An art activity is chosen and in turn becomes the definitive feature, writing itself out through its own boundaries and order.  This insular methodology surfaces in James Cotton’s oeuvre. Firstly from a macro aspect; it only seems coherent that the basis for making work, should be in relation to art itself, thus work is often made in reference to the exchange experienced between the audience and the work. Furthermore this approach of self-perpetual replication is also simulated in the micro aspects of his practice. The study of the structures in text; the space language occupies mentally and physically, inside these dimensions, the form and the process of constructing language, resolves the text produced.

¹Nauman, Bruce, Kraynak, Janet, (2003). Please Pay Attention Please, Cambridge, Mass, MIT Press.

ON SPACE.

DOCUMENTATION FROM THE EXHIBITION

In taking empty space as the original point of reference, the content of this work essentially attributes to being nothing, proposing an exclusive situation in which the self-referential discourse on empty space is the only substance present in the work. This remains problematic as the outlining of space progresses into a division of space. For through this discourse on the states and spaces of space, the emptiness is subject to a loss of its physicality and can only remain referenced to as a concept. Thus the study of nothing automatically shifts into the state of being a something.

Aside from the creation of space, is the division of internal and external spaces. The internal, aspects set apart in an unfolded mind map of the space. Coincidently this indicative print refers back to the external physical space of which it exists in. Via the discourse between these measured spaces users negotiate their own space in the work. This space is appropriated as they cross-reference the marks of the artist, noting the remnant space, in which they themselves exist and construct the work.

Through a sequence of directions the artist proposes and provokes an interactive situation before a potential audience of participants, which would naturally remain external to the material resulting in the arrival of ‘the work’.

The performance of this interactivity is consistently inconsistent, depending upon the subjects in the space; their trust, their response, their influence, their duration. This audience render synchronized sculpture within the space and alter their experience of the artwork through their level of activity or inactivity.

The work proposes, beyond the command, the question: Is the desired experience realised outside of the artist’s intention?

More significantly this form of consideration could then be applied further to our existence: Is the desired experience realised outside of The Artist’s intention?

FILM CONTENT FROM THE EXHIBITION