OVER THE FENCE SERIES #3

BUBBLE

I was testing a piece that has been on my mind for a while, LIE WITH ME AND LOOK AT THE STARS. As I moved towards the front garden it brewed in my mind until it seeped into my work outside.

About 11am a lot of families go out biking and walking for their outings past my front fence. In response to this I started blowing bubbles over the fence trying to create as many of them as I possibly could. Soon I was joined by my family and together we got quite a few going. Peoples reactions ranged from pausing to watch, commenting, and pointing them out to their companions. Kids asked where they came from, a parents reply was “its magic”, others peered through our fence to spot us. Bubbles, as ordinary as they are, became extraordinary here.

I invite you to do the same. Blow bubbles over your fence, into the sky.

OVER THE FENCE SERIES #2

DISTANT SHADOWS

This one is a bit different. My sister and I would go for all of our daily walks together, one time we reversed our late afternoon walk which meant our shadows were in front of us and they were super long. We made a little game from this. We had to touch others using our shadows, because of their size we were still abiding by the Alert Level 4 rules. We named this game; social distancing shadows.

The game made us more aware of our physical position in relation to the sun and other people. In order to catch people with our shadows we had to move in unusual ways, we had to move off the path when our shadows shifted to one side, we had to run to catch people before we all entered the shadow of a building.

I would recommend this game to anyone. 4pm onwards seems to be the best time.

Elekis x

OVER THE FENCE SERIES #1

I MISS THE HORIZON

This one is a little different.

This one is a ballad to the horizon.

An exploration of texture.

Made in a garage.

In isolation.

I do not own the music (it just happened to playing when I made this)

Credit to Devendra Banhart

OVER THE FENCE SERIES

INTRODUCTION

Here we go. Putting the studio online. At the moment the studio is the garage in my family home while I spend Level 4 isolation with them. Working in this new environment I have designed, played, trialled and made, but something was missing.

As a maker, my primary love, passion, incentive and resource has always been people. Audiences. Spectators. But quarantine has taken the possibility of people in close proximity away. I struggled with this for 3 weeks. I was making for people who weren’t there. Weren’t allowed near me or my work. The answer seemed to be - ‘go digital’. Personally, the push into the digital made me nervous, I felt I was betraying the type of art I make. Digitally, the work would miss the texture, the human eye, the spontaneity and the physical interaction.

Over the weeks, I have drifted away from the dark space of my garage, with the majority of my time spent in the front garden. On the other side of the fence I could hear, and partly see, people pass by in their bubbles. This was the closest people could get to my work.

This series is about me rebelling against the digital, the push for arts to be on a screen. The screen is only to catch the multitudes, so initially I want to turn to my front fence, to the 20 people who pass by everyday. I want to create an experience for them, however brief. The digital is to record and share ideas and thoughts (not the experiences).

The next few posts will be of the works I have put up.

I never got to talk to those who saw them and don’t know their names or faces. But we shared something together. Just over the fence.

Elekis *

COVER-BAND SERIES

LEARNING FROM ‘SHIFT’

Original design and concept: Michael Hulls and Russell Maliphant

As part of my studies (2017) we were asked to cover-band a piece of work, I chose Shift by Michael Hulls and Russell Maliphant. I chose this work because I was curious about the complexity of this seemingly simple design and how it allowed for a dialogue between the light and the movement. I worked with performer, Conan Hayes, to create phrases and sequences in response to the lighting design. So much learning from this one piece.