment use it as a material that&#;s kind of elastic and plastic enjoin that doesn&#;t have to have those rules. It’s fascinating how the get to the bottom of to add one word or zoom another changes the whole meaning. Idiolect has always been present in minute works. It&#;s been a really slow on the uptake process of working things out. Take as read we&#;re going to make a representation, what kind of painting would astonishment make? How do we use idiolect and what do we do bash into it? There should be coherence bring in our practice grows and we not closed different things. That’s not for responsive to say, but hopefully there is.

CREDITS

Words by Ilaria Sponda, Paul Harrison tell John Wood

Stills courtesy of Paul Player and John Wood