I went to see Ben Judd in his studio last Friday. We ended up talking for around two hours about work, which has proven to be incredibly useful; I feel like i have got to a really exciting point now. Thanks very much to Ben for putting so much time aside for me… The sound file is here:
Chat with Ben Judd mp3
This coincided with an exercise Matt suggested doing last week, which was to map my territory. The conversation i had with Ben has become my map, and here is the super long key: each section has a time with the bullets of what we talked about)
00:29 Objects representing religion
- The problems with objects/idolatry
- Objects act as a metaphor or to remember
- The crucifix stands to represent jesus dying for our sins
- Celebration of inhumane, brutal act
- Comparison to electric chair
02:20 My work
- Technology instructing belief
- Lack of understanding
- How to build and object that informs a belief
02:45 The e-meter
- The object acts as a hook
- Machine that doesn’t work on its own
- Other person builds context
- Interested in how to build these machines
- Allow the machine can build its own context
04:13 My machine
- Plan to put it into a home
- As an object that you use but do not understand
- See if meaning can be attributed to the object
- Can object and readings have meanings attributed through use
- Appears like a scientific experiment
- Does it fool people?
- Not sure i want to fool people
- I am insinuating this though
06:00 You can set up the bare bones of a thing
- And just allude to it
- Without doing it
06:22 Scientology doesn’t have a lot of substance
- Ben met Scientologist
- Allowed to be preached to
- Showed diagrams and videos
- However unimpressive and empty
- Reiteration of other things
- Including psychotherapy
- Taking notions and attributing other meanings to it
- Builds a facade and image
- If image is convincing enough people buy into it
08:09 The con-man
- Scientology
- Contrasts of information
- The con-man
- The internet provides a space where to set of contradictory information can sit side by side
- People had conned themselves into believing in L Ron Hubbard and scientology
09:46 Self delusion
- Basis of belief
- Lacking reason
- Completely unprovable
- Absolute unknown aspect
- The grey area between something being concrete and absolutely unbelievable
10:42 I will heal you
- Building a religion and warding people off
- A lot of work to do with groups that had own belief system
- Train-spotters and morris dancers
- Explores relationship with groups as someone who participates with groups however is on the periphery, so observing
- Felt the need for an object that can validate the system
- Wanted to construct objects that would give a sense of history to movement
- Did performance with white robes
- Had garments made
- Jewelry
- Wrote manifesto
- Simultaneously invited people to join and warded people away
- What were promises of i will heal you?
- Eternal utopian happiness
- But at the same time saying that all of this was a construct, that the objects etc were made purely for show and it doesn’t mean anything at all
- So it was inviting people to invest their belief in these objects
- Was asking the users to do the process of double thinking
- It worked; people believed
14:58 Transforming the Gallery space into a temple
- Very simply
- Lighting and signage
- Subtle changes to space allow for re-interpretation
- People genuinely fooled
15:34 Romantic notion of the artist
- The see-er
- Special powers as a visionary
- Applied self to that positions
16:04 Spirit mediums
- Preaching to the converted
18:29 Putting self in medium position
- Went to class
- Teaching to become a spirit medium
- Stood up and supposedly got in touch with spirits
- Meant to pass on a message
- What’s the difference between being psychic and saying the first thing that comes into your head
- Inevitably someone in the audience stands up and says yes i know who this is.
- Interested in if this is a genuine experience or a constructed one.
19:56 Persinger’s God helmet
- Stimulation of temporal lobe
- Seeing god
- Stimulates images
- Epilepsy stimulating fits
21:00 Seeing is believing?
- If you see something with technology which you can attribute to science etc. However it still seems to breed belief
- If you see something in your head that can be explained, are beliefs still built around this
23:19 Spirit photography
- Victorian constructs mid 19th century
- Images where people are getting in touch with spirits and being photographed doing it
- At the time it was seen as the ultimate truth- a technology could prove the existence of spirits
- Photography considered something that never lied
- New and had a sense of magic to it
- People could construct belief around that technology.
- From our perspective we can see a badly made hoax
- You know its a construct however can still buy into it, so no matter how shoddily made it is.
- Artists are trying to construct a world that a viewer can believe in
- People are willing to enter it and buy into it
- An agreement
25:42 Art
- By making art works you are creating your own world
- The artist creates a universe around an art work
- Making your own belief system
- Create own rules
- Own individual set of beliefs that you are exploring
- Genuine-ness of a set of beliefs that you put out
- If its convincing and there is enough for the viewer to believe in they will try to believe it
- Even if it is an obvious construction
27:17 The photographers gallery- seeing is believing
- A series of 3d photos
- 3d photography
- Images of floating objects
- Creating scenes of magic
- Floating rocks
- Maybe another technology which attempts to create beliefs around a hoax
31:22 The meter I made
- Very basic
- Attempts to package simple electronics into an object that forces intimidation
- Not scientific
- Attributing meaning to readings that don’t mean anything
- Results?
- Have i got a corresponding key/graph?
- Should i build a context and key or should i allow that to happen
- Not sure if it would happen
- How would it be displayed?
- Might be an object that sits in the home
- Not to give people a meaning to start with
- How do i encourage people to use it
- Why would they?
- What are the interfaces?
- Could be ambiguous
- However needs to be a point of contact
- How do people encounter it?
- Perhaps in a religious context, however problems with the e meter
- In the home context looking at how a user base is formed, and if people will form ideas about it
- Built object to almost create or promote a fear around it
- It looks austere, almost industrial
- Would there be instructions?
- I think there will have to be
- Its not an obvious object
- Though maybe it is a case of me just explaining the object first?
37:05 Pseudo experiments
- Somebody in a room with austere instruments equipped with dials
- And someone in the next room who get electrocuted
- Person in next room is actor
- Tests peoples moral judgment
39:38 Bread
- Want to do interviews with how groups of people respond to a democratic artifact
40:40 Constructions: i will heal you
- Just a question of having a logo and a manifesto
- And it was enough
- Was a religion
- Giving it an identity
41:10 What’s next?
- Put object in a context
- Do the interviews
- Start working on a film for this object and use that to build context for next object
41:59 Keith tyson
- Made work which he said was constructed by a computer
- The computer gave him instructions to make the work
- Showed the work with the computer that he had created
- It emerged that the computer didn’t exist
- Whole thing was a construct
- Play on the idea of control and the idea of how much control the artist has of the work and also the audience
- Using the machines to inform the next machines, and building a series of intelligent machines
43:12 Objects are made by man
- Contemporary belief in objects neglect that fact that objects are made by man
- The idea of magic
- About computers
- Objects being smarter than man and thus believed
- Magic object given by heaven
- The idea of magic in electronic objects
- Lack of understanding
- No idea how computers work and thus become magical
- The car
- Belief made car, and the car established belief around the car
- Belief in building a machine that can make your life better
- In the same way that Christianity promises of a greater life ahead or certain freedom
- The idea of modernism and the promise of utopia in the future through machines we are making
- The inevitable failure of modernism
- The realisation this perfect world will never happen
- Housewives having own vacuum cleaners but on valium
- However machines still have magic to them and certain sets of beliefs
46:20 You cant see the workings
- I was thinking i might expose some of the circuitry and try to use this to build a lack of understanding; electricity again has a certain lack of understanding
- Exposing circuits is almost daunting and scary
- This object has the wood to give it a sense of history and identity
- Hard to gauge its age
- Maybe from the 60’s or 70’s
- An object that is trying to be futuristic
- 2001 space odyssey type aesthetic
- In some ways it is antiquated, but at the same time is something that is looking to the future
- Try stripping it down
- Might loose the idea of austerity and fear
- The idea of uncertainty and the element of unknown
- If you could see what’s going on would you fear it less
- It could be an even more complicated object
49:15 The Machine
- More dials the better
- Early computers, that used punch cards, and more mechanical
- Something fascinating about this, and the idea of a machine
- The laptop or phone has taken this element away, whereby we don’t think of it as a machine anymore
- It is about more of a physical interaction with the machine, and the idea of your body becoming one with the machine; to be hands on with the machine
- Interesting set of decisions to be made around the object; “I’m going to hold this thing”
- Imagining it as a larger thing; sort of getting into it
- Two people using the machine at the same time
- Perhaps as a way to communicate
- At the moment it is a one way thing
- What happens if it is Person, Machine, Person
- Hiding data from the user, so using another person as a mediator between person and machine
- So the user doesn’t have a control of it
- This might help the object to instruct and construct faith
- So there is a certain belief in it
- In terms of a costume; robe or lab coat maybe
53:51 The modern day Messiah
- Claims he knows who the next messiah is and he talks to him telepathically
- Does these public speeches, relaying information from the messiah
- Saying “The Messiah will come one day soon”
- However he is becoming and has put himself in the position of the Messiah
- Does this in a very subtle way; perhaps clothes and constructed image
- Perhaps the way he is addressing the people, on a raised platform etc.
- People completely believe in him
- Whether or not he is being manipulative or not isn’t really important, he has constructed a belief somehow
56:34 The second coming
- Thinking about how to construct, and convince someone of the second coming
- Developing objects to tell future generations of a different truth and thus construct a fossilized idea of how we are as a society
- We can create objects now that are instruments and objects now that are telling of a different truth or story
57:30 Objects need to feel old to give a sense of truth and allow for belief
- Old electronic objects
- The 3d viewer, has a sacred feel through it’s aesthetic, and possible attempts to tell of a truth through this aesthetic.
59:07 Time machine/capsule objects
- How would I describe the objects that I thought you would dig up in a thousand years time
- Looking at symbols, and attributing meaning to symbols, so trying to convince someone of a second coming, by creating an identity that can be fossilised
- Ben dressing up in a white robe is almost suggesting a saviour
- Learning to become a psychic is similar, whereby you are suggesting that you have these powers
- Relates back to the romantic vision of the artist; artists putting themselves forward as a saviour/visionary etc
- People buy into that idea; the idea of the artist as creator and outsider
01:01:03 Being in control/taking ownership of the objects
- When you see a piece you think of the persona of the creator
- My relationship to the objects is intrinsic; I need to be able to say what they are etc.
- I am in control of the objects and can claim that they do almost anything; however I need to be aware of this, and in control of it
01:02:30 Exhibition: Strange powers
- Artists responding to the idea of the supernatural
- *Ask Ben for link*
01:03:07 Ben’s next work
- Psychics that draw portraits of spirits
- Show you the face of the spirit
- Teaching Ben how to draw these portraits
- There is a lady that does this and then afterwards she sees photographs that people provide her from whom they believe they are of those that have have deceased and there inevitably are resemblances
