A ConversationInside the Smudges Studio

This book documented an inter-view with Yan Ping (Amy) about her works in the design studio “How to Encounter Smudges, Surfaces and Surblime”.Questions were asked by the stu-dio from aspects of idea, method, and process through the develop-ment of the work.

For more details, please go to:http://pingsmudgessurfacessub-lime.tumblr.com/assignments

Note:“SSS“ stands for Smudges studio“YPA” stands for Yan Ping (Amy)

SSS: Painting is a type of surface, and our vision is the first and only sense that encounters it. How do you interpret the topic “Looking at looking“ through your work?

YPA: My work is a portrait of myself painted in pencil, hung in the same height as mine. In terms of the topic looking at looking, literally, when audience looks at the work, he/she in the same time looks at “me” staring at them. But when the content of the paint-ing is created by the content in reality, and replicated by a real me standing beside, audience starts to question the subject and object of the staring. And the time of the looking is extended from the present moment to the whole process of creating, presenting and performing.

SSS: As a figurative work, what method did you use in order to pull apart the elements of it as required?

YPA: I moved away from the lead-ing idea of “self“ which lies in the content, to the materials which are put together to make a piece of painting. When considering the painting as an object, it consists of lead, which came off from pencil, and paper, which served as a me-dia to hold. Therefore I extracted the lead from the original drawing and piled it up.

SSS: I understood you brought your camera with you all the time and recorded those surfaces which encountered your daily life, what did you take?

YPA: I captured those surfaces that showed themselves in a verified appearance. They were either marked by people deliberately, or eroded by nature though time. I presented the images in a sugges-tive, fragmented and painting-like way as a series of documentary of the becoming of the surfaces.

SSS: Abstraction can refer to an object or image, which has seen distilled from the real world. How did you abstract the former works?

YPA: Instead of doing 3D versions of the images, I imitated the process of making and put it into other materials, especially those used for drawing and modelling. For example, I die-tied a piece of white cloth, in order to show how substances change each other with the help of human force, which is used in the making of patterned-concrete surface as in one of the images. For me, the process of abstracting is the process of replicating, paralysing, comparing, and recreating.

SSS: After talking about images and the pulling apart of the im-ages, surfaces and the abstraction of the surfaces, let’s turn to the concept of time, what’s the rela-tionship of time and space?

YPA: A space is only alive when there are people in it. So I spent a period of time in the space and collecting dirt from it. Those marks left on my body proved my pres-ence as well as the living time of the space. Here, dirt is the direct media for me to physically connect to the space, while I am the media to document time in the space.

SSS: By going to a site and trans-forming it, what did you learn?

YPA: The experience of really go-ing to a place is different than the existing knowledge. All elements that can’t be implicated in images or videos such as time, distance, and senses indicate the impor-tance of site-specific design. Real life is always richer than imagina-tion, and within site visit can the imagination be fulfilled. Perhaps that led me to the idea of thinking the site as a grown-up place which finished the process of splitting itself.

SSS: You said this is a documenta-tion of site, but it is visually mis-leading. Can you tell me why?

YPA: I think the composition of elements in the image is impor-tant. It decides what is important, what is hidden, what is the artist way of seeing. It can be consid-ered as the narrative of the image. Therefore void, among all framing techniques, is one of the most suggestive and rich-in-meaning ones. It’s the empty that weighs everything.

SSS: What do you want to com-port within the series of similar pictures?

YPA: In terms of the layout of the whole work, I wanted to try out a different method of showing work: Instead of showing a moving video, I separated it into frames and aligned them in a line. The outcome shew a new strange, deli-cate and fragmented experience by the viewing though moving. It’s no longer the meaning of content that caught attention but the un-derstanding emerged though time and behaviour.

SSS: Going through a rich experi-mental class not only in the aspect of thinking but also behaving at Dance House, what do you think was the most impressive?

YPA: I think I learned that experi-ence can be in multiple ways, such as putting limitation on doing things. Additionally, I tried to work intuitively and see how the out-come went. And that led me to the series of work exploring the dif-ference in presenting within scale, media, layer and quantity. Through experiments, I found it interest-ing to put sound and still image together to show the conflict and give the sense of time.

SSS: I see each work was inspired by a text, a movie, an exhibition, a site and the Blindside Gallery, what did you find most engaging?

YPA: I explore the technique of involving audience, which was really engaging. The viewer was controlled in their way of seeing and walking either voluntarily or unconsciously. Such technique can be used in exhibit planning so that people are physically approaching the works as well as understanding them freshly.

UntitledMixed material on paper

Rebecca Salter

SSS: Are there any precedents you particularly looked into?

YPA: Yes. I enjoy looking at Rebec-ca Salter’s paintings that are the combination of eastern essence and western materials. And for the process of making, Sol LeWitt’s idea of works accomplished by others rather than the artist intrigued me. Ideas from think-ers such as Gilles Deleuze’s idea of “becoming”, Olafur Eliasson’s idea of time and space and Brian O’Doherty’s explanation of gallery space all helped me develop my ideas.

SSS: For your CCP project, what do you think were the most valuable for your design in the future?

YPA: The thinking process of the work was no longer a single line of idea going straight forward, but bunches of ideas mapping the final view. The design process was filled with coming up with some-thing, trying them out and aban-doning some. Eventually, when the amount of work was over-load, I started to do a diagram which helped me narrowing them down into the main points which served my final design.

SSS: What do you think you’ve achieved and what do you still want to improve though out the whole semester?

YPA: In regard of achievements, I learned how to do researches by multiple ways such as reading, visiting and making; I explored different techniques that contrib-ute to documentation, explanation and presentation; I have more pro-found understanding of smudges, surfaces and sublime in the sphere of interior space. In terms of defects, I wish I can be more organized and grow the ability to distil and polish works; I certainly need more readings to support my thinking; and I want to build up a pair of exploring eyes and a strong mind that keep questioning.

A Conversation: Inside the Smudges Studio

Yan Ping (Amy)s3270131RMIT Interior Design Studio 5How to Encounter Smudges, Surfaces and Sublime

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Massimiliano Di Bartolomeo - Dan Graham, Artist, Maybe ArchitectSimon Gregg - New Romantics: Darkness and Light in Australian ArtJames J. Gibson - The Ecological Approach to Visual PerceptionSimon O’Sullivan - Art Encounters Deleuze and Guattari: Thought Beyond RepresentationBrian O’Doherty - Inside the White Cube: The Ideology of the Gallery SpaceJohn Berger - Ways of SeeingEmma Dexter - Vitamin D: New Perspectives in DrawingGillian Forrester - Rebecca Salter: Into the Light of ThingsTania Kovats - The Drawing Book: A Survey of Drawing: The Primary Means of ExpressionSimon Morley - The SublimeJohn Carlin - Sol LeWitt Wall Drawings: 1986-1981Elizabeth Grosz - Chaos, Territory, Art: Deleuze and the Framing of the Earth

EXHIBITIONS

New12 - ACCAThe Human Remains - West Space GalleryEasement - Blindside GalleryRelics - Blindside GalleryLooking at Looking: The Photographic Gaze - NGVWilliam Kentridge: Five Themes - ACMI13th April - 27th May Exhibition - CCP10th February - 1st April Exhibition - CCP

BLOG

Ping Smudges Surfaces Sublime:http://pingsmudgessurfacessublime.tumblr.com/

TECHNIQUE BOOK

The Sur-blime:http://issuu.com/pingelingeling/docs/final_book