Taking Control

Since the 'room project' started a couple of weeks ago, I have found myself being pulled towards two different thought paths. The first being about my interest in the properties of concrete and our expectations of concretes properties. The second idea is about the control of people and their movements. I have managed to articulate my thoughts about these subjects by writing a statement for each concept:

1) I am interested in the properties of concrete - weight, density, sturdiness... I want to challenge our understanding of these properties by creating an object that contradicts our perception of how that material acts.

2) I am interested in the power I have as an artist to control people and their movements. I use concrete as a medium for this because of its powerful, dominant, formidable qualities. I also feel that concrete directly and indirectly affects our movements and lifestyles subconsciously every day, regardless of what work I produce.

For the first idea I am considering tricking the audience of my work into thinking something is wrong with the sculptures. As well as making them feel uneasy by allowing them to experience a material that they had entrusted to act in one way when it seems to be acting in another. You can see examples of general ideas I have had below.

For the second concept, I have explored the idea of interfering with the space I have chosen which is the large, open space just down the corridor from our studio. The first few ideas I had involved physically building walls and forcing people to explore the space. But due to health and safety it was not possible to carry out those initial ideas I had, so I started to look deeper into the space.

Today I came up with an idea involving completely discontinuing the use of a space rather than just changing the way the space is used. The idea is to block off the door leading into the room in which a writing and curation BA is taught. A close friend of mine does that course and says there are 4 different doors leading to the room. She will be showing me around the room tomorrow so I can gain a better understanding of how the space is used, and what relevance the doorway is to those that use it. I will want to understand what ways the door is utilised so I know how I can affect or disaffect its use.