Machine room: a blueprint for painting

Abstract

Machine Room is a collaborative research project between four artists that began in the summer of 2003, arising out of a series of conversations between members of the group, about painting and its contexts. The project’s aim is to investigate aspects of painting practice by establishing a forum, which operates through discussion (both first hand and by email) and collaborative practice. A number of key positions were identified including an exploration of limit conditions associated with an ‘expanded field of painting’, articulated in relation to conceptualist practices and conventions; and the notion of prostheses in the ‘conversation’ between painting practice and digital imaging technologies. The objective of research in the Machine Room was established as a collapsing of the dual realms of production and exhibition/presentation. The primary research question being: How might an event-based collaboration facilitate a disassembling and reframing of questions of image and painting through focusing upon its operational criteria; appropriation, projection, displacement and transition? The project’s context is in relation to questions around the epistemology of painting (for example with reference to ‘As Painting: Division and Displacement’, an exhibition and conference at the Wexner Centre, USA in 2000, attended by the group), and pursues issues of archive and documentation, referencing Aby Warburg and Walter Benjamin. The project methods include collaborative studio workshops and public events. During workshops the role of documentation is examined, both as a means of recording the process for further reflection and analysis, but also as a method of image generation, folding or replaying the discourse back into the work itself. In 2006 a public event took place at Crate Studios in Margate following a two-week residency in its project space. Outcomes of the research undertaken included a presentation of site specific works and the launch of an extensive web-based archive. The website emphasizes the fact that the project is highly engaged with process and its articulation, reflecting upon, and mimicking the studio, an ambiguous and polyvalent space, akin at times to a laboratory, as well as definitive exhibition outputs. The website presents texts placed alongside production in several formats - video, painting and performative aspects of fine art practice. The project is ongoing, and has been presented in lectures and seminars at several Universities in UK and France, with a printed publication and journal articles currently in preparation.

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