These objects were something like old fashioned projection screens, and something like gondolas; not of the Venetian type, rather the wheeled display stands used in retail (even though the wheels were rather too large to be seen on the shop floor - they were more reminiscent of something that could belong in a workshop - somehow 'masculine').
One was much taller than the other, on high legs. A square frame, glossy and blue, contained an LCD screen. The smaller one was painted in red gloss, and also held an LCD screen. The larger was somewhat mesmerizing as blue letters in italic capitals glided across the screen, spelling out 'TOTAL.' As I watched, I realised that the word seemed to glitch, to come apart - severed by a horizontal line through the middle; sometimes partially slipping from vision. TOTAL: this word as an entity, as a thing, as a visual object: I felt some pathos for it. It had fallen short, it was fading, it was uncertain. Words fail me...
Upon the screen of the smaller object, to the bottom right, almost slipping out, was the word SUPER in italic capitals. It was flashing - like brand names in lights at Piccadilly Circus, or how I would imagine it to be in Las Vegas. Yet once again there was a sense of pathos pertaining to the one who is desperate to be noticed, but just seen in the peripheral vision, at the edge, about to become obsolete.
Below the screens as I looked down, I noticed that the wires and connections at the back of the DVD player were left open, hanging out, and that surrounding the glossy blue frame was grey foam, cushioning the LCD screen and protecting it from damage. The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even. Or this time perhaps we may infer that the Bachelor himself has been disrobed, robbed, even. The edifice that would give this work a sense of sheeny, hermetic closure as an object has been cast to one side. It appears to be suspended - in a state of display in its most commercial aspect (as a product/object/work of art), and also in the sense that it has been left bare: in a state that could be either not quite complete or abandoned in the process of dismantling.
Laurie Edson writes about 'The Large Glass,'
'The verbal clues provided in the title suggest that we are witnessing the ongoing process of the stripping and all that goes with it, a dynamic situation has been 'caught in the act', temporarily frozen in glass and delayed (delay, of course, promises completion at some later time).
Duchamp uses techniques that function to delay the spectator's response, and this very delay (and the subsequent heightening of the spectator's desire to comprehend, to solve, to figure out, read) produces desire in the sense which Barthes has used the term.'
It seems that in Marsh's work too, there is the undeniable sense of delay, and to use Edson's terminology, of being 'caught in the act.' In the seductive promise of a shiny, glossy exterior, and in the promise of the words 'super' & 'total' the viewer seeks at once to understand what is missing - to understand why this object is left as it is, apparently undone, to know exactly what it is, or what it is for. I (the spectator) am caught between a state of mesmerized fascination with the brightly lit words on the LCD screen, a sensuous appreciation of the physical potential of the clean, glossy structure, and a feeling of frustration in terms of knowing: I cannot name this thing before me; I cannot define it. And as such, both the physical object and meaning are left un-ended.
shelves chairs and boilersuits press release 2012-08-14
What value does an object have, if it has lost it's function?
What happens when a chair is something that you cannot sit down on any more?
The function of art is not so clearly defined, theorists and critics are still discussing this question. What is the function of art and where is the art in a piece of work? We are proposing to explore this through the making of objects that appear to be functional at first glance.
The seemingly functional is turned completely useless or perhaps the useless object has suddenly become functional; could this be at the core of where fine art production separates from other genres? The question of what are we left with when art fails to tell stories, fails to prove craftsmanship, fails to be conceptual, fails to document, fails to critique, fails to construct a better world, and so on and so on. A dysfunctional object in our culture is at best a problematic object.
Installation for me is the staging of an arena; a temporal place, where there is the suggestion of narrative, but without the acting out or realisation of it. A tension or awkwardness is arrived at through the procedure. There can be an ambiguity of state; between definitives is where I find space for the work. I construct exhibition components like film or theatre scenery; with a facade of functionality. I am interested in light constructions, that can reflect the temporal and theatrical nature of an exhibition, mobility rather than permanence can be implied. A crude and provisional construction will be revealed in places; I am curious to make components that are ill fitting or dysfunctional. I want to create gaps that can be entries into the work. A gap is a hole, the place of desire; a sense of incompleteness in ourselves, we perpetually seek fulfilment, to be whole. Fantasy is continually renewed, we return again and again to the same place. For me this is also a metaphor for the creative process: the continual making and unmaking of work, the building of ideas and their subsequent deconstruction and the need build new again.
![1246[1]](./entries/1246[1].jpg "1246[1]")
