Siobhan Hapaska (and James Turrell)

What was the first piece of art that really mattered to you?

When I was a child, I lived in a Victorian house with a high-walled stone yard that never really got much light. I was standing in the yard one day, looking up at the sky, which was contained as a perfect blue square by the perimeter of the walls. Seconds later, a high altitude aircraft entered the blue square precisely at a corner and I watched it slowly make a diagonal white line to exactly the opposite corner and then it disappeared. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

(http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/siobhan_hapaska/)

POLYGRAPH

A friend recently told me about a lie detector test he voluntarily took, to proceed further in his job. It was not necessary for the job he had, but if he wanted to earn more money he had to take the test. He deals with investments, so he is sometimes responsible for information worth a lot of money, therefore, he must be trusted. The test took place over two days, the doctor examining him had 25 years experience using a polygraph. My friend told me about all the different pieces of machinery attached to him; a clip on his finger to measure heart rate,one to measure perspiration. A contraption across his chest which measured breathing rate, and a sensor pad on his seat to detect any tiny unusual movement. I found it fascinating, not exactly the question of 'truth' and 'trust' but the attachment of wires and synapses to the human body. And the fact that this machine was painstakingly designed in the first place, and it still, in 2011, takes 2 days to conduct the test. I am interested in the apparent delicacy of the human body's slight changes influencing this incredible machine, the any other machines that attach to the body, hospital equipment, intravenous drips, dialysis machines...

Jefferson's Polygraph

Cardiff & Miller

Partly inspired by Franz Kafka's 'In the Penal Colony' and partly by the American system of capital punishment as well as the current political situation, the piece is an ironic approach to killing and torture machines. A moving megaphone speaker encircles an electric dental chair. The chair is covered in pink fun fur with leather straps and spikes. In the installation are two robotic arms that hover and move- sometimes like a ballet, and sometimes attacking the invisible prisoner in the chair with pneumonic pistons. A disco ball turns above the mechanism reflecting an array of coloured lights while a guitar hit by a robotic wand wails and a wall of old TV’s turns on and off creating an eerie glow.

In our culture right now there is a strange deliberate and indifferent approach to killing. I think that our interest in creating this piece comes from a response to that.

willard wigan-small things

"On average it takes Wigan about eight weeks to complete one sculpture and there is an enormous personal sacrifice involved in his working process. Because the works are so minute, the pulse of the artist's finger could easily destroy the entire work. Wigan therefore has to control his nervous system to ensure he does not make even the tiniest movement. Wigan, when working, enters a meditative state in which his heartbeat is slowed, allowing him to reduce any hand tremors and work between heartbeats.

To carve his figures, Wigan uses surgical blades or hand-made tools, (some of which are custom made out of a sharpened microscopic sliver of Tungsten), which he makes by attaching a shard of diamond to a pin. The sculptures themselves are made of a wide range of materials. Wigan uses for instance nylon, grains of sand, dust fibres, gold and spider's cobweb, depending on the demands of the piece he is working on. To paint his creations, Wigan often uses a hair from a dead housefly, whilst making sure no flies are killed during the artistic process"