Back from Berlin...again

I haven't been updating my blog at all for the simple reason that I was in Berlin for most of August, and I rarely had an hour or two to spare on updating the blog.

The visit to Berlin this time differed a lot my my previous visit in many ways: the major difference was that I was doing a work experience with T616 office, preparing all the promotion material for the 12th edition of the InternationalLiteratur Festival.  This year, it is going to be held in Berliner Festspiele, a lovely place which i visited during the press conference of the literature festival.

During my first day at work, the team discussed the cover for the catalogue.  The theme of this year's festival is "Europe Now", and questions the place of literature and arts in Europe while it is in an economic turmoil. One of the suggested covers showed me on a cow, holding a revolver and the Maltese cross, but it was rejected as being too comical.

Apart from working on the sponsors pages in the programme and posters, I also had a meeting with the Maltese Embassy in Berlin, where I had to promote the festival and get support for the screening of experimental films related to religion in Malta.  These films were done by 6 media students from MCAST, the college from which I graduated.

It was a pity that I couldn't stay for the festival, which is taking place between the 5th until the 16th September...but I strongly suggest anyone who can make it to go.  The link for the festival's homepage is the following http://www.literaturfestival.com/

Apart from working at the office, I also had some meetings with art galleries in Berlin, and we discussed the possibilities of collaborations in the near future.  Hopefully such collaborations would be more possible if I follow my plan to settle in Berlin by next April/May.

I also managed to see some good shows this time, bands which included Star Fucking Hipsters at CLASH, Diva Kolletiv, Cut my Skin, E-egal and COR in Postdam, at a venue called Archiv.

So we are back in Malta, where the studio hunting and collaboration partners continue.  I plan to finish off pending work, mostly paintings and the car crash series, and work for an exhibition early next year.

Ir-Ragel

As said in the previous post, currently I got nowhere to work...During the last month I had been busy clearing out the studio and helping out in the project held in the house in which I had practiced as an artist for the last months.

I was on easy mode during this month, enjoying the Maltese summer to the full with loads of beer, chilling on sandy beaches at night sipping wine, loads of swimming, reggae parties, so on and so forth.

During the second weekend of July (13-14) a he project , entitled Ir-Ragel (translates to The Man in my language, Maltese) was open to the public.  It consisted of a collaboration between author Glen Calleja and visual artist Robert Zahra.  The two collaborated together on the idea of man and the various roles and situations the man could be seen in.  The writing, all in Maltese, depicted the man in different perspectives, raging from of a breadwinner to a rapist.  The combination of media and form used to create the writing conveyed Calleja's idea of the man as someone which is all the time adjusting his position, while living up to his expectations and position that he has to hold in a particular environment.  For example, the idea of the man as a pillar was given by the text written in pencil, small words in different handwriting written over and over again to form a huge rectangle.  A bold black motto outlining the main theme behind the background text was written on top of the words, at the top of the text pillar.

The contradictions found within a man were also seen in Zahra's site-specific designs, where rough, sketchy images in charcoal and pencil were balanced out with floral-motif stencils.  Plastic doilies were used as stencils, doilies that were used by the artist's grandmother to whom the house belonged to.  

The room which served as my studio was turned into an installation, incorporating audio and audience participation.  Various layers were written on paper, and pasted on top of each other in a way that once the top layer is ripped, it reveals another layers.  The text consisted of sweeping statements, all starting with the work "Huwa", which translates to "He is".  Here's a short clip from the installation, along with a forgotten clip from my camera.

No More Studio Anymore

Once again I got no place to work, expect from my crammed bedroom...the studio I have been using courtesy of Robert Zahra, an artist friend of mine, is to be demolished soon to give way to a residence. I used to have a  room at the back of this 300 year old house, situated in a rural area within 10 minutes on foot from my house.

 I used to love the natural light that was present nearly all day round in my space.  Formerly a kitchen, it had a homely charm, with green tiles decorated with orange flowers and an old cupboard used to store food in, with slits in the handles to carry out the stink of cheese (yes, it dates from the time where cheese was put in cupboards not fridges).

Today I primed the last batch of canvas that I would be using for the androgyny series which I started months ago.  The series would be made up of 20 paintings, and I am considering of calling it "GAS".  The name derived from a discussing I had last night, and someone said that when you start to get involved with people from the same sex, it's like being young again and you 're just started dating and waiting for your first heart break.  In other words, my series is about the rediscovery of lust for life, where everyone you meet and everything you do gets you high and it's all new and exciting and push oneself to ephemeral emotional peaks which are rarely reached again later on in life.

The name also derives from the fact that gas, as a material in itself, is fluid and combines with which is best for the material to exist.  This pansexual fluidity is reflected in the nature of the works, where random scribblings can be seen in the background, scribblings that if put together can be seen as whole personality of someone who doesn't conform with the notions of sex.


So yeah, right now I'm on the look out for a new studio...I already visited one in Naxxar, which is already in use by a very good friend of mine, who's more into sculpture and traditional work with a contemporary twist.  The place is a former truck garage, it can take up to three trucks, the type used for construction.  At the moment it needs a major clean up and once that is done, I can move in.  Visiting artist studios in Berlin and sharing Robert's studio have consolidated my beliefs that working in isolation, locked up on your own producing work and protected it so that no one see it before it is officially exhibited is a loser's attitude. 

(Lusting for an) Impact

I haven't been working and writing much these last few days, I've turned all emotional and it is taking me a whole lot of effort to get out of bed and do something.  i feel that I need to stay in bed, thinking, reflecting and read something light when thinking gets too much.

Having good books to get absorbed in is helping a lot...for the past two weeks I've been altering between Jeanette Winterson, Sarah Waters, and one of my favourite authors, J.G. Ballard.  Minutes ago I received "Oranges are not the only Fruit" by post, I bet that's a guarantee for a good read tonight.

Back in my studio I left my working area filled up with these 80 by 60cms cardboard showing cars which were involved in a crash.  It's the idea of the impact between metal and metal, or metal and concrete that I'm after, the few seconds before the car drives into a concrete pillar and everything changes.

I'm working with a very slow pace, layering paint, plaster, drawing and collage to achieve the desired effect.  The grey dull background of the cardboard creates this ambient where everything was left behind and it's all about now, the impact that would change the aesthetical properties of the car, and the physical and emotional ones of those involved in the accident.

Linking all this to my mental state at the moment, I guess I'm so fascinated by the idea of an impact since I have't met or did someone really stimulating since I came back from Berlin.  Maybe with summer approaching and people would finish their exams and school and all that, maybe things change.  And as I always say, you can't be up there if you 're never been down, just like you can never know where the centre is if you never been close enough to the edge.

First interview for Milkshake: The Project

As some of you may know, in February/March 2013 I would be exhibiting in a project called Milkshake, a project with dealing with the queer body in relation to Malta. Qouting from the description found on Milkshake's blog,

"MILKSHAKE takes its audience on a tour around the winding backstreets of straight Malta. Local and international artists, photographers, authors and performers will approach issues of masculinity and femininity by working directly with people from the Maltese community"

The project consists of visual artists and authors.  For more information and updates one can follow the link http://milkshaketheproject.wordpress.com/about/ .

Since at the moment I have quite some time I can dedicate towards this project, I plan to do a couple of meetings and interviews with people from the LGBT community. Yesterday I did my first interview with Anne, whom I met a couple of weeks ago after seeing her video on YouTube calling for auditions from people interested in joining her Queer Teasers channel on Youtube. (See my Times They are A Changing post further down my blog for more info about this project).

"Queer is an umbrella term, anyone who confronts the hetronormativ views of gender can be described as queer. People who identify as both genders, genderless, pansexual and trans could all fall under this category. Queer is all about empowerment to be what you feel the need to be, without labels, without rules."

When asked if she sees the body as a trap, she said that for her, the body is a vessel rather than a trap, a vessel for who you are. Rather than the body itself, it is society and mind perceptions that trap the individual. The body should be treated as a canvas that expresses who we are, and can be easily changed, in permanent and not-so-permanent ways to suit our desires. Being afraid of changing your body to suit how you feel is the true entrapment.

I always questioned the fact that most LGBT people express themselves in ways that are seen as over-the-top by the public. By over the top, I don't mean transsexuals in flashy clothes and huge boobs acting stupid and slutty on some Saturday night show on local telly. Even the fact that lesbians make it a point to look like boys, cut their hair short, dress up all boyish...it seems that they want to make it a point that they are different. For Anne, the answer is simple. Queer manifestation is important because if you don't manifest the fact that some people are not born to be the same person through out their life, that is when you are trapped within your body. The process of discovering and reinventing yourself can be tough, and people may get lost, but at least they are going somewhere rather than being in a fixed position they are not comfortable with.

For Anne, feeling good about yourself seems to be the ultimate goal. For her, transsexuality is it’s about modifying your body into one you are comfortable in, and even then it’s not always about the full sex change operation and hormones, sometimes it’s just the hormones or just the operation, that is breaking the trap imposed on you by society's notion of gender. A very particular point mentioned was the fact that sometimes she feels that her body is responding to her both her genders in physical manners. Features of the body which defines sex can always be enhanced or played down if one feels like, such as using a push up bra to enhance boobs, or doing without make up, hair undone, hoodie and sports bra to get a boyish look if desired. It's all about playing with the level of male and female found within our bodies. (This idea of levels was something that I came up with as part of my concept a few weeks ago, and this interview made it clear to me that I should be developing it further in my artwork.)

"So you 're saying that being androgynous is the way to look?" "No, for me androgyny goes deeper than looks: it's about being able to be versatile. With androgyny you change the way you look, but it doesn't mean you can't go back."

Recently somebody asked Anne on Tumblr "Are you a lesbian girl?", and the only answer she can come up with was that her sex is female, her gender is male and female and her sexuality is fluid. She feels that there is no way for her body to fully express her gender, so she resolves to live day by day and express her gender daily. If she's going in a direction in a particular time, it doesn't mean she can't go back to where she started and head off in the opposite way. She believes that yes, body can be isolated from gender. While some people have their gender pre-designed by society's notions and are comfortable in it, some feel isolated from these notions and panic since they don't fit in and, as it is with everything against the norm, it is not easy for evryone to adjust your body to the gender you identify with.

More interviews are to follow soon, I'm still looking for an androgynous male that plays with this idea of levels and adjusts his looks according to his gender instincts frequently. Apart from these interviews I'm reading some very interesting queer literature, which I would discuss in an entry in the near future.

Tumblr

I finally did a Tumblr (well I had one for long, never used it since I never managed to get into the interface used).

I'm kinda getting used to it, I love how it relies heavily on people expressing themselves exclusively by image sharing.  There goes my Tumblr address: http://ryanfalzon.tumblr.com/

Tonight I shall I take it easy, prepare some questions for an interview set up in the afternoon, and as soon as i finish I shall be spending the night with Nan Astley and Kitty Butler from Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters. (yeah it's an excellent read :D)

Sound and Vision

Setting up an interview at 10.30 in the morning is not a good idea.

I was approached by a Media student who's doing a short interesting documentary about the power of music on people and its use as inspiration and therapy.  She suggested we meet early on Sunday, and I agreed, thinking that I would make a head start and avoid lazying around on Sunday.  I woke up 5mins before my phone rang, her saying she's already at out meeting point with all the bulky lighting and all.

10 mins later (ye I'm that good when late :D) we were at my studio, setting everything up and playing around with lights, going for the excellent natural light found in my soon-to-be-demolished studio.

The interview consisted of my explaining how I use a state of mind created by particular music which I use to my advantage when creating works..for example with the car crash series, it's mostly 80's electro pop stuff (such as Alphaville and Secret Service) and Prodigy, which I find as a source of inspiration even when creating larger, colourful stuff.  I just love the way Prodigy built up a song with the use of various sounds acquired from any source that seems suitable.  The cut-copy-paste method is something I use constantly in my work, partly due to my major interest in collage when I was in college which I kept on evolving to develop my mixed media visual language. 

Below is a collage entitled "No Women No Cry", done in 2010.

The interview evolved in me describing how I try to portray the quality of sound, such as immediate response and development in real time, in my works. The following work can be described as a perfect summary of my interview, where all the mayor points mentioned can be traced down in this small painting
entitled "Forever and Ever".

                                                 

That was it basically, after that it was home, slept four solid hours, hopefully I go out later on tonight. Ye, I feel like I need a drink or two or more.