I have been wondering if I have anything of worth to say about the research processes I undertake on the way to producing artwork. Faced with a not wholly unconnected problem, pondering the anxieties of self-representation in his essay 'On the Art of Conversation', Michel de Montaigne cites Erasmus.
'As it was ingeniously and aptly put by the man who first said it: 'Stercus cuique suum bene olet.' (Everyone's shit smells good to himself.)' [1]
A few paragraphs later Montaigne adds to this axiom: 'If we had sound nostrils our shit ought to stink all the more for its being our own.' [2] Wary of parading the idiosyncrasies of my practice (which after all are probably no more or less idiosyncratic than anyone else's, involving a good deal of pacing up and down and regular trips to the biscuit tin) I feel in the slightly awkward position of not really knowing how I might want to use this publication opportunity.
I would be the last person to suggest that my methodologies may be instinctive or organic, that I enter a studio to encounter the muse, who using my body as a medium casts forth the divine intention into a material formation - text, object, whatever - far from it. Yet when asked to pinpoint what it is that I actually do to make work, I have difficulty in articulating something that doesn't sound extremely banal. The dinner party question, "What do you do?" often elicits a terrified response from many artists, especially performance artists, fearing that they will misrepresent themselves even though they have the opportunity to say what they like. The question "How do you do it?" is no less fraught.
It is often a tortuous process, not through an angst of creative ecstasy, but rather of mundane practicalities - how I am going to alter the pitch of a kareoke CD so that it corresponds to my limited vocal range? For my own part, the creation of artwork need not be some elusive unobtainable - an esoteric ritual accessed only by the initiated. As with say, planning a holiday, one needs to take into account some kind of series of events which will take place in time and space, ideally produced by certain drives or desires.
There is of course the question of 'mental block' but I don't see this as being an illness more prevalent in arts practice, than say, with the problems engaged in having to think up different ways to cook a potato. If you are in an ideas panic for a piece, then I suggest an intense shopping trip. Retail therapy doesn't just work to defy depression, abate anger or relieve boredom - it also works to generate ideas.
Somewhere in-between the active consumer and the flâneur exists the figure of the shopper - the shopper that is, who isn't looking for anything in particular, who won't necessarily buy. It is by inhabiting this figure that I am often led through a research process towards a presentation. This is not (just) because I am concerned with material culture. It is not that I am searching out for something to become a current obsession. Rather it is the possibility of encountering an unexpected that will trigger a reaction - an opportunity. Indeed this extended pacing up and down through the city, liberated from the studio or study, offers itself as a chance for meditation, and acts for me as an unsurpassable springboard to creativity.
Sometimes I do buy things. Recent purchases which have led directly to the creation of artwork have included an eclectic selection of books, some red spangley material, cushion stuffing and a plastic turd. I take a certain perverse enjoyment in the irony that my research is processed through the exchange of capital in such a clear act of consumption, especially, as Peggy Phelan points out, the outcome of my purchases - the performance - can not be sold.
'Performance in a strict ontological sense is nonreproductive. It is this quality which makes performance the runt of the litter of contemporary art. Performance clogs the smooth machinery of reproductive representation necessary for the circulation of capital.' [3]
Perhaps this is one of the very reasons to make performance work - it is the one artform that eschews the possibility of purchase.
(By way of an aside it is perhaps important to mention at least one exception. La Ribot, who sick of the fact that she couldn't sell her work in the same way as her visual art peers has devised the notion of a 'Distinguished Proprietor'. You can 'buy' her performances which are sold as works of art, each at $1000 or £600. As a 'Distinguished Proprietor' you will have your name printed whenever the piece's title is announced and you can attend any of its expositions world-wide, free of charge. This contract is in many ways a marketing ploy, a reworking of old models of patronage, but a successful one nevertheless. La Ribot has sold a massive proportion of these performances. Some might argue this is because of the novelty value; whether this is the case or not, La Ribot is the exception that proves the rule - performances are not bought or sold - certainly not the way you might buy and sell a painting.)
A taxonomy of shopping might seek to clarify the different modes available to the itinerant artist stuck for a strategy. Here then is a highly partial and in no way comprehensive listing of my understanding of shopping as research. (In all the definitions below 'shop' is intended as a verb - the act of doing - rather than a noun - the place.)
· The materials shop This is this most obvious and traditional of the artist shops. Everything from paint and cardboard to plastic tubing and metal chain. This kind of shop will normally be one that is planned, although trips around Paperchase, B&Q or The London Graphic Centre may well spark off a few material fantasies that you hadn't yet engaged with.
· The information shop This is where you consume information - knowledge as a commodity. It often involves books and catalogues, and ofcourse, now that I have a modem, the internet as well. This kind of shopping normally necessitates determined detective work rather than just wandering. Say you were making a piece about childhood - Hamley's would be a good starting point - Mothercare - Children's Corner in Waterstone's - The Early Learning Centre.
· The body shop Anything for which the body of the performer is transformed; shopping for costumes and makeup would certainly be in this category. This is also a very good excuse to go clothes shopping and try a lot of things on. Charity shops and jumble sales should not be dismissed. Also in this category would be trips to The Tanning Shop or the hairdresser - I suggest Vidal Sasson School as cheap and worthwhile, the three hour experience of being a model there always gives one plenty of time for contemplation. · The ironic shop: This shop will more often that not find you props. I particularly like the self-reflexivity of gallery shops. Shops that you normally wouldn't go into - specialist shops, say for mountaineering or fishing or even brand labels like the Disney shop might prove fruitful.
· The multiples shop Personally my least favourite kind of shop; it's just too easy. This is the shop where you purchase a lot of one item - 1000 paper bags, 50 plastic eggcups - and make a piece from the joy of seeing something repeated a lot of times. This is a last resort shop for me, but if you are really stuck then the cheaper the better so we are talking wholesale (often shop-fitters are good) or the so called 'pound' shops like Poundstretcher.
· The magic shop Not as in magic trick, although jokes and gimmicks could certainly form a sub-category. This is the rarest kind of shop, difficult to plan for, but fantastic when it happens. You buy something that triggers and sustains a whole piece. Very difficult to define where you might start. One-offs perhaps give you more chance so try car boot sales, or auctions, the English National Opera annual prop and costume sale has proved extraordinarily useful to me. Shops in different countries can also have a significant and lasting effect.
The most useful of all shops (noun here, not verb), which seems to suggest so many of the above shop models, is for me, John Lewis. Being at the epicentre of London's shopping district (as indeed its various manifestations - Jessops, Peter Jones, Robert Sayle et al, are at the epicentre of their own shopping communities) John Lewis is the centrifugal force from which all other shopping possibilities emanate. It is not at all surprising that John Lewis forms the predominant case study for the cultural theorisation of the contemporary shopping experience in the recent publication 'Shopping, Place and Identity'. This study identifies the components that mark John Lewis as different from other department stores.
'There are four attributes to John Lewis that contribute to its special nature: John Lewis as workers' co-operative; the John Lewis price promise; the sense of comprehensive stocking that makes it suitable as a site from which to 'research' potential purchases; and John Lewis as trustworthy / sensible / helpful.' [4]
While all of these factors certainly contribute to the John Lewis experience - it is as a centre of research excellence - acknowledged here for the 'average' shopper - that is the most important and pertinent to the development of arts practices. There is something about the clinical, dull, but seemingly comprehensive layout that endows inspiration. Wandering around John Lewis, especially in the haberdashery section, you are exposed to an excess of the potential for middle class living. What creative drive might Ultra soft light iron-on interfacing lead me to? What are the implications of Quilter's flat flower pins? How might I employ a Tailor's ham holder? These artifacts need not be of direct relevance to offer the possibility for creativity; simply witnessing the firmament of produce sets-off the mind of the spectator into a stream of associations which are bound in time to serve up, at the very least, a starting point for an artwork.
As I wandered around town researching this piece of text, it was the endless potential of the banal that really struck me. As Balzac, walking through Paris, was seduced that 'The great poem of display chants its stanzas of color from the Church of the Madeleine to the Porte Saint-Denis' [5], so I too find my imagination fired by the spectacle of retail.
[1] de Montaigne, Michel (1995) Four Essays Translated by MA Screetch, Penguin, London P49
[2] Ibid. P51
[3] Phelan, Peggy (1993) Unmarked: The Politics of Performance, Routledge, London P148
[4] Miller, Daniel; Jackson, Peter; Thrift, Nigel; Holbrook, Beverley; Rowlands, Michael (1998) Shopping, Place and Identity Routledge, London P149
[5] Balzac, Honoré de (1846) 'Le Diable à Paris' from Les Boulevards de Paris vol. 2 P91, Paris [quoted in Benjamin, Walter (1999) The Arcades Project Translated by Howard Eiland & Kevin McLaughlin, Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, Massachusetts & London P32]