Nicholas Hedges

Art, Writing and Research

Translocation

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Having showed work concerning my experience of Auschwitz-Birkenau, I began to think back to the work I started earlier in the semester which concerned another place; Oxford’s University Parks.

Although these places are – for obvious reasons – both very different, they are nevertheless open spaces in which people are remembered. In the case of Auschwitz-Birkenau it is the 1.1 million victims of Nazi Genocide who are remembered; in the case of the Parks, it’s a comparative scattering of people who knew and loved the place.

What I find interesting in these two places is the way in which the dead are remembered. In Auschwitz-Birkenau, it’s as if “the dead are still drilled“, still confined to Barracks, whereas in the Parks they sit on their benches and enjoy the place they loved while they were living.

I’ve also begun to wonder whether it is possible to describe one place in terms of another? Many in this city, will never get the chance to (or may not wish to) visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. So can I somehow describe its qualities – its scale, space, atmosphere – it terms of The Parks?

Bruno Schulz

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From ‘The Street of Crocodiles’

“But where the ground extended into a low-lying isthmus and dropped into the shadow of the back wall of a deserted soda factory, it became grimmer, overgrown and wild with neglect, untidy, fierce with thistles, bristling with nettles, covered with a rash of weeds, until, at the very end of the walls, in an open rectangular bay, it lost all moderation and became insane… It was there that I saw him first and for the only time in my life, at a noon hour crazy with heat. It was at a moment when time, demented and wild breaks away from the treadmill of events and like an escaping vagabond, runs shouting across the fields. Then the summer grows out of control, spreads at all points over space with a wild impetus, doubling and trebling itself into an unknown, lunatic dimension.”

Bill Viola

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From ‘Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House – Writings 1973 – 1994’

“Chartres and other edifices like it have been described as ‘music frozen in stone’. References to sound and acoustics are twofold. Not only are there the actual sonic characteristics of the cavernous interior, but the form and structure of the building itself reflects the principles of sacred proportion and universal harmony – a sort of ‘acoustics of acoustics’. When one enters a Gothic sanctuary, it is immediately noticeable that sound commands the space. This is not just a simple echo effect at work, but rather all sounds, no matter how near, far or loud, appear to be originating at the same place. They seem to be detached from the immediate scene, floating somewhere where the point of view has become the entire space.”

Recent Book Purchases

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Species of Spaces and Other Pieces – Georges Perec
Memory, History, Forgetting – Paul Ricoeur
Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory (Cultural Memory in the Present) – Andreas Huyssen
Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination – Annette Kuhn
The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World – David Abram
White Magic and Other Poems – Krzysztof Baczynski
The Art of Memory – Frances A. Yates
The Poetics of Space – Gaston Bachelard
Shadows and Enlightenment – Michael Baxandall
A Short History of the Shadow – Victor I. Stoichita
In Praise of Shadows – Jun’ichiro Tanizaki

Charles Nodier

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“The different names for the soul, among nearly all peoples, are just so many breath variations and onomatopoeic expressions of breathing.”

Charles Nodier, Dictionnaire Raisonné des Onomatopées Françaises, 1828

A New Website

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After thinking about it for quite some time I have finally made some changes to my website. Since starting my MA in Composition and Sonic Art at Brookes University here in Oxford, I have come to the realisation that for too long I have been restricting my artistic practice by compartmentalising everything I do. So, whereas before on my website I had categories for art, music and writing, I have chosen instead to see these disciplines as more a means to an end rather than an end in themselves. So, from now on, everything I do will come under the singular term ‘art’, even though ‘art’ is not in itself a category on this website; I am an artist rather than an artist, writer and musician.

On the MA, we have been encouraged to explore different strategies for creating artworks, and for exploring ideas. I have been guilty in the past – like so many others – of having an idea and instantly thinking of the end result; designating a medium and visualising a form before I’ve even explored the idea or theme. Working this way has always blocked me, for, rather than thinking about the meaning behind the work, I have instead always thought about the work – or what I have perceived the work will be. For example, I think of an idea, and say to myself, “I will do a 10 minute video piece…” and at once the idea is constrained, strait-jacketed, and, as a result it withers and dies; crushed, more often than not, by concerns over technical constraints (and possibilities).

So, this website marks a departure from that way of working. Now with my ideas, I try and look for a way in using strategies such as free-writing, drawing (as a means of understanding a given thing) and mapping. However, in designing the website, I still required categories of sorts and decided upon three; not Art, Writing and Music as I had before, but rather Places, People and Objects.

Much of my work is centred around the concept of place and deals in particular with memories of that place. These works might – eventually – be video-based, sonic, aural, text-based, paintings, drawings… whatever, but I have refrained fromusing any of these as categories in themselves. Instead, under each heading I have listed the various projects I am working on and within each of these have created six headings, those being; Introduction, Context, Evidence, Approach, Journal and Progression. More may follow, but as things stand these will suffice.
Introduction is just that, an introduction to the themes and ideas which I am exploring. Context is an explanation of my reasons for wishing to pursue the idea; how the Place, Person or Object relates to me and vice-versa. Evidence is an exploration of the thing’s background; it’s history, it’s place in the past, the present and – in conjecture – the future, as well as being a collection of relevant readings and/or images. Approach is a summary of the methods I have used – or am using – to explore the idea or theme, for example, free-writing, drawing or mapping. Journal comprises extracts of my journals and sketchbooks and Progression is a look at work carried out thus far, with thoughts on possible final pieces.

As said, this way of working – and indeed thinking – marks a departure for me, but already I have reaped the rewards. Hopefully, you, whoever you are, might reap some reward too.

© Nicholas Hedges 2024