Archive: Issue No. 73, September 2003

The Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) recently hosted '24.7', an artists' residency programme that invited artists to work on their art in a purpose built studio in the JAG's temporary exhibitions area. An initiative of the nearby City and Suburban studio, the seven-week event attracted a variety of artists, including Kim Lieberman and Edward Young, to the event. Each week comprised of a different chapter: new media, traditional, fashion, audio, contemporary, lens-based media and public art.

The main thrust behind the idea, facilitated by Christian Nerf, was that of art in process and process as art. Spectators were invited to come and watch artists creating pieces, and the creation as art in itself.

Many would-be spectators, though, spent their winter watching reality TV shows like Idols and Big Brother Africa. Surprisingly, there were similarities between these shows and the studio. Every moment was recorded, edited content currently being replaying at an "exhibition of evidence". The arguments against reality shows falling short on the 'reality' side could ironically be applied to the '24.7' studio, and its slogan: "art as usual".

Artists were invited to come and use the space in the gallery as their own studio. By doing so, most were transported out of their comfort zones. They were asked to work in a different environment, for a constrained period of time, in front of other artists in their field, and under the scrutiny of spectators. This change in work place inevitably affected the process by which the participating artists produced their art.

The most obvious effect was discernable in the first week, during the new media chapter, when a po-mo multiplicity of realities existed within the studio. At one point everyone in the space had a camera pointed at him or her and a monitor showing the resulting image. I was looking at three versions of nathaniel stern, a Johannesburg-based digital artist.

The real nathaniel stern (sic) was angled behind the '24.7' glass box in which a camera stood, recording him. This representation was projected on a screen sat on the floor in front of his table. The screen next to that was plugged into his laptop monitor and showed his image recorded via a webcam, but filtered through stuttering(odys).

For '24.7' nathaniel stern's worked on his project stuttering(odys), a white screen with a camera facing it. When the viewer stepped between the camera and the screen, s/he was reduced to a black outline on the white screen. Embedded within the white screen were text-boxes with words and phrases like such as "I can't hear you." As the viewer moved across the spaces, these text boxes were activated, both on the screen and in audio.

This interactive piece asked the viewer not to interact, the clarity of sound and text depending on how fast the viewer moved. In effect the viewer ended up becoming the stutterer. The work was informally exhibited at one of the Braai Klubs, barbecue's that took place each Saturday in the open-air amphitheatre. Members of the public were free to join the barbecue and festivities.

stuttering(odys) was only one of the many works created during the '24.7' residency programme. All the collected works from the seven-week event are currently on show alongside masters like Marcel Duchamp and Salvador Dali. This auspicious company greatly excited the likes of Matthew Hindley, a Michaelis MFA student recently a finalist for a 2003 MTN New Contemporaries Award. Other students, in turn, were excited to be using the same studio as Matthew.

Personally I think this was the most inspiring part of the residency, the varied sense of wonder it engendered. One was not only exhibiting, but also creating one's own work surrounded by those of the masters'. I recall clearly visiting the JAG as a child, standing in the space the studio was now occupying, and tilting my head all the way back in order to absorb as much as I could of Penny Siopis's Melancholia. A decade and a bit later, I found myself working in that very spot that touched me so deeply as a child. I am sure that that many of the 50 plus artists who used the '24.7' studio over the seven weeks must have also reverberated with that same sense of awe while working on their creations.

Opens: June 24
Closes: August 10