2021-present. Graphite on ink-jet prints of found papers (public/private documents, reports, information).

This set of Traced Papers specifically uses The Leuchter Report.

According to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum ‘[The] facts make it clear that the “Leuchter Report,” allegedly a watershed in understanding Auschwitz, is in fact nothing more than an attempt, concealed beneath an academic-looking smokescreen of graphs, analyses, and calculations, at misinforming readers who have no access to the scholarly literature—or who are looking for precisely the sort of conclusions that Leuchter offers.’

Views from the installation of the work for Passive Aggressive, an exhibition with artist Benjamin Jones at Gallery 39, UK, in 2021.

From the series In-Voices, this work was performed on 26 June 2021 for the online symposium called Work and Working Through.

‘Thanks for waiting’ is a phrase often heard on automated messages during phone calls to public and private services, such as job centres and medical care. The reference to ‘precarious labour’ is made quite directly while also keeping the work ambiguous, open to interpretation.

The ‘voice’ in this video is ambiguous and anonymous, most obviously from the artist; however, who’s words are spoken remains ambiguous. He sounds as if someone else, as if an ‘other’ is speaking through the artist. Following an other’s orders.

As a kind of act of refusal, the (blunted) scalpel rubs and scratches the order-book but without making new marks. Refusing to add content – no marks, no letters, no writing – audiences listen and watch the artist trace over top lines found already on each page. Without work, waiting for work: what else to do but listen to the voice and melodies. Re-tracing nothing: nothing but orders that, as the pages appear, remain empty of content.

This work uses images of 'body marks' found by first browsing on the Web. The URL and thumbnails browsed are printed on paper. Using markers, co-performers trace the marks onto the artist’s body, while he also reads out the URL and browsing information. Audiences are told that the marks are from the bodies of persons found randomly on the Web, persons that have no direct relationship to the artist, co-performers or the audience. The performance ‘ends’ by erasing the marks and also reclothing.

The 'marks' range from, and are not exclusive to, birth marks, scars, marathon numbers, skin cancer, self-harm, surgery markings, gay/straight/LGBTQ tattoos, left and right political tattoos... etc. Audiences are open to interpret whether the marks are of any particular person, gender, race, or subject. In the end, the marks are ‘erased’ by washing away the ink from the artist’s skin, followed by him putting clothing back on. Tracing becomes an act of marking but, fundamentally, erasing. This act puts more visibility on the body. Visible and invisible, structures and desires, biases and preconceptions, race and ideology; these are some elements that audiences are open to interpret.

Photographic documentation by Rob Harris, courtesy of Nunnery Gallery. Performed live with Timo Kube. From the exhibition Visions In The Nunnery, London, UK, 2020.

Video documentation by Natalia Plejic; from the live-art and performance event Reversed, present at University of Bristol, UK, on 8th April 2019. Special thanks to Nu Nu Theatre, and LAPER.

2020-2021. Live performance for the Web, specifically YouTube and social media. Sound, colour, 10:00:00.

Presented specifically on YouTube and other social media Web-spaces, this work presents audiences with what seems to be the artist saying 'words', ambiguously his and some anonymous other. Audiences are left to wonder if he (the artist) is listening to someone else's words. As a performance he strangely echoes the words of others in ways that seem his own as well. Questions of information and mis-information, truth and power, are suggested around figures of influencer, demagogue, manipulator.

The video projected onto the artist’s face has been pre-recorded. Using a projector, the pre-recorded video is cast and overlaid directly onto 'his' face. Audiences view the artist as he appears twice: as if he is himself (me) and also other (him). As if someone else, human-in-human. Him-me.

Performed live for On Edge: Materials and Bodies Sympoesis, 28 Oct. 2020, and Ephemera 3, Performance Køkkenet, 21 March 2021.

2019-present. Graphite on ink-jet prints of found papers (public/private documents, reports, information).

A set of works on paper presented both as installation and ongoing performances, that use reports, documents and declassified files found in archives located on the Web. Printed on A4 paper and, using graphite, drawn over the reverse or ‘blank side’. Visually, these works challenge photographic documentation and perception, difficult to view with the naked eye and ‘capture’ digital/analogue modes of capture.

Drawing Bureau, Bristol – Traced Papers (2020)

39 sheets of A4 ink-jet prints with graphite. Produced as an installation and set of daily performances, drawings while in conversation with audiences. Views from the exhibition Centre Of Gravity, Bristol, UK.

Blue carbon on 100 sheets of copy-paper from one ‘receipt copy’ book. 10x12cm per sheet, 140x120cm total size, 2019.

Live art event, sand, brooms, papers with printed text.

Four people stand apart and over an area of sand spread over the floor of a public space. In plain view, they gently sweep the sand. Over a few hours each of these four people step from one end of the sand to another. Each slowly sweeps away footprints left from the other. Sometimes one person stops walking. Another walks over, moving them on. 'Move on' another suddenly cries, 'nothing to see!' Another cries 'Under the stones is the beach!' These and other statements are abruptly said, echoing public demonstrations from 1968 to present day. Either way the work goes on, sweeping, stepping, stopping, then walking or pacing again, and so forth… until all the sand is swept across the floor. The collective action becomes traceless. Metaphors of change, work, and everyday life are symbolically cleared. Texts found from the 'political left', intellectuals from the 1960's (especially May '68 generation) to present, such as Occupy in 2008, are read out by audiences. Texts included Marcuse, Horkheimer, Adorno, Fanon, Meinhoff, Badiou, and Malik, amongst others; and audiences were asked to such texts aloud (see video below).

Images respectively from the live art events Walking, Resting, Place-making (2018, Victoria Stanton, Montreal, CA); Embodied Cartographies (2017, Fay Stevens, Bath, UK). Performers are Julie Laurin, Frédérique Blanchard, Nick Yeretsian; and Lydia Halcrow, Doug Clark, Jessica Shephard. Photographs by Victoria Stanton, Rojin Shafiei, and Ryan Wynn.

'Tippex' emulsion correction pen on parchment, 110 x 92 cm, 2019.

The Magna Carta is ‘mimicked’ in this work by retaining the actual dimensions and material of the original document. The point-like pattern made with the emulsion correction pen suggests where the text would appear in the actual Magna Carta. Part of an ongoing series of works called Screened Page.

Works using envelopes found and used in daily situations, from documents to letters to bills and so forth. A correction pen, available in commercial brands such as Tipp-Ex, is used to ‘re-trace’ the surface of the envelope as a kind of screen. To audiences, these works may appear abstract but the invitation is to view the envelope as if re-presented and, one might say, pointed out twice again, or re-traced. Mimicking the ‘blank page’ as something screened, seemingly open and closed to interpretation.

two-person telematic performance, internet streamed video, variable materials; 2nd person: Francesco Gagliardi;

photos by Johannes Zits.

A work presented live and by two people. It is a telematic performance, meaning that it uses (unrecorded) Internet-based video to stream the location of one artist into the location of another artist, including the audience. The video is not recorded. Rather, the video is streamed one-way, from an undisclosed location (across two continents) into the gallery where the other artist and audience are located. As the video is streamed one-way and once, the artist being streamed in by video cannot see either the other artist nor the audience.

The work engages locations – and dis-locations – shared between artist(s) and audience, engaging multiple spaces and two time-zones. Duration, coexistence, and sight are elements interrogated through light, shadow, bodily position, and impermanent mark-making.

This work presents what might be called a ‘traceless trace’.

Two-person live-art event & internet streamed video, variable materials; 2nd person: Johannes Zits, Joey Ryken; photos by Timo Kube, Ed Pien.

Live-art action; wooden post, digital camera and projector, ink on tracing paper.

Triptych; polyurethane ‘bubble wrap’, graphite, parchment. 92 x 106cm. 2017-2019.

Live-art performance, willow charcoal on wall, video. Performance appears at once as 'fall' and 'standstill' 

Live-art performance, willow charcoal on wall;

photos by Ollie Harrop, David Manley.

Live-art performance; digital drawing pad, projector, computer.

Digital drawing into photograph, ink-jet print, acrylic, 22 x 16cm.

Interactive & sculptural work: spectators/audiences invited to interpret the title as an action; low-resistance polyurethane, two holes punctured into wall.

Interactive & sculptural work: spectator/audience invited to interpret title as action; graphite, pine wood, chair.

Two panels: 1. ink on graph paper, 2. digital c-type print (each 92 x 65cm).