To err is almost human was an artistic publication project, carried out in collaboration with the designer Cecilia Costa. It has as its subject a machine which I have built for writing, drawing, cutting, and carving.

To err is almost human was an artistic publication project, carried out in collaboration with the designer Cecilia Costa. It has as its subject a machine which I have built for writing, drawing, cutting, and carving.

The project formed part of the work upon which basis I received my masters diploma from the Dutch Art Institute in July 2008. Each year, the DAI organises a collaborative publication project in conjunction with the Werkplaats Typografie in Arnhem. A small budget is available to each graduating student for the printing of a limited edition of 200-250 copies.

As already mentioned, the subject of my publication was the writing, drawing, cutting, carving machine which I have been working on since the beginning of 2008. There is more specific information about his machine elsewhere.

What was most interesting to me was the research process itself, the slow ritual of trial-and-error during which the machine was developed. It became apparent that sometimes the mistakes and setbacks which inevitably occurred on the way in fact produced the most interesting results. In contrast, “progress” in the scientific sense has as its unspoken purpose the exclusion of doubt, unpredictability, and error.

I became aware that there lay great potential for artistic exploration in this situation. Whereas plenty artists have been “inspired” by science, an approach which I personally find little more than illustrative and in fact quite tautological, there appeared to me to be a more interesting and more involved alternative: to use scientific and technical research as a medium for art.

This last statement merits some explanation. Whereas a scientist or engineer who is pursuing a programme of research has as their goal a certain desirable state of affairs (a cure for a deadly disease, a more efficient type of air filter, the complete genome of a certain species), the artistic method which I am outlining has as its goal the research itself. This process will enthusiastically embrace whatever unexpected results and intriguing mistakes happen to emerge along the way. At the risk of cliché, it may be said that it is about the journey rather than the destination.

Of course, this naturally begs the question of how such research can best be presented. The publication To err is almost human is an attempt to visualise and explain the theory which underpins the very practical process which has lead to the coming into being of this rather quirky machine, with all its curious, fickle unpredictability.

All the drawings and carvings in the publication were made by the machine. Each is reproduced at its original scale, with a sequence number and date clearly showing its place on the evolutionary timeline. This timeline in fact runs in reverse chronological order, with the earliest, most primitive (and in my opinion, the most beautiful) drawings at the end. In this way the passage of time and of progress is stripped back to a core, to an idea. What remains is something strangely distant, a primal relic.

Of course, a lot of the very particular quality of the drawings is lost in the process of conventional offset printing. As a means to offset this, the title of each book and its position in the edition was drawn “by hand” on each copy. In this way, each is unique - while the machine has at reached a level of some sophistication and virtuosity, it will for example never write an “8″ in exactly the same way twice.

Finally, it is worth stating that the publication can be approached in two ways: either as a written work, or as something visual. Whereas both serve as differing approaches to explaining the core message, they are nevertheless tightly interwoven in a coherent whole. For this in particular I must express my admiration for the skill and insight of Cecilia Costa, the graphic designer with whom I worked throughout the project.

View the whole publication online

The title of this work refers to a concept of the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1951), that of “la Durée” (“the Duration”). This concept is rather hard to explain but in effect posits that time as measurable and quantifiable (seconds, hours, years) is quite different from time as experienced by conscious individuals. This inner life, or time, is the Duration.

The title of this work refers to a concept of the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1951), that of “la Durée” (“the Duration”). This concept is rather hard to explain but in effect posits that time as measurable and quantifiable (seconds, hours, years) is quite different from time as experienced by conscious individuals. This inner life, or time, is the Duration.

It occurs to me that this phenomenon serves as a useful metaphor for how we as individuals must deal with the reality of our existence in the world and surrounded by others. Since the private time (and following Wittgenstein, language) of the soul is incommunicable with the outside world, we are thus condemned to isolation, to a type of core of loneliness which cannot be overcome.

In this work, as in others, I have attempted to visualise and paraphrase this concept through literal means. The work consists of a series of four high-definition videos of exactly 2 minutes, each slowed down to somewhat less than half real time. It is not obvious to see in this slow time that I am performing a series of otherwise normal actions extremely fast indeed. The effect of this is that the slow-motion playback and my frantic actions serve to cancel each other out to some extent. Whereas everyone else seems stuck in treacle, I am as close to normal as can be found in this strange, dreamlike world.

Durée (short excerpts)

In May of 2008 I was involved, along with other students of the Dutch Art Institute and curator James Beckett, in preparing a work explaining the Here As The Centre Of The World project for the Kunstvlaai in Amsterdam.

Work produced in collaboration with other students of the Dutch Art Institute and curated by James Beckett.

In May of 2008, the Dutch Art Institute took part in the annual Kunstvlaai (”art tart”) exhibition at the Westergasfabriek in Amsterdam. The purpose of this participation was to highlight the Here As The Centre Of The World project, a series of workshops in six cities worldwide: Taipei, Damascus, Beirut, Khartoum, and finally two in which I was personally involved: Diyarbakır and Enschede.

Preparing a coherent work which would sufficiently explain the aims and results of this long and ambitious project was not straightforward, especially if it was to be done in a way which would work within the slightly chaotic and overwhelming context of the Kunstvlaai. The idea which was developed in collaboration with curator James Beckett was to construct a physical archive, an imposing structure with numerous drawers, panels, and sliding elements which would accurately visualise the fragmented and interconnected nature of the six workshops; whilst each took place in a different city, there were participants from the other cities involved in every case. This and the underlying common purpose of promoting intercultural artistic research and exchange meant that it was important to produce a work which would underline the unity of the project as a whole as well as the specific results from the six cities. It was decided that the archive would effectively achieve this.

Furthermore, since an important part of the DAI’s participation at the Kunstvlaai was to promote the forthcoming book about the project, there was an important conceptual relationship to the idea of printed matter. As a means of democratising the flow and dispersal of information, we provided a photocopy machine with which members of the public were encouraged to make copies of the “archived” material in the drawers; this material was designed to be readily assembled and re-assembled as needed.

In the interests of efficiency and because everyone was also very busy with other things, the many tasks involved in planning, developing, and constructing the exhibit were divided up amongst the various members of the group. My personal responsibility was the realising of one of the more fanciful elements of the design: the idea that the drawers of the archive would be physically interconnected, so that opening one would close another and vice versa, in a totally unpredictable way. This would further help to underline the connections inherent in the project, as well of course helping to create a work which was intriguing in itself.

This involved several long but entertaining days putting together a mechanical system involving cranks, levers, nylon cables, tubes, and lots of petroleum jelly. Perhaps surprisingly, it proved to be a reliable and effective system, and survived the rigours of public display.

It is one thing to make things, but another to make something that itself makes other things. That is what I have tried to do here. Inspired by the amazing achievements of the RepRap project, I built my own three-dimensional CNC positioning system, mainly. using parts from old typewriters and inkjet printers.

Note - I have produced a publication based on the development of this machine, entitled To err is almost human.

It is one thing to make things, but another to make something that itself makes other things. That is what I have tried to do here. Inspired by the amazing achievements of the RepRap project, I built my own three-dimensional CNC positioning system, mainly. using parts from old typewriters and inkjet printers.

I was very impressed with the electronics and firmware used by the RepRap printer, which make use of the Arduino experiment board to interface to the computer. The Arduino has an on-board microcontroller which means a lot of the timing and control can be done by the machine, rather than the computer. I have made use of the same electronics as RepRap (including PCB’s purchased from the RepRap Research Foundation (RRRF) Store).

This project has been ongoing for a while now, and has progressed quite well. It can draw very effectively, and I have recently started some experiments carving Styrofoam. The next step will be wood and possibly aluminium, although this would really be testing the strength of the thing.

As well as this, I have learned a lot though the process of building this machine. I intend to use this knowledge in the future to continue building similar, better machines. In fact, it should be possible to use this (version 1) machine to make some of the parts for the next generation.

Of course hardware is not so much use without an appropriate control program, so I have also written some software to control it. This can be found at my G-code for RepRap page.

Carving cube man

Three-axis CNC robot drawing test

A program which I have written to read G-code files, the standard format for controlling CNC machine tools, and output this to the electronics designed for the RepRap project.

The RepRap project is a very exciting development in open-source hardware. It’s a machine for which the eventual aim is to have it make copies of itself, which is of course quite a tall order. It is a sort of computer-controlled robot which squirts out hot plastic in a controlled way, building it up in layers to make a solid object. When I read about this project I became very interested in its possibilities, particularly for artistic purposes. In theory it should be able to make almost any shape which can be imagined. The possibilities are endless!

As a stepping stone to building a full version of the RepStrap (the name given for a machine not built from self-generated parts, but designed to make the first generation of parts), I have built a 3-axis Cartesian robot from typewriter and inkjet printer parts, with the idea that I could attach a small drill to it in the meantime and use it to mill shapes from wood, plastic, maybe even aluminium. Building the thermoplastic extruder needed to start building things using additive manufacture looks like being a lot of work (and more importantly time), and so the subtractive (milling) option seemed a bit less daunting. More about my machine here.

The RepRap firmware has the ability to read G-code files, the standard format for controlling CNC machine tools. What my program does is provide a graphical user interface for this, allow the user to load a G-code program and run, stop, and pause this, as well as manually enter G-code. Additionally, there are jog buttons to allow manual positioning of the tool head before starting a program.
Suggested CAD software for producing .DXF files;

• Solid Edge 2D - this is a free version of a commercial 3D cad system. It seems very much like AutoCAD in how it works, and for me at least took quite a bit of getting used to. I have also used it to produce the drawings for my pedal steel guitar. Of course it is only 2D and so it would be necessary to produce a layer for each height in the cut profile, and assign a Z-dimension to each when converting to G-code. This is possible using Ace Converter (below).
• QCad - Open source, quite mature and powerful. Also only 2D. Works well.

I will try to add some more here when I get a chance to investigate some more. Suggestions most welcome!

Some utilities to convert .DXF to .NC (G-code) files, as needed by G-code for RepRap;

• CamBam - Windows-only program (no luck with Wine so far) which is extremely powerful and almost a CAD program in itself. I have had good results with DXF files produced in QCad. Highly recommended.
• Ace Converter - open source and seems to work pretty well, except that it does not insert feed speed commands; these need to be inserted manually. Windows only (works with Wine under Linux). Note that it seems to crash when reading large files.
• CAD2CNC - an ancient DOS program which I came across on the internet (Google it). Seems to be quite powerful. It doesn’t work in Windows, but it may be possible to get it to work using VMware or something similar.

Another use for this machine may be milling PCB’s. I have found at least one piece of software which is free and can produce G-code from Eagle files as well as Gerber files. I have not yet tried it out with G-code for RepRap.

This software is GPL licensed (which means it’s free in all senses of the word).

A video of it in action can be seen at my three-axis CNC robot page.

Download G-code for RepRap from Sourceforge

The theme and title of this work refers to the impression which the Dutch landscape has made upon me as a foreigner. The characteristic which strikes me as most prominent is the almost total lack of any element which has been left to chance; almost every square metre appears to have had a purpose assigned to it.

The theme and title of this work refers to the impression which the Dutch landscape has made upon me as a foreigner. The characteristic which strikes me as most prominent is the almost total lack of any element which has been left to chance; almost every square metre appears to have had a purpose assigned to it. Furthermore, it is not permitted to simply wander onto and explore any part of the countryside that one may desire, since access is restricted to certain delineated areas and pathways. The little blue-and-white sign Verboden Toegang (no entrance) is to be seen everywhere. It is this that inspired the title of this work. There seems always to be something appealing in the distance, out of reach and almost out of sight; the little trees stand for this, that is to say an untouchable dream-state which remains always out of bounds.

The wooden matchsticks which support the concrete slab refer to the fact that much of the old city of Amsterdam, and indeed other cities of similar age in the Netherlands, are supported on wooden piles sunk into the soft, waterlogged ground beneath the city. While it may seem that we are standing on shaky foundations, which may creak and groan and buckle at the corners, they do regardless manage to hold us above the water and out of harm’s way.

While one, ten, or twenty of these little matchsticks could not support such a massive weight, together (and with a struggle) they manage to do so. Clichéd as this may seem, it is and remains how a society functions and how we literally and metaphorically hold back the tide.

I wanted to build an ultra-quiet PC to be used for playing DVD’s, MP3’s, downloaded films, watching (and pausing) live TV, and such like. It runs the Freevo home theatre platform on Linux, and features an IR remote control (with wake from standby functionality), an LCD display, TV-in and -out, and can barely be heard even in a completely silent room.

I wanted to build an ultra-quiet PC to be used for playing DVD’s, MP3’s, downloaded films, watching (and pausing) live TV, and such like. It runs the Freevo home theatre platform on Linux, and features an IR remote control (with wake from standby functionality), an LCD display, TV-in and -out, and can barely be heard even in a completely silent room.

The first task was to identify what the components are which generate noise. These are;

• Fan in power supply
• Processor fan
• Hard drive
• Optical (DVD) drive

The first of these I tackled by constructing a passively-cooled PSU, that is to say a power supply without any fan at all. This I did by mounting the power transistors from an existing ATX power supply onto a very large aluminium heatsink, so large that it remains cool without air having to be blown over it. Since there are lethal voltages within a PC PSU, I then made a cage out of perforated steel to cover the whole thing. This is the large box at the rear of the machine which can be seen in the photos with the case off.

To solve the processor fan noise problem, I attempted to run the system using a passively-colled Slot 1 PIII processor. Unfortunately, the fastest available was still not up to the job, and so I went looking for the quietest fan I could find. The one I have used is an Acoustifan, which when run at 5V (rather than the usual 12V) is almost inaudible, even at night.

The hard drive is a 2.5″ laptop hard drive connected via an adapter cable, which is also extremely quiet. To prevent vibrations from this transferring to the chassis, it is held between two pieces of foam rubber. The fact that the chassis is made from 18mm MDF, which has quite a high density, means that the whole thing does not resonate as much as a folded steel case would.

The area in which I had the least success was with the DVD drive - I could not find very much objective information online about really quiet drives, and ended up buying a couple which had been recommended on forums via eBay. The one which I have is still not ideal, but quieter than many others which I have come across. Some drives can be set to spin at relatively low speeds via software, but this one does not seem to respond to such commands.

As mentioned, Linux is the operating system installed on this machine, or to be more specific Mandriva Linux 2007. The DirectFB system is used so that no windowing system is needed, thus reducing system resource requirements. This is important since the processor is a PIII 1000MHz, about the lower limit of what can be used for this type of system.

TV out is provided with a Matrox G400 graphics card, which although pretty old has quite good Linux support and produces a fairly good picture (much better than the photos would suggest; it’s pretty difficult to take reasonable shots of an analogue TV picture!).

For watching TV, I have a Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-150 analogue TV card, which is the most appropriate here in the Netherlands where the majority of homes receive analogue cable TV through a coaxial wall socket. At some point in the future, it may be that it will need to be upgraded to one or other digital system.

I was very keen that it would be possible to put the thing into and out of standby using a remote control, just as is possible with most set top boxes. It took quite a bit of fiddling to get the system to enter suspend mode properly (and more to the point, come out of it), and indeed it turned out to be easier using the older APM system in Linux rather than the more modern ACPI.

The remote control is the one which came with the PVR-150 card, with a simple detector circuit wired up to COM1 as required by LIRC.

To get the system out of standby using the remote control, it was necessary to construct a small circuit which would detect the IR code for “on”, and send an interrupt to the computer via the WOL (Wake-On-LAN) connector.

Finally, a small 20×4 character HD44780 LCD display allows control of the system without the TV being on, which is useful when for example playing MP3 tracks. This makes use of the LoS-panel circuit, which interfaces to COM2 and allows the backlight to be switched on and off in software, which is used to power it down when in suspend mode since power is still supplied to the LCD display.

For practical reasons (cooling), and also because I quite like the look of the G5 Mac, I had a perforated steel case made to cover the MDF chassis. This was not too expensive, and works really well. The front panel is made from 6mm MDF, and both it and the case are finished with spray paint: matt black for the case, and dark metallic indigo for the front panel.

You will know it when you hear it; the beautiful, smooth sound of a slide guitar. Most of all in country music, but also in many other styles. Unable to afford one, and of course because I love making things, I decided to build my own.
You will know it when you hear it; the beautiful, smooth sound of a slide guitar. Most of all in country music, but also in many other styles. Unable to afford one, and of course because I love making things, I decided to build my own.

This beast has been over two years in the making, and is now a complete redesign of my original attempt, put together as it was in an afternoon from salvaged guitar parts and MDF. What has taken by far the most amount of time is designing a reliable string bending mechanism. The current incarnation is composed of Meccano, extruded aluminium, and hardware purchased at my local ALDI. Precision engineering is this thus definitely not. However it does work, and keeps its tune pretty well.

The legs have been salvage from an old card table (the sort which is roughly 1m square and is covered with green cloth), and possess a nice locking mechanism. In addition to the main guitar table and pedal base, the instrument features a folding stool which forms part of the case when packed away.

Playing the pedal steel guitar

The title of this piece comes from a line in John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”, a religious allegory from the 17th century. Christian, the protagonist (and my near namesake) must journey from the City of Destruction to Mount Zion, on the way shedding his heavy burden of sin.

“I your dear friend am in my self undone, by reason of a burden that lieth hard upon me.”

The title of this piece comes from a line in John Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress”, a religious allegory from the 17th century. Christian, the protagonist (and my near namesake) must journey from the City of Destruction to Mount Zion, on the way shedding his heavy burden of sin.

I must make it clear that I am myself not an adherent of the Christian or any other faith, but that I have made a quite direct and literal tribute to the allegorical foundations of the original text. My burden is two rolls of household carpet, salvaged from the street near my home in Amsterdam.

Additionally, I am not altogether comfortable with the notion of sin; memory, responsibility, mistakes and indifference are instead my load. At the end of the film, I face north east across the grey foment of the North Sea towards Scotland, the country of my youth and of the greater majority of my memories, but a place I no longer call home. The viewer is left to decide if this be a “look back in anger”, or an acceptance of the past.

I your dear friend am in my self undone

I built this during the time that I was a participant in the artwork Beautiful City by Maria Pask, which took place during the summer of 2007 as part of Skulptur Projekte Münster 07. I had always wanted to construct some type of bicycle, and this proved to be a good opportunity to do so.

I built this during the time that I was a participant in the artwork Beautiful City by Maria Pask, which took place during the summer of 2007 as part of Skulptur Projekte Münster. I had always wanted to construct some type of bicycle, and this proved to be a good opportunity to do so.

The intention of Beautiful City was to build a city of ideas in place of one of concrete and stone. A large tent was set up in the Schlossgarten in Münster, where a talk was held every Sunday by a representative of a religion or belief - including a Buddist heavy metal band, no less than two witches, and a lesbian catholic priestess. At the same time, the city was populated by a different group of people every week, most of whom were art students from the Netherlands - including myself.

The equipment which I had available was pretty limited, which made things quite difficult. All the parts which I needed were salvaged from the nearby university, and hauled through the streets of Münster to the park where we were staying.

It went through a couple of versions before it was able to work sucessfully, and it must be admitted that it is not the most practical thing I have ever built. It’s really heavy, and also a bit dangerous if someone sits on the front without there being someone on the back to counteract their weight. This became a bit of a problem during on of the Sunday lectures, when a German Buddist named Winfred Kopps decided that it would be nice to deliver his talk whilst sitting on the bicycle. We tried hanging jerrycans full of water on the back, which was not too sucessful, and so instead myself and one of the project organisers took it in turns sitting on the back while he spoke. Happy memories indeed.

Following on from my participation in the Here As The Centre Of The World workshop in Diyarbakır in March 2007, I also took part in the final workshop of the project in June of the same year, this time in Enschede.

Work produced in collaboration with Aşkın Adan, Julien Grossmann, and Kamila Szejnoch.

Following on from my participation in the Here As The Centre Of The World workshop in Diyarbakır in March 2007 organised by the Dutch Art Institute, I also took part in the final workshop of the project in June of the same year, this time in Enschede.

Although the same work process as employed in Diyarbakır was used, namely working towards artistic interventions as small groups in the street, there were for me at least significant differences in how the Enschede workshop unfolded.

Firstly, the neat rows of houses and empty streets of Roombeek, the quarter of the city where we were to work, bore little resemblance to the constantly bustling chaos of the public realm in Diyarbakır. This lack of opportunity for direct engagement with the local population meant that the spontaneous interaction which we were able to experience in Turkey was absent in Twente. Furthermore, the precisely planned nature of the urban structure and ongoing construction in Enschede left little room for subversive intervention.

However, it was still possible to make comparisons. While Diyarbakır hangs under the shadow of the ongoing conflict between those who would see an independent Kurdish homeland and the Turkish military, Roombeek has its own scars to heal. It must struggle to deal with the memories of the horrific explosion at a fireworks factory in 2000 which lead to numerous deaths and destroyed most of the buildings in the area, necessitating the aforementioned reconstruction. Once again, a sensitive treatment of the given context was essential.

As in Diyarbakır, the varied nature of our group meant that much discussion and compromise was necessary before it was possible to begin with active intervention. These discussions lead to the decision to make two video works, each of which focussed on the physical state of things in the locality. One made use of the absurdly inhuman, desolate effect created by the landscape, where countless enormous construction cranes seemed to peer like menacing birds of prey upon the few people who were to be found. In contrast, the other took the form of a quiet, understated vignette, a glimpse into a make-believe twilight world in miniature. What lay behind this was that the little overgrown hollow in which this scene was constructed and filmed was the crater caused by the explosion of the fireworks factory. Violence and thunderous destruction had provided the setting for peace and tranquillity, perhaps even the mundane.

Once again, the unavoidable difficulties caused by differences of opinion, expectation, background, and of course language provided the setting for our efforts. While it is certainly true that the collaboration which took place during the workshop was by no means easy, it is thus all the more remarkable that within the short ten-day duration of the workshop it was possible nevertheless to create rewarding and meaningful work.

“SYB is getting better in Beetsterzwaag”. Kunsthuis SYB is a platform for contemporary art located in the small, sleepy village of Beetsterzwaag in Friesland. Myself and Bani Bannwart established a ficticious development company with big plans for an enormous new art museum in the village. The point was to pose some questions about the public’s automatic acceptance of what is done with their environment, and where this may lead.

“SYB is getting better in Beetsterzwaag”. Kunsthuis SYB is a platform for contemporary art located in the small, sleepy village of Beetsterzwaag in Friesland. Myself and Bani Bannwart established a fictitious development company with big plans for an enormous new art museum in the village. The point was to pose some questions about the public’s automatic acceptance of what is done with their environment, and where this may lead.

This was not going to be effective unless it was done convincingly. We produced slick 3D visuals of the proposed development, erected signs, distributed flyers, placed adverts in the media, organised a public meeting, and launched a website. All of this was done in the most businesslike manner possible, but all the same just a little “over the top”. Would people get the joke?

Perhaps the most striking thing was that people appeared to accept what we were doing without batting an eyelid. “Jullie gaan ons daglicht wegnemen!” (you people are going to take away our daylight!) complained the small children of our next door neighbours. How much does it take before people see that they are being had?

We hope to establish similar projects in the future, through our company NeuBuilt.

More information at the NeuBuilt website

A report over this and other projects produced as part of The Expanding Pie (in Dutch) can be found here.

I play here a duet with a fickle partner; three pieces of masking tape which, although instructed which notes they should play by me, nevertheless stop doing so at the time of their choosing.

I play here a duet with a fickle partner; three pieces of masking tape which, although instructed which notes they should play by me, nevertheless stop doing so at the time of their choosing.

They have no sense of rhythm, no sense of timing. They do not understand melody, nor harmony, nor do they have any tastes or dislikes.

All the same, we can produce music.

Concert for guitar and three pieces of masking tape

In March 2007 I travelled with other students of the Dutch Art Institute and others to Diyarbakır in south-eastern Turkey, to take part in a workshop as part of the Here As The Centre Of The World project. This workshop was intended as an exercise in transnational collaboration, using the streets of the city as the location for artistic research and engagement.

Work produced in collaboration with Machteld Aardse, Bariş Seyıtvan, Mei-yu Tao, Omima Hasabelrasoul Ahmed, Mızgin Denız, and Mehmet Başkan.

In March 2007 I travelled with other students of the Dutch Art Institute and others to Diyarbakır in south-eastern Turkey, to take part in a workshop as part of the Here As The Centre Of The World project. This workshop was intended as an exercise in transnational collaboration, using the streets of the city as the location for artistic research and engagement.

The small group of which I was a member during our stay also included artists from Turkey, Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Sudan, all of whom were from quite different backgrounds, working in different media, and at different stages of their careers. This diversity, along with the obvious practical difficulty of language, meant that finding common ground upon which to base our collaboration was not straightforward. It became obvious that our views of the city and of how an artistic intervention might be made there were sharply divergent, leading to many days of painstaking discussion about how to approach the situation in which we had been placed.

The site which we had chosen to work with was a former prison at the edge of the city, adjacent to the huge and ancient stone walls which encircle Diyarbakır. This was a space loaded with memories, history, and cultural significance, not least of which because of the fact that this city is at the heart of the Kurdish part of Turkey and of the intractable conflict which has raged between the Turkish armed forces and Kurdish separatists.

In the light of this and of the fact that the international composition of our group meant that most of us had little direct connection with this history, we decided that a political engagement with the space would not be appropriate. Instead, we chose to focus on an engagement with the people of the locality adjacent to the former prison. This was carried out through performing some simple interventions within the courtyard of the building, with the hope that these would help to “activate” the space.

These simple interventions consisted initially of clearing some of the stones and rubble around the area of the prison, an activity which soon attracted the enthusiastic participation of local children. Encouraged by this, we began to construct a “mini-Diyarbakır” - a small stone wall mirroring the shape of the famous city walls - which proved to be a powerful catalyst for more sustained engagement with the local populace. Soon, a few old men who had been former inmates of the prison approached us and without prompting began to tell some stories of their time there. This and other spontaneous engagements formed the core of the work, which became thus less about the production of an art object and more about the process of discovery and the ability of art to function as a means for intercultural communication.

The ten days we spent in Diyarbakır proved to be a highly fruitful and inspiring experience and a vivid demonstration of the power of simple interventions to create substantial and meaningful artistic results.

Thanks to Meiyu Tao and Machteld Aardse for some of the images here.

This video was made in front of a former prison building in Diyarbakir, Turkey whilst visiting that city as part of the Here as the Centre of the World project with the Dutch Art Institute in March 2007.

This video was made in front of a former prison building in Diyarbakir, Turkey whilst visiting that city as part of the Here as the Centre of the World project with the Dutch Art Institute in March 2007.

The building had served as a prison until relatively recently, as part of a complex of buildings including a military garrison at the edge of the city, just adjacent to its ancient walls. When the Turkish authorities abandoned the building, the interior was completely demolished so that there remained no further possibility of it being used. Much of the rubble from this destruction remained piled up in front of the prison, forming a relic, a literal jigsaw puzzle, of the loaded past of this area, which is also the epicentre of the area claimed by Kurdish separatists and of much unrest in recent years. This work represents my attempt to make sense of this troubled history and these desolate surroundings.

Building a perfect prison

Fietscamera - “Bicycle camera” is just that; a journey filmed around the square adjacent to my house on a bicycle.

Fietscamera - “Bicycle camera” is just that; a journey filmed around the square adjacent to my house on a bicycle.

However, there is more to the matter than that. This film is intended as an exploration of the complex relationship between maker, object, and viewer in the context of art. I am both the maker and the object of this film, and yet I am shown performing a fairly everyday activity not normally associated with art making. In other words, my participation in the work is almost passive, contingent, incidental.

Secondly, the perspective from which the viewer sees the action is unusual; you see neither my perspective, nor that of the passer-by. In a reversal of normal experience, I cycle by but the bicycle does not rush past stationary people, cars, buildings, and bus stops, but instead remains more or less stationary in the frame as these other things disappear in a blur. The viewer is neither the spectator or the participant in this action, but rather somewhere in between.

In common with much of my practice, this work is based upon an “introduced difficulty” - in this case, the home-made apparatus necessary to film from such a strange angle. What is different in this case is that this difficulty is unseen; in fact, the viewer takes the viewpoint of the hindrance. The worried look on my face as I dodge traffic and pedestrians is clearly visible, but the source of this anxiety is left to the imagination.

Fietscamera

The little girl bear is one lonely half of a pair. The little boy bear whom she longs to embrace had long since vanished and gone, leaving her forever grasping at empty nothingness. Now she has a new purpose, something to take her mind off things.

The little girl bear is one lonely half of a pair. The little boy bear whom she longs to embrace had long since vanished and gone, leaving her forever grasping at empty nothingness. Now she has a new purpose, something to take her mind off things.

An unlikely combination of household items find themselves reinvented as a tool of musical creativity.

An unlikely combination of household items fin