Slow and steady progress, reflections on the week.

The need to build up the wireframe substrate has taken up a fair amount of time, and a problem which has required some thought, has been that ease of production is hampered by the size of the artefact and the ability to work in the centre of it, whilst at the same time requiring access to the front and the back of the object.

In order to accommodate the joining together of various pieces of wire mesh (chicken wire) the original tool that I crafted for myself from a piece of angled picture quadrant seems to have come to the end of its life. Therefore, I fashioned a new type of wire shuttle, but this time made from a material that would endure more robust handling. The material I chose to use for this was a piece of a pig's rib. Being made of bone, I was concerned that there would be a brittleness to the new device, but my concerns seemed to be unfounded, as I was able to fashion the item using a traditional coping saw and a fine grade metal file. This new tool has proved to be invaluable in assisting me with the method of knot tying and looping of the wire. I have tried to use a traditional 'single clove knot' where possible, in the long runs of joins, and a 'double clove knot' at the beginning and termination ends of the joints.

I was able to have a little bit of fun in terms of the fact that the workshop has a large viewing window to one side of it. Other students and tutors from other courses often look into the workshop therefore and have seen me for a number of weeks, pouring my labours (and perspiration) over the sculpture.
 Many have asked what it is that I am making, and I have given guarded responses... My mischief got the better of me on Tuesday / Wednesday and I donned a surgical look, together with a typical surgical theatre blanket placed tactfully over the object.

"ad perpetuam memoriam"

The stares became even more perplexed as a result!...

A later 1:1 tutorial with Dr Lister proved to be very encouraging.  He recommended the reading of Michel De Certeau's articles, relating to Strategy and Tactics (ass part of my response to the forthcoming presentation), where De Certeau talks of the former being organisational and the later, disruptional...

Conclusions;

• Whilst there has been a number of days spent totally in production in the workshop, I feel that progress has been slow, even though I am still working within the schedule.
• The artefact is now very much taking shape and the remaining few days of next week will be consumed with simply tidying up any sharp excrescences before placing a layer of thick paper, to act as a key or tooth against the wire chicken mesh.
• Having since found "The Practice of Everyday Life", (1988), I can re-familiarise myself with his notions. - On page 25, he talks in terms of "La perruque" (That is, 'the wig', a kind of euphemism to mean doing something that is of benefit to you, but not to your employer, whilst at work.  For example, making a phone call to renew your house or car insurance on the company telephone / making an object for yourself, using your companies tools.   In my day as an apprentice, this was known as "making a foreigner"...).  
• The "tactics" of the everyday that de Certeau is alluding to, are exactly those 'things wee can get away with'.  They are the disruptors against the authorities, (or holders of power) in society.  Whereas, "The strategies [] seek to create places that are in conformity with abstract models." - de Certeau, (1988, p29). And "Strategies are able to produce, tabulate and impose on [these spaces], when those operations take place, whereas tactics can only use, manipulate or divert [these spaces].de Certeau, (1988, p30).

References;

"The Practice of Everyday Life", de Certeau, M. (1988) - 3rd Ed., University of California Press, Berkeley, Calif, London