Re-reflection of Work & Development, and Materiality Research

• Reflecting on work now compared to the beginning of the term, in this previous blog post from May, which was my feedback from the previous term. At the time I was intrigued about the reflections within the stainless steel and wondered, whether to create a manipulation of the reflective aspect of the steel.

• However, it was in this blog post, after seeing the show at Chelsea College of arts, and when I first experimented with plasma cutting out of the stainless steel, that my work became more process led, and more about what the material can do, rather than the square box form I was working with before and the obsession with the reflective surface. The imperfect details within the steel and the discolouration left over from the heat of the plasma cutter really inspired my practice to expand into what it is today. 

• What also changed my perspective on things was really thinking back to what Andrew said last term in a tutorial, about how if I was to choose one side of my practice to focus on and develop, which would it be. I have taken a step back from the critique of the commercial gallery and artworks. Perhaps, it was the anxiety created through this critique last term, about making an actual object to sell and put into the art world, that forced me to want to make objects rather than just concepts. A kind of reaction to the art markets and the art-world, about being wanted to feel like I belong in it rather than just critique it. 

Further research: More Materiality 

Materiality definitions:

• In the business dictionary online, Materiality is: "Measure of the estimated effect that the presence or absence of an item of information may have on the accuracy or validity of a statement. Materiality is judged in terms of its inherent nature, impact (influence) value, use value, and the circumstances (context) in which it occurs. Opposite of triviality. See also material fact. (Source: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/materiality.html)
• This could be extended to art in the way that materiality has an impact/ influence, value and use value.

On the University of Chicago website, they go into detail about the definition of Materiality, in an essay by JeeHee Hong , Department of Art History , Winter 2003:

• "1) something material is that which "pertains to a matter as opposed to form"; 2) that which "pertains to matter or body; formed or consisting of matter; corporeal." [1] Thus, although material designates physical matter, it also assumes potential from its association with non-physical matter." Source: http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/material.htm 
• This is a much more thorough understanding of materiality, and expresses that materiality is physical matter over form, much like how my own art practice has progressed. 
• The website goes on to explain: "material carries its most comprehensive meaning yet as the most fundamental structure of the phenomenal world versus the superstructure to which art belongs. Marx's further revelation concerning the relationship between art as a form of production and commodity production in general opens the sequential questions of the value of art as commodities and the fetishism of commodities. [7] "
• Connection with Marx and Walter Benjamin:"Marx's questions regarding the value of art were succeeded by twentieth-century scholars who were engaged in the anxiety of the work of art as a thing whose value can be judged by its material quality as an object. Walter Benjamin questions the lack of "aura" in the work of art in the modern technical reproduction that is indefinitely reproducible through printing and photography. [8]"
• Further connections with Marx,"strictest definition of material in Marx's vocabulary, the second half of the twentieth century saw an interesting amalgamation of the very Marxist notion of material and the Heideggerian reception of the material and things: material that is immaterial. This double-edged meaning can be best articulated by the word "materiality." Materiality is defined currently as "that which constitutes the 'matter' of something: opposed to formality; the quality of being material; material aspect or character; mere outwardness or externality."

Reflection:

• From these definitions of materiality, I get the vibe that it is very expansive, and it doesn't have to be a physical thing, rather it could extend to a concept or an idea, or the code that makes up a computer programme. In my practice however, materiality is how I choose to use the material to create art objects from, how I choose to manipulate and distort it for aesthetic effect. 
• Although my own practice has moved away from art being a commodity and references to Marx, he appears to still be of relevance within the field of materiality, by juding an artwork for its material quality and I think this is still a critique within my own work, particulalry by the use of silver leaf in my canvas painting.