Dear Me, Scott King

Below are two examples of things I’m trying to do lots of: »Infractions« (see my previous postings). I’m not sure if they are going to become new work – they might just be the research for something else. I don’t know yet.

»Kicked to Death« was first and is a survey / map of people who were kicked to death by drunken youths – it’s colour coded by year.

»Kicked to Death« (working title), 2010

»Takeaway Tragedies« came out of »Kicked to Death« when I noticed how many people were killed outside takeaway restaurants… It’s colour-coded by the nature of the restaurant: Indian, Chinese, pizza etc.

»Takeaway Tragedies« (working title), 2010

SK: Also attached is a rough of something I’m going to try – which is putting images and more detailed words on to the work… I’m trying to do stuff ›by hand‹ in a DIY kind of way – printing the dots with stencils and handwriting the texts.

MH: Why are you now planning to do this? I always thought the ›normal‹ infractions were so strong because they didn’t have any images or words that went with them…

SK: Mmm. That’s a good point – maybe it’s wrong of me to include images and additional words – as you say, the original point of these kind of works is that they’re deeply impersonal and matter-of-fact… while dealing with events that are sad and horrific, events that have effected people in the most brutal kind of way.

»Rough (Mock-up for revised »Kicked to Death«)«, 2010

MH: Is there a reason for you now ›painting‹ the dots ›by hand‹? We’ve discussed this before: You’re not really a painter… What do you like about DIY? Do you want your these new infractions to appear more natural or personal?

SK: I’m not a painter by any stretch of the imagination! What I’m trying to figure out is the balance of several issues.

I wanted these works (»Infractions«) to be a composite of information design and ›pure‹ abstraction… but at the moment they’re still very much ›design‹ – in that, they’re largely generated using the tools, premise and logic of information design.

It’s important to me to try and find a way of generating, in its entirety, work that comes out of THIS ROOM… the room that I sit in all day. This could be a mistake. It’s perhaps ›truer‹ to the idea, the basic tools that I’m surrounded by and to the 21ST. CENTURY that I simply research this information, design it and then email it to the digital printers (or even better: email it to you to put on this blog… then the blog becomes the gallery… and then perhaps I’m having a mini one-man-show from this afternoon until next Monday on this blog). A part of me feels that this is correct – that this is conceptually absolutely the right thing to do. However – another part of me is deeply frustrated and, dare I say, alienated by this process. This whole process, this conundrum, has been bothering me for years! I use methods that I feel to be conceptually correct – I work on the premise of reduction (of how much I can strip an idea down to only its necessary content), I make it, then I declare it finished. The main problem is – I get no enjoyment at all out of it.

The greatest – i.e  worst ever example of this – was when I did »Art Statements« at Art Basel in 2005. I totally fucked that show up by reducing every idea and thought to a black line on white paper … not only that, some of the paper was wrinkled. It was a disaster.

SO… Although I’m no painter, and although I’ve lost confidence in doing things ›by hand‹ – I’m forcing myself to try and do things this way. It might not work, but I have to try – the primary reasons being – I want to make work that is totally DIY and I want to enjoy doing it*. Years ago, I always made very rough work – all photocopies and rolled on ink, that was at college, before I went to i-D. I started doing diagrammatic and reductive work because it seemed like The Truth… it seemed true to my situation, but I’m kind of sick of it. I want to make work that’s more immediate… ›visceral‹ is the term, I believe.

I don’t fucking know, Martin – I’ve got all sorts of things on the go – this is just one of them… I’ve got a bit hung up on ›The New DIY‹ so I might do something else this week. Tess keeps trying to make me paint our living room… so maybe I’ll have to do some real DIY… that’ll give me something to cry about.

* I am aware of the hideous irony that I’m complaining about my lack of Worker Satisfaction while researching incidents where people have been kicked to death / committed suicide / blown up in Afghanistan.

SOME LIGHTER NOTES:

The Greatest Record Ever Made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epYwOfM3oMA

The Greatest Band That Ever Existed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7YA-frg2tw

BY THE WAY:

Below you’ll find a photograph of a Mondrian-style umbrella – does anyone know where I can buy one – or can anyone sell me one? If so, please email me on: info@scottking.co.uk.