Can't You Hear It In The Silence?

Turris Davidica ora pro nobis –Tower of David Pray For Us No.2

I have had the pleasure of knowing Malcolm Plastow for almost nine years during which time I have only begun to learn more of the colourful and eventful life he has had within the arts in London, the States and Somerset (to name a few!). In a career spent dominated by the commitment to working within Arts Education, ‘Rejoicing Song and Falling Rain’ at The Old Brick Workshop in Wellington is Malcolm’s first solo exhibition in over ten years and reflects his sustained interests in music and passion for painting. The paintings on display are part of a three-year and ongoing series influenced by Early English Choir music. For me it poses the opportunity to form my own opinions as well as shedding some light on Malcolm's work to a wider audience.

 

It is significant to note, before I begin writing about Malcolm's paintings that we are from a considerably different generations; Malcolm, now ‘semi-retired’ from a lifetime spent in art education, myself almost thirty, bursting with popular culture references and experiences of art education more on the receiving end than delivering. This is relevant because for me, the first experience I had of one of Malcolm’s paintings was that some of them reminded me of a puzzle-based videogame app called Monument Valley.



Screenshot from ‘Monument Valley’ app

I likened the graphic-like geometry and flatness of paintings such as ‘Tower of David, Pray for Us’ (pictured) with its Arabic looking architecture to the cell-shaded, equally creative and almost ‘impossible’ architecture of a videogame. A videogame which, coincidently won a substantial amount of awards and is comparable to exploring a world created by M C Escher. I clearly respect that this was never Malcolm’s intention in the work, if anything their flatness is more alike to that of a Fresco to which it shares a narrative and both spiritual associations or Kandinsky for its shape/colour compositions. Irrespectively, the reason why I am writing this post is because I think that Malcolm's paintings, whilst grounded in an almost archetypal symbolism, are still open to interpretation and perhaps more importantly, relevant and contemporary for an audiences or people such as myself, today.

 

Et vitam venturi sæculi –And The Life Of The World To Come

The works exhibited in the exhibition ‘Rejoicing Song and Falling Rain’ are in reality, derived from works by 15^th and 16^th Century composers Peter Philips and John Taverner. There is something likeably 'alternative' and almost rebelliously admirable about Taverner, “whose compositions allowed him to work musically outside of the confines of a set text, including references to the geometry and the construction of the floor plans and other symbolic architectural features used in the construction of the great European cathedrals.” It seems that Taverner’s work was creative outside its medium of being purely music into something word and worldly-based making it much more holistic (catering to both mind and soul if you like). I can see some of this principle applied in Malcolm’s paintings, other than the obvious direct references to cathedral architecture the imagery in the work is not confined to the realms of a singular religious belief; there is imagery from the tower of David and crown of thorns associated with Christianity to numerology and chakras, the latter more associated with Buddhism. The work is more encompassing to an idea of the spiritual and the sacred; a non preachy narrative that speaks of nature, femininity, the human body, doorways/passages and the many mixed connotations these have....?!

Regina angelorum, ora pro nobis –Queen of Angels, Pray For Us

These manifest themselves as birds, plants, open doorways, windows, streams, mountains and contrasts of light and dark which bring everything into balance. Some of the paintings are far from even being spiritual they are almost otherworldly (pictured) If I am allowed to drop another cultural reference the piece titled ‘Queen Of Angels, Pray For Us’ reminds me of the surface of a colonised alien Mars or scene from Frank Herbert’s Dune. Whilst grounded in historical architecture, the environments they are situ in still allow for much to be left to the imagination.

The titling of the exhibition, ‘Rejoicing Song and Falling Rain’ reflects that idea of opposites as an essential part of what makes balance and present in many aspects of the paintings in the show. For example, meaning and image coexist in a seemingly effortless synchronicity, everything is there for a reason from the pecked wings of the pelican to the architecture of the temples [derived from the Tree of Life].  Despite this attention to detail, ‘reason’ isn’t everything and Malcolm’s paintings are also a celebration and expression of the medium of paint, colour and form on surface. They are warm, rich and uplifting in their use of colour.

 

Turris Davidica ora pro nobis –Tower of David Pray For Us

I have since listened to recordings of the pieces "Litania Duodecima" and “Missa Corona Spinia”. It is powerfully, emotive music not limited to its religious origins in being able to be appreciated or promote a reaction.  In fact if one were to take the terminology that makes up any piece of music such as, tempo, rhythm, layering, crescendo, silence and pause these terms and more could equally be interpreted into visual works of art [think composition, texture, tone to name a few]. In Malcolm’s paintings being influenced by music the connection to that terminology manifests itself in the symmetry and balance between shapes, textures and colour using structure, proportion and light. What they lack audibly to their counterpart they make up for in matching contrasts of silence and visual noise in the form of birds in flight or perceived ‘loudness’ felt in tones of colour. These elements come together in the paintings to create something of a reverence that may be read as spiritual and it is worth mentioning resonance, as a word that gets all too lightly overused into art criticism today, but is easily understood in context to this music that is timeless and provoking on a deep, almost visceral level; the paintings also reflect an element of that affect.

There is certainly something spiritual in their devotional-like repetition or ‘truth-seeking’ in their revisiting of certain themes such as the tower, the star and the tree of life.

The connection and success between the understanding of listening to the music and the feeling expressed in the paintings is highly subjective and for me not all the paintings achieve this, and are perhaps as much Malcolm’s interpretation of the music as my drawings/prints of tools are to me. They aren’t trying to match the music as offer an alternative way in to it; what you do take away from Malcolm’s paintings however is a an uplifting sense of orderliness,  and harmoniousness that is as universal as the language of music itself.
 

Malcolm Plastow –Rejoicing Song and Falling Rain can be seen from Monday 10th  – Sunday 23rd October 2016, Open daily (10am-4pm) at The Old Brick Workshop, Higher Poole, Wellington, Somerset. TA219HW.

For further information visit: http://www.Theoldbrickworkshop.com

Playing videogames...

 

If M C Escher could have made a video game app it might have looked something like this...

 

 

It seems reasonable to assume that if weathered painted wooden doors, rusty tins and all manner of broken detritus can be art; (as well as films, music and certain branches of cookery, gardening and sport which can also be seen as art forms) then surely some aspects of videogames should also be recognised as such? And does it really matter if they are/aren’t? I’m not going any further to attempt tackling the age old debate of what ‘is’ and ‘isn’t’ art, numerous philosophers, writers and thinkers have attempted to do so infinitely better than me with the only certainty is that we’re still not quite sure and that it is ever changing.  It is ‘an excessively broad church’ I was once told.  Hence, given the amount of production, imagination, people and time invested in developing games, fuelled by the money the industry generates in Britain alone each year (in excess of 3.5 billion!) it is slightly surprising that videogames are met with a degree of resistance and snobbery in being perceived, critiqued or categorised under the ‘art umbrella’.

 

I’m all for a bit of inclusivity having played video games as I have watched movies, listened to music and dabbled in art (in the conventional sense) for years. When I completely per chance came across an online downloadable app called ‘Monument Valley’, a game that looked and played like being in an M C Escher painting I thought it was long overdue that I hit the keys and articulated my thoughts here on the blog.  [That and to prove that there is more to videogames as art than the likes of David Hockney drawing a few digital paintings on an ipad.]

 

In ‘Monument Valley’ the concept is a simple one; move the protagonist ‘girl in a pointy hat’ from A to point B via navigating your way through the ‘impossible’ architecture of a topsy-turvey citadel of er...monuments. Combining puzzle solving with narrative the player embarks on a series of challenges in which they control parts of the structures to create new routes and walkways that once didn’t exist in order to progress through the game. The illusionary perspective, that only really makes sense if/when you play the game arguably borrows its sense of impossible realism from the likes of the Surrealists and artists like M C Escher (see images below). I don’t want to intentionally make it sound 'dry' by over analysing it, as ultimately it is a really fun, elegant and beautifully simple looking game, but one in which (as in many games) has had a great deal of design, craft and creativity put into it. Surely worth some appreciation at least? 

 

The games creator Ken Wong claimed the design was inspired by Japanese prints and minimalist sculpture. The crisp, cell-shaded design with very sparse, flat and often mist shrouded backgrounds does have a very Japanese quality to it. Equally the music and sound effects in 'Monument Valley' have a Arabic, Eastern sound which alters based on the movements of the buildings when you touch the screen. The overall affect is very thoughtful and well put together gentle and calming game. In terms of where it sits in the bigger gaming community it reminds me of a growing trend for architecture design and utopias in games like Minecraft where vast, intricate and idealised visions of the metropolis or imagined structures can be created. In these virtual world's things can be created that exceed the limitations of reality and could and should be used as start points and spring boards for creativity and design. Who wouldn't want to live in a house like this?   

 

 

M C Escher 'Ascending and Descending' (1960) Lithographic print

If you’re in need of further convincing then look no further than the De Chirico influenced art style from the 2001 Playstation Game, 'Ico' (see image below) .

(Left) 'Mystery and Melancholy of a Street' (1914) Giorgio de Chirico -- (Right) 'Ico' (2001) Playstation 2

Videogames operate on a similar conceptual basis of puzzle solving, communication and engagement that can be not too dissimilar to the process of viewing art. Similarly they are interactive and immersive, games and I quote ‘speak to people’ and communicate in a medium that is debatably more of ‘our time’ than traditional methods of painting, printmaking. Without going into it now, I speculate that the most innovative artists are the ones utilising new technologies such as 3D printing, laser cutting etc. to make work.

 

 In the same way every scene from certain films can be perceived as an individual framed work of art so can shots or scenes from videogames be perceived as such. Increasingly as well videogames are becoming more cinematic in their story telling and realism ('Heavy Rain' from 2010 being one example).  Unlike a lot of art however videogames offer the ‘liberation of shared authorship’ as one Oxford professor** on a lecture on videogames as art described the process of interacting with games having one author who programmes/creates the constraints, rules and possibilities but multiple authors in those who interact with it and in the case of games like, ‘Minecraft’ or ‘Second Life’ contribute creating and altering elements within that digital universe. I struggled to think of any artists whose work operated in this way, other than that of participatory art and some environmental art projects. To be continued....

 

 

In 2012 the MOMA held an exhibition of iconic videogames (such as PACMAN and Pong) alongside its collection of Modern art works. Unsurprisingly it was met with some controversy and sparked much debate as to whether something which originated as a means of entertainment, play and fun could really be considered as art with one critic making a case for games not being an art form with the analogy of likening it to chess, 

 

“Chess is a great game, but even the finest chess player in the world isn't an artist. She is a chess player. Artistry may have gone into the design if the chess pieces. But the game of chess itself is not art nor does it generate art – it is just a game.”

 

Still if that is the case then we are ignoring the fact that ‘everyone’s favourite’ art protagonist, Marcel Duchamp had not only opened the doors to allowing ‘anything’ to be considered as art he specifically recognised along with Manray that chess too could be art and shared many of its traits with the process of making it,

 

‘...they saw qualities in it that they thought essential to their art –opportunities for improvisiation and play based upon skill, not chance; ritualised forms and iconography that embodied the violence and eroticism of the world around them; a new type of artist-viewer relationship; a unique sense of spatial organisation; and a set of contradictions that could be transposed to aesthetic or anti-aesthetic ends.’*

 

 

The danger of inclusivity or ‘if everything can be art’ can mean that you dilute the distinction of what ‘Fine Art’ may be, but it’s not to say that all video games are art or in the same way that all videogames aren’t necessarily ‘good’ art. Although with more and more time people are spending online, in virtual worlds and the accessibility online generally it is a debate that is going to become increasingly hard for its critics to ignore. Videogames continue to develop that exceed their original origins of being merely things of 'play' and indeed on the other hand are one of the few mediums which truly value the role of play as a means of discovery and learning.

 

With a Minecraft exhibition featuring 3D reproductions of famous Modernist paintings currently on show at the Tate it seems that computing technology and in particular videogames are in fact being used as a means of appealing to a younger generation. I'd argue that it is more than a gimmicky passing fad and like it or loathe it, it seems they are around to stay. Popularity isn’t necessarily a conclusive bench mark for whether something can be considered as art or not, but the increased popularity of gaming and game production is worthy of our attention. Only time will tell.

 

 

Similar links and references:

http://www.monumentvalleygame.com/

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/nov/26/minecraft-tate-worlds-paintings-3d-reality

** http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/nov/30/moma-video-games-art

*LIST, L. (2008) Chess as Art, In: MUNDY, J. (2008) Duchamp, Manray, Picabia, London: Tate Publishing . pp. 133-143