Operating under the title, ‘Not Yet There' my practice is characterized by a state of restlessness or wandering that serves as both subject & motivation for my enquiries. Writing & text-based work are used to explore models of practice – & subjectivity – which resist or refuse the pressure of a single or stable position by remaining wilfully unresolved. My work interrogates the critical (& often resistant) potential within experiences or conditions such as failure, irresolution, boredom, deferral, hesitation, incomprehensibility, inconsistency & stillness. Whilst my practice tends towards the essayistic (embracing the potential of the essay as a ‘tentative effort’ or ‘trial’), I am increasingly interested in performative, invitational, propositional & even collaborative models for producing texts. Processes of condensation, extraction, fragmentation, listing, footnoting, cross-referencing & appropriation have become critical methods for attempting to produce speculative 'openings' rather than drawing conclusions, or for appearing purposeful whilst remaining without clear or discernible intent. I am a Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Nottingham Trent University & live in Sheffield.

Monday, 31 October 2011

Writing: Cartographies of Escape

Over the last year I have been working on a number of interrelated book chapters as part of a cluster of research which I am entitling Cartographies of Escape. This cluster of research investigates how artistic practice can offer a platform for practicing or rehearsing alternative ‘ways of operating’ to the increasingly limited, prescriptive templates of citizenship perpetuated by and within contemporary neoliberalism. Chapters include 'Towards an Emergent Knowledge of the Margins' which is going to be published in the forthcoming Emerging Landscapes: Between Production and Representation, (ed.) Eugenie Shinkle, (Ashgate Publishing, 2012); 'Border Crossings: Practices for Beating the Bounds', which will be published in Liminal Landscapes (eds.) Hazel Andrews and Les Roberts, (Routledge, 2012) and 'Exit Strategies - Looking for Loopholes' which will be published in The Cartographical Necessity of Exile, (ed.) Karen Bishop. Below is a draft version of 'Exit Strategies', which attempts to conceive of a form of elective exile manifesting as a search for (temporal) loopholes or moments of porosity within a given system or structure. More on these publications soon.